New Releases by Paul Scott

Enric Valor (1911–2000) is one of the most important Valencian authors of the 20th century. This third selection of his highly popular rondalles (folktales) will complete the publication of his folktales in English translation. At a time when Catalan was under threat from the cultural bulldozer of the Franco regime, which condemned the use of anything but Castilian Spanish in public communication, Valor went to great lengths to disseminate knowledge of the language, through writing grammar and linguistic studies (as well as teaching it to fellow inmates when he was imprisoned by the regime for his cultural activities). These tales, collected over a number of years in small villages in the province of Alacant, were a significant part of his ongoing efforts to safeguard the Catalan language and the culture and history of the region. The Rondalles Valencianes have been compared to Italo Calvino’s Italian Folk Tales and Henri Pourrat’s Treasury of French Folk Tales. Like them, Valor aimed in rewriting the oral material to establish a common national body of folk narratives and to make the stories more appealing to Valencian readers, young and old alike. The critical introduction provides a classification of the tales in terms of themes and motifs and also explores relevant historical and social aspects that characterize Valor’s folktale corpus.

My memoir begins with a massive heart attack that leaves me in a vegetative state with no possibility of recovery, according to my doctors. What the doctors didn't know about me was I neither counted anyone in nor counted anyone out--especially me. I lived my life overcoming multitudinous challenges, living by the adage "All I need is a tiny chance, and I'll make it work." My story is delivered from a 5'4" frame, being constantly told "I can't" or "you won't." I was a make-believe Christian with the gift of gab and full of crime. This memoir shines a light on alcoholism, drug abuse, physical abuse, ever-present crime, and consistently circumventing all challenges.

Nella sua prima traduzione italiana, La divisione delle spoglie è l’ultimo capitolo del quartetto del Raj di Paul Scott, opera monumentale e saga appassionante definita il Guerra e pace anglo-indiano. Hitler è morto e in Europa regna nuovamente la pace: anche il Raj britannico è giunto alla sua conclusione. La caduta dell’Impero segna la fine di un’era; ma per ogni era che finisce, ne comincia una nuova. In un’India che deve ancora risolvere il “problema giapponese” e affrontare la transizione verso la pace e l’indipendenza, indù e musulmani sono divisi da inevitabili recriminazioni del dopoguerra e future dispute territoriali. Ad affiancare i protagonisti della saga ne subentra uno nuovo: il sergente Guy Perron, ex compagno di scuola di Hari Kumar in Inghilterra, rampollo della buona società britannica. È attraverso il suo sguardo cinico che viene ripresa la narrazione. Hari Kumar è stato finalmente liberato e conduce una semplice esistenza di insegnante privato a Ranpur. Sarah Layton è riuscita a staccarsi emotivamente dalla famiglia ma anche a elaborare un rapporto con l’India (e con se stessa) più consapevole e aperto; il suo incontro con Perron le porterà nuova gioia. Ronald Merrick ha fatto carriera nell’esercito, lavorando nell’ombra dei servizi di sicurezza, spiando, tramando e perseguitando, finché non saranno proprio le sue devianze a portarlo alla resa dei conti. E infine Perron: dal canto suo, ha deciso di non perseguire una carriera nell’esercito, di restare in disparte e osservare, da studioso qual è, gli accadimenti della Storia e delle storie che lo circondano. Per lui, questi ultimi giorni costituiscono un’occasione per riflettere sull’eredità che gli inglesi hanno lasciato in India. Intanto, per le famiglie britanniche che risiedono ancora qui è il momento di prendere decisioni sul futuro e di dedicarsi agli ultimi saluti; il tutto sullo sfondo di uno dei periodi di cambiamento sociale più turbolenti che il mondo abbia mai visto. Sui volumi precedenti è stato scritto: «Disagio, doppiezza morale, violenze: raccontando la fine ingloriosa del Raj Paul Scott leggeva i vibranti anni Sessanta... straordinario, sempre più seducente, ardimentoso edificio narrativo realizzato da Scott». Margherita Ghilardi, «il manifesto» «Le due grandi virtù di quest’opera, che resistono al tempo, sono la straordinaria gamma di personaggi che ritrae così abilmente e la sua potente evocazione degli ultimi giorni in India». «The Times Literary Supplement» «Molto semplicemente, monumentale». «The Washington Post»

