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  Nadja

  André Breton

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  In Paris, during the fall of 1926, André Breton met a young woman from the provinces who called herself Nadja because, she said, "in Russian it's the beginning of the word for hope, and because it's only the beginning." Their love affair was brief, intense, and intensely self-conscious. They both talked exuberantly of the book that Breton would make out of their days and nights. And indeed a year later (after Nadja was institutionalized and Breton had moved on to other love affairs) he began to write Nadja—a book of memory and analysis taking its cue in part from Freud's case studies, but also a book of ingeniously intercut images, drawing on Surrealist ideas to portray a soul whose very way of being approaches, in Breton's words, "the extreme limit of the Surrealist aspiration."In this, the first new translation of Nadja in more than sixty years, Mark Polizzotti captures the youthful excitement, the abiding strangeness, and above all the freshness of Breton's prose. He also provides an illuminating introduction about the fate of the real Nadja, whose identity remained jealously guarded until the twenty-first century. A gripping tale of infatuation and a meditation on the surrealism of everyday life, Nadja is still a thing of convulsive beauty, impossible to pin or put down, a precursor to works of Julien Gracq, Julio Cortázar, and W. G. Sebald.

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  Inspiration An - From their pens...

  George Gissing

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  George Robert Gissing was born on November 22nd, 1857 in Wakefield, Yorkshire.  
  He was educated at Back Lane School in Wakefield. Gissing loved school. He was enthusiastic with a thirst for learning and always diligent.  By the age of ten he was reading Dickens, a lifelong hero. 
  In 1872 Gissing won a scholarship to Owens College. Whilst there Gissing worked hard but remained solitary. Unfortunately, he had run short of funds and stole from his fellow students. He was arrested, prosecuted, found guilty, expelled and sentenced to a month's hard labour in 1876. 
  On release he decided to start over.  In September 1876 he travelled to the United States. Here he wrote short stories for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers. On his return home he was ready for novels. 
  Gissing self-published his first novel but it failed to sell.  His second was acquired but never published. His writing career was static.  Something had to change.  And it did. 
  By 1884 The Unclassed was published.  Now everything he wrote was published. Both Isabel Claren-don and Demos appeared in 1886. He mined the lives of the working class as diligently as any capitalist. 
  In 1889 Gissing used the proceeds from the sale of The Nether World to go to Italy. This trip formed the basis for his 1890 work The Emancipated. 
  Gissing's works began to command higher payments. New Grub Street (1891) brought a fee of £250.  
  Short stories followed and in 1895, three novellas were published; Eve's Ransom, The Paying Guest and Sleeping Fires. Gissing was careful to keep up with the changing attitudes of his audience.  
  Unfortunately, he was also diagnosed as suffering from emphysema. The last years of his life were spent as a semi-invalid in France but he continued to write. 1899; The Crown of Life. Our Friend the Charlatan appeared in 1901, followed two years later by The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft. 
  George Robert Gissing died aged 46 on December 28th, 1903 after catching a chill on a winter walk.

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  No Fence No Limits - Designing...

  Kelly Donougher

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  We plan our futures in 
  permanent marker.  
  Life uses a red pen. 
  From childhood dreams to societal checklists, we're all handed a script for how life is supposed to go. But what happens when that script is ripped away – by fate, by biology, or by a crisis we didn’t expect?  
  Kelly Donougher always believed she’d be a mum. It wasn’t just expected – it was planned for and dreamed of. The ‘white picket fence’ was her destiny. Until her body decided otherwise.  
  Kelly’s dream collapsed, and she spiralled hard. The gruelling stages of grief, identity loss, and uncertainty ravaged her life. But it also came with an unsuspecting gift: a blank page. 
  Eight years later, Kelly stands firmly on the life she built from scratch – a life that defied the rules, broke the mould, and became more fulfilling than she ever imagined. A life by design.  
  No Fence, No Limits is a powerful, raw, and uplifting story of what happens when we stop living the lives we’re told to want – and start designing the lives we’re meant to live. 
  kellydonougher.com.au

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  We Will Not Cease

  Archibald Baxter

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  We Will Not Cease is the unflinching account of New Zealander Archibald Baxter's brutal treatment as a conscientious objector during World War I. 
  In 1915, when Baxter was 33, he was arrested, sent to prison, then shipped under guard to Europe where he was forced to the front line against his will. Punished to the limits of his physical and mental endurance, Baxter was stripped of all dignity, beaten, starved and left for dead by the New Zealand military. In the final attempt to discredit him authorities consigned him to a mental institution, an experience that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

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  Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin The...

  Robert Jakobsen

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  Step into the life of a legend—where precision meets enchantment and one man forever reshapes the art of magic. 
  Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin wasn't just a magician; he was a visionary whose work transcended mere tricks and illusions, merging mechanical genius with a passion for the mystique of the unknown. From humble beginnings in a small French town, where he first tinkered with timepieces in his father's clock shop, Robert-Houdin's journey unfolds like an intricate illusion, layer upon layer of discovery, dedication, and revolutionary invention. 
  In an age where science and superstition clashed, Robert-Houdin rose to prominence, not just by dazzling audiences but by transforming magic into an art form that earned respect and admiration from royalty and laypersons alike. His ingenuity and mastery of mechanical marvels enthralled crowds at the Palais Royale, each performance more breathtaking than the last. As you delve into his story, you'll be transported to a Parisian stage lit by gaslight, where whispers of disbelief mingle with gasps of awe, and reality becomes as fluid as a well-timed sleight of hand. 
  Follow Robert-Houdin's journey, from his fateful transition from clockmaker to magician to his influence on the world stage, inspiring magicians for generations to come. What secrets did he conceal within his illusions? And what did he ultimately reveal about the human desire for wonder? 
  Will you join the audience, suspend your disbelief, and uncover the magic that changed history?

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  Why Alanis Morissette Matters

  Megan Volpert

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  Since 1991, only three albums have sold more than 15 million copies---Metallica (Metallica), Come on Over (Shania Twain), and Jagged Little Pill, by Alanis Morissette. JLP won Grammys, Junos, and stayed in the Billboad 200 for more than a year. The record remains a touchstone for many listeners, as evidenced by the Tony Award-winning musical by the same name that premiered in 2018. If you listened to the radio in 1995, you probably recognize "You Oughta Know," "One Hand in My Pocket," and several other songs if only for Morissette's distinctive voice (or, as the author puts it, "this aggressively female noise").  
  Megan Volpert works through Alanis Morissette's career via JLP, her best-known record. Each chapter dives into one of the 13 tracks from the album, dissecting that song while connecting to later work that extends the relevant theme. For instance, the first chapter makes the point that "All I Really Want" reflects a highly sensitive person rather than an angry one, and discusses Morissette's producing on the documentary Sensitive (2015). Later chapters take up mental health, queer symbolism, skepticism vs. Catholicism, as well as more explicitly feminist concerns. As with most of the books in this series, her own experience is an occasional but consistent lens. As she writes in the prologue, JLP got the author through high school and it captures a "specifically female existential anger" that suggests deploying some memoir is appropriate. References to Derrida, Sophocles, and the films of Kevin Smith among others balance the personal side. Publication of this book will coincide with the 30th anniversary of Jagged Little Pill. (Officially released on June 13, 1995.)

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