Fanatic Heart

In these selections from twenty years of her best short fiction, Edna O'Brien's A Fanatic Heart pulls the reader into a woman's experience. Her stories portray a young Irish girl's view of obsessive love and its often wrenching pain, while tales of contemporary life show women who open themselves to sexuality, to disappointment, to madness. Throughout, there is always O'Brien's voice—wondrous, despairing, moving—examining passionate subjects that lay bare the desire and needs that can be hidden in a woman's heart.

"The poems in Fanatic Heart, Deborah Pope's remarkably accomplished first collection of verse, are distinguished by their sensuous language, assured voice, and surpassing intelligence. "These are poems with a definite edge to them," notes the poet Betty Adcock. Memory and identity, family and place, lives that encompass both "the wingsweep of joy" and "the fierce hug of grief" - these are Pope's concerns. Hers are poems of pain and loss, but they are also, and more tellingly, poems of wonder, of love and passion in their various guises, of the ambiguity in every human relation - an ambiguity skillfully evoked in "Signs": In these woods we have chosen / with scarcely more knowing / than we chose each other, / prospects will always promise / more than they come to. / The solidity of this house is surface, / the permanence of anything is myth. / We take our visions edged, / at home in a light that curves. / Still, as the gypsies say, / good road." "The poems are set in a carefully articulated natural world, whose sensual beauty Pope captures in such lines as these from "Peaches": They will be all over the ground, / gold-dusted, giving softly / under the balls of our feet, / size of apricots, no good for eating, / but the smell will be / delicious." "Deborah Pope's poems give voice to a life deeply felt and fully realized, whose very personal visions yield universal claims. At the heart of this poetry's fanaticism is the search for the ground of intimacy and the configurations of identity. It is a measure of Pope's skill that each recognition seems powerfully right, not sought but given."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The poems in Fanatic Heart, Deboarah Pope’s remarkably accomplished first collection of verse, are distinguished by their sensuous language, assured voice, and surpassing intelligence. “These are poems with a definite edge to them,” notes the poet Betty Adcock. Memory and identity, family and place, lives that encompass both “the wingsweep of joy” and “the fierce hug of grief”—these are Pope’s concerns. Hers are poems of pain and loss, but they are also, and more tellingly, poems of wonder, of love and passion in their various guises, of the ambiguity in every human relation—an ambiguity skillfully evoked in “Signs”: In these woods we have chosen with scarcely more knowing than we chose each other, prospects will always promise more than they come to. The solidity of this house is surface, the permanence of anything is myth. We take our visions edged, at home in a light that curves. Still, as they gypsies say, good road. The poems are set in a carefully articulated natural world, those sensual beauty Pope captures in such lines as these from “Peaches”: They will be all over the ground, gold-dusted, giving softly under the balls of our feet, size of apricots, no good for eating, but the smell will be delicious. Deborah Pope’s poems give voice to a life deeply felt and fully realized, whose very personal yield universal claims. At the heart of this poetry’s fanaticism is the search for the ground of intimacy and the configurations of identity. It is a measure of Pope’s skill that each recognition seems powerfully right, not sought but given.

The twenty-nine stories in this volume include all nine from RETURNING; four uncollected stories that have previously appeared in the NEW YORKER and the author¿s own selections from THE LOVE OBJECT, A SCANDALOUS WOMAN and MRS REINHARDT. Love and loss, the villages and countryside of western Ireland, sexual intimacy and social alienation - everything that makes Edna O'Brien such a distinctive voice in contemporary fiction is contained in these stories.

A comprehensive biography of a remarkable man who made significant and long-lasting contributions to literature, civil rights, and the Irish republican cause.

The Heart of a Comet is a collection of poems and short stories offering the tale of Comet, who fell from the sky unto an unfamiliar plane of existence. On his quest to return home, he has many life-altering encounters with people and places that completely change his perspective of what it means to love and to live. Through this series of truths, the lines between dreams and reality so often blur, this creates a new mosaic to an ultimate revelation: the internal lesson of the true meaning of purpose. What are we here for? Why do we experience the things that we do, and why do we react to them in the ways that we do? All questions posed with seemingly infinite answers. In this conceptual miscellany, author Pages Matam touches on topics of immigrant experience to fatherhood and love in all of its beautiful but also often tragic and traumatic faces. As the tale unfolds, we become swallowed by a self reflective journey with a destination that could only be sought from one's own soul searching heart...the Heart of a Comet.

The story of Heart is a story of heart and soul and rock ’n’ roll. Since finding their love of music and performing as teenagers in Seattle, Washington, Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson, have been part of the American rock music landscape. From 70s classics like “Magic Man” and “Barracuda” to chart- topping 80s ballads like “Alone,” and all the way up to 2012, when they will release their latest studio album, Fanatic, Heart has been thrilling their fans and producing hit after hit. In Kicking and Dreaming, the Wilsons recount their story as two sisters who have a shared over three decades on the stage, as songwriters, as musicians, and as the leaders of one of our most beloved rock bands. An intimate, honest, and a uniquely female take on the rock and roll life, readers of bestselling music memoirs like Life by Keith Richards and Steven Tyler’s Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? will love this quintessential music story finally told from a female perspective.

Proposes that the murderous violence that has riven our society is driven as much by confusion as by inescapable hatred. Challenging the reductionist division of people by race, religion, and class, Sen presents a vision of a world that can be made to move toward peace as firmly as it has spiraled in recent years toward brutality and war. - from publisher information.

Booker Prize winner Thomas Keneally transports us into the life of John Mitchel, one of the most controversial figures of the fight for Irish independence.Bringing us on a vivid, page-turning odyssey from Mitchel's revolutionary origins in the depths of the Great Famine, through exile and a troubling political evolution, the master of historical fiction wrestles with the conf[Bokinfo].

Alexander Delacroix's darkly romantic debut Heart of the Impaler is perfect for fans of Kiersten White's And I Darken. Vlad Dracula has long lived in the shadows cast by his bloodthirsty father, the voivode, and his older brother, Mircea. Despite their cruelty, Vlad has yearned to prove himself worthy of the throne his whole life. In the cold halls of the voivode's palace, Vlad can only rely on his cousin and closest friend, Andrei Musat. When Vlad and Andrei meet Ilona Csáki, the daughter of an influential boyar, they each find themselves inextricably drawn to her. But then Ilona is betrothed to Mircea as part of a political alliance, and Vlad's resentfulness of his brother begins to seethe into something far darker. Ilona has no desire to marry the voivode’s eldest son, but love and marriage are the least of her worries. The royal family’s enemies have already tried to put an arrow through her back—and if anyone discovers her blossoming feelings for Andrei and Vlad, she may just wish they’d succeeded. Beneath the shadow of impending war, the only battle that will be deadlier than the one for Ilona’s life will be the one for her heart. Praise for Heart of the Impaler: "Flowing and fast-paced as court intrigue, spies, family secrets, romance, twists, and turns pull readers into fifteenth-century Romania—and into the heart of Vlad the Impaler. Highly recommended." —Booklist "Delacroix adroitly immerses readers in a delicious blend of romance and 15th-century politics that leans more historical than mythic, while exploring the power of love to change history’s tides." —Publishers Weekly