Dopo Il gioiello della corona, il secondo volume di The Raj Quartet, capolavoro del Novecento definito il Guerra e pace anglo-indiano. India, 1942. L’Impero britannico è una fortezza in rovina. L’eco dello stupro di Daphne Manners e dell’incarcerazione di Hari Kumar non si è ancora spenta, mentre Ronald Merrick, il responsabile dell’iniquo trattamento di Kumar (nonché di ripetute torture ai suoi danni), è diventato ufficiale dell’esercito. Trattenuto in prigione per un anno, Hari non è mai stato informato del fatto che Daphne ha partorito una bambina e poi è morta. È in questo scenario che fanno la loro apparizione i Layton, un’antica famiglia del Raj le cui vicende si intrecceranno a quelle del primo libro del quartetto. In primo piano, le due giovani figlie: Sarah, vero centro morale della storia, incapace di venire a patti con l’ambiguità dei suoi connazionali, e Susan, che spinta da un senso di vuoto sposerà Teddie Bingham, un incolore e convenzionale ufficiale del prestigioso reggimento Fucilieri di Pankot, compagno di stanza di Merrick. Gli inglesi non sono più ciò che erano: come lo scorpione circondato da un anello di fuoco – protagonista di un’immagine impressa nella memoria di Susan – finirà per incontrare la morte, così il Raj britannico, minacciato dalle fiamme dell’indipendenza indiana, si avvicina alla propria fine. E nel mezzo del caos, gli inglesi si ritirano da un mondo che non conoscono più per cercare conforto nella negazione, nell’alcol e nella follia. Con grande forza e sottigliezza, Paul Scott si spinge ancora più a fondo nella sua epopea indiana, raccontando un intero subcontinente giunto a un punto di svolta. Su Il gioiello della corona è stato scritto: «È un’opera poderosa e avvincente, e penso che ancora oggi possa incontrare il favore del pubblico. Si rassicuri il lettore, Paul Scott è uno scrittore amico: la sua prosa è leggera e scorrevole». Luigi Sampietro, «Il Sole 24 Ore» «L’autore è maestro nell’intrecciare drammi macroscopici e vicende personali. Seguendo e incastonando le vite di sei personaggi, Scott allestisce un romanzo coloniale che dietro un dramma privato svela le secolari crudeltà degli inglesi nei confronti di un popolo che non vuole più essere il gioiello della corona britannica ma lotta per trovare la propria identità». Angelo Molica Franco, «il Venerdì – la Repubblica» «Una tetralogia sontuosa. Scott tesse un quadro storico con cura dei particolari, del miscuglio fra i sentimenti personali e la rivalsa di un paese narrato con acutezza». Francesco Musolino, «Il Foglio»

Paul Scott, vincitore del Man Booker Prize, torna nelle librerie italiane con Il gioiello della corona, primo capitolo di The Raj Quartet: la sua opera più celebre, definita il Guerra e pace anglo-indiano, in una nuova, brillante traduzione. India, 1942. La seconda guerra mondiale ha mostrato che l’Impero britannico non è invincibile: la frattura con l’India – il gioiello della corona imperiale – si sta facendo sempre più profonda e pericolosa, mentre gli indipendentisti ingrossano le loro fila. In questo clima carico di tensioni e contraddizioni vive la giovane inglese Daphne Manners, che si è da poco trasferita nella cittadina di Mayapore. Qui ha conosciuto il bellissimo Hari Kumar, ragazzo intelligente e colto che come lei è nato e cresciuto in Inghilterra, ma è indiano; per questo, i due sono costretti a tener segreto il loro amore. Una notte, dopo un incontro appassionato con Hari nei giardini di Bibighar, Daphne viene sorpresa da un gruppo di uomini e violentata: per la polizia, guidata dal sovrintendente Merrick, questa è l’occasione ideale per stringere il pugno di ferro sulla popolazione locale. A partire dalla missionaria Miss Crane, insegnante da sempre vicina alla causa indiana che si trova spiazzata e incapace di agire di fronte all’aggressività degli scontri, tutti i membri della comunità di Mayapore dovranno fare i conti con questo e altri crimini violenti. Amori, segreti, rivolte e complotti sullo sfondo di un affresco storico di grande impatto che mostra in maniera dirompente il razzismo, l’ingiustizia sociale ma anche la forte crisi politica e identitaria di due paesi dai destini intrecciati: India e Inghilterra, gioiello e corona, stretti nel soffocante abbraccio imperiale. «La straordinaria opera di Scott è al tempo stesso un’illuminante finestra su un momento storico fondamentale e una guida per il nostro presente turbolento». «The New York Times» «Una pietra miliare della narrativa postbellica». «The Times» «Un trionfo. Il gioiello della corona procede con forza, con urgenza. Oltre a essere un narratore di talento, il signor Scott usa le sue notevoli abilità tecniche per ritrarre un luogo e un tempo, una società e le sue disposizioni sociali, che ora sono storia». «The New Yorker» «È certamente uno dei più grandi lavori di Paul Scott ed è già stato stabilito come lui sia un romanziere raffinato e profondo». «Kirkus Reviews»

Poet Richard Berengarten has published over 25 books including poetry, translations and criticism since his first collection, The Easter Rising, appeared in 1968. His poetry has been translated into more than 90 languages. His book-length poem The Manager was first published in 2001. This original and innovative work received high praise from reviewers at the time and has since then seen two more editions in 2008 and 2011 with various revisions by the author. His complex, entertaining book engages with issues such as the Modernist heritage, Postmodernist experimentation, gender relations and the problem of contemporary spiritual emptiness. Recognized as a seminal work of the late 20th century, this book-length poem employs a little-used poetic form the verset or verse paragraph. This volume brings together original essays on The Manager by nine internationally-known poets, critics and academics. It is aimed primarily at a scholarly audience—teachers, researchers and students of contemporary poetry written in English. While the essays are specialized, they are at the same time clearly-written and avoid academic jargon. Their argumentative transparence will therefore also make them available to a more general readership interested in contemporary poetry and the broader cultural issues that it entails. This book will serve for many as an introduction to a figure who is arguably one of the most significant poets writing in English today.

In this swiftly paced and lyrical novel about British expatriates at the time of Indian independence, Paul Scott grapples with the themes of race, possession, and history that dominate all four novels of his masterpiece, The Raj Quartet, especially The Jewel in the Crown. As always, Scott fills his book with vivid characters: the seductive, bigoted war widow; the sophisticated, wily Hindu politician; and the athletic young American who only gradually begins to understand the legacy of pain and hatred veiling the woman he has come to rescue. Set against the backdrop of a nation in violent transition—a climate of exhilaration and shifting loyalties—Six Days in Marapore unfolds amidst the possibility of reconciliation, freedom, and healing. "Scott's brief characterizations are as important to Six Days in Marapore as the basic plot . . . This is not primarily a novel of India, but rather more of frightened foreigners living there at the end of their era."—New York Times "Intense, abrasive, the many conflicts and telltale stigmata of Hindu and Moslem, white and off white, give this its uncertain temper and certain suspense."—Kirkus Reviews

From the author of The Raj Quartet, a coming-of-age tale about a boy and his childhood friendships with a British diplomat's daughter and the son of a Raj. The Birds of Paradise is set in India when the British Raj still seemed a paradise, but a paradise that boy comes to recognize as already lost. As Scott weaves together themes of political and personal history, he makes us feel how the protagonist identifies with the beautiful, mysterious India of the Raj. With a keen eye for character and graceful prose, Scott captures the reverie of a youth complete with parades of elephants, garden parties, and the titular birds of paradise, who are stuffed trophies of an Indian prince, kept as decoration in a gilded cage. When the boy is sent away to England, he experiences his exile as both the personal wound of abandonment and the foreshadowing of the Partition. Winner of the Booker Prize Praise for The Birds of Paradise "A rare literary bird, a novel that in a short space recreates a man's lifetime. Using exotic backgrounds, it manages to say something useful about growing up—a process that only children believe takes place mainly in childhood." — Time "Scott's vision is both precise and painterly. Like an engraver crosshatching the illusion of fullness, he selects nuances that will make his characters take on depth and poignancy." —Jean G. Zorn, New York Times Book Review "One of the best novelists to emerge from Britain's silver age." —Robert Towers, Newsweek "Far more even than E. M. Forester, in whose long literary shadow he has to work, Paull Scott is successful in exploring the provinces of the human heart." — Life

The Abingdon Theological Companion to the Lectionary begins with the conviction that Scripture speaks first and foremost to Christians now. Its message engages Christian belief and action in the present day. While informed by the best in current biblical studies, its commentary on the Scripture passages of the Revised Common Lectionary focuses on the questions of Christian life in the world that church members bring to worship. Each entry is co-written by a theologian and homiletician and seeks to answer the questions, ""What does this passage say about the gospel and how does it speak to my e.

The conclusion of the "majestic" quartet about the waning days of the British empire in India, "a commanding achievement" ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review). After exploiting India's divisions for years, the British are departing in such haste that no one is prepared for the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1947. The twilight of the raj turns bloody. Against the backdrop of the violent partition of India and Pakistan, A Division of the Spoils illuminates one last bittersweet romance, revealing the divided loyalties of the British as they flee, retreat from, or cling to India. "[These] novels are a spectacular explosion of history set off within the lives of a dozen or so Britons and Indians on the edges of vast change . . . If you want to know where the political world we now live in began, Paul Scott's novels are a place to start." — The New York Times Book Review "A rich novel of manners . . . Politics, cultism, police and military interrogation—all moving toward inevitable murder and violence—are integral parts of a carefully crafted, complex novel." — Library Journal

Deu assajos publicats amb anterioritat que, en conjunt, tenen la finalitat de proporcionar un debat coherent de la filosofia antisistemàtica del trascendentalisme americà i la forma que es reflecteix en diversos escriptors i pintors dels segles XIX i XX als Estats Units. Reflexiona sobre les implicacions de la revolució romàntica en el pensament occidental i demostrar la importància del romanticisme per al desenvolupament de la cultura americana.

Aquest llibre comenta la poesia d'Emily Dickinson mitjançant un estudi dels 22 poemes que constitueixen el seu primer quadernet, tots escrits abans de 1859. Comença amb un breu resum del complicadíssim procés de publicació de l'obra dickinsoniana. Després, s'explica què són els quadernets i com els van tractar alguns dels primers editors. A continuació, s'ofereix una lectura crítica del primer quadernet que es centra en la transformació de la fe cristiana de la jove poetessa, i finalitza amb una edició bilingüe amb notes critiques sobre cada poema.

The New Zealand Legal System: Structures and Processes, 5th edition, covers all you need to know for a successful study of first-year law: context, case and statute. It provides a comprehensive introduction to New Zealand law, an overview of the legal system, the institutions that comprise it, and the way the law is created and implemented within it. This book also details the structures and processes that shape New Zealand law. The New Zealand Legal System: Structures and Processes, 5th edition is: The most widely used first-year law textbook in New Zealand law schools; - Completely up to date with the latest changes in the law, such as the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 coming into force, the changes in electoral law over recent years, and further development in Treaty issues in respect of the foreshore and seabed; Provides a method to enable students to understand, interpret, and apply legal rules, as well as research tools to search for and identify substantive legal concepts themselves; Illustrated concepts are relevant, easy to access and easy to read. Written by Duncan Webb (Professor of Law, University of Canterbury), Katherine Sanders (Lecturer in Law, University of Auckland) and Paul Scott (Senior Lecturer, Victoria University of Wellington).

The Random Book of … Paul features facts, figures, stats, and trivia on legions of record breakers, record losers, actors, singers, sportsmen, historical figures, the famous and infamous, felons, inventors, rulers, heartthrobs, politicians, and scientists called Paul. Which Paul has battled Hodgkin's disease, was on the first private flight into suborbital space, and is worth over $22 billion? Which Paul is in the Penzance South ward, has been raided by the Spanish twice, and worships a former bus driver? Which Paul was a butterfly expert, predicted that life expectancy in the USA would be 42 by 1990, and that England would not exist by the year 2000? Which Paul was thirty-three feet tall, broke windows when he clapped, and was carried by five storks at birth? Which Paul picked up an 18-stone man with his mouth and ripped out five front teeth?

The Raj Quartet, Paul Scott's epic study of British India in its final years, has no equal. Tolstoyan in scope and Proustian in detail but completely individual in effect, it records the encounter between East and West through the experiences of a dozen people caught up in the upheavals of the Second World War and the growing campaign for Indian independence from Britain. In The Towers of Silence, Barbie Batchelor, a British missionary and schoolteacher, befriends a British family and witnesses the trial of Hari Kumar, an Indian man accused of assaulting his beloved Daphne Manners, while observing the dangerously cruel Captain Ronald Merrick, Hari’s nemesis. In A Division of the Spoils, the chaos of the departure of the British and the fervor of Partition wreaks havoc upon the twilight of the Raj — and the end of a era. On occasions unsparing in its study of personal dramas and racial differences, the Raj Quartet is at all times profoundly humane, not least in the author’s capacity to identify with a huge range of characters. It is also illuminated by delicate social comedy and wonderful evocations of the Indian scene, all narrated in luminous prose. The other two novels in the Raj Quartet, The Jewel in the Crown and The Day of the Scorpion, are also available from Everyman’s Library. With a new introduction by Hilary Spurling

Through this remarkable synthesis of rhetoric, poetics, hermeneutics, and oral presentation, the author of Imagination of the Heart and A Concise History of Preaching fosters a love of preaching and a love of language. This "user-friendly" textbook contains dozens of written and oral exercises, definitions, sidebars, and sermon examples.

A biography of Robbie Williams that sets out to tell the definitive story of his phenomenal journey to the top. Covering his childhood in Stoke-on-Trent, his boy band years with Take That, his battle with drink, drugs and his sexuality, his often-troubled love life and how he continues to be tormented by the demons that have shaped and driven him, to his current position as the undisputed King of Pop with a record-breaking [pound]80 million deal with EMI, the biggest ever in British recording history. Based on exclusive interviews with those closest to Robbie and with previously unpublished photos from the family archive, this is a must-have book for all Robbie fans worldwide.

Fleeing his sure wrath and her Houston home, Hannah heads for Karankawa, "the prettiest little town east of Austin," Virgil had assured her, the closest of the only two places he ever spoke of returning to.".

Colonel Tusker and Lucy Smalley cling to their bungalow in the hills of Pankot after Indian independence deprives them of their colonial status. Lucy, fed up with accommodating her husband, tries to assert her own independence. She and Tusker act out class tensions among the British of the Raj and eloquently give voice to the loneliness, rage, and stubborn affection in their marriage.

In August of 1942, a young Englishwoman is raped in an Indian garden, and her fate and that of an elderly English school teacher entwine.

This volume follows the fates of the Laytons and a retired missionary teacher, all of whom can foresee the end of the Raj--and both welcome and lament its passing.

This guide to contemporary preaching focuses on exciting and innovative ideas that have recently emerged. Wilson demonstrates with clarity and detail how Scripture and personal experience can be used to train the imagination, thus strengthening and enlivening the task of preaching.