In Tasmania

Nicholas Shakespeare

Summary

From the renowned British author of The Dancer Upstairs comes this “meticulous, lyrical history” of the remote island and his family’s connection to it (Publishers Weekly).   Hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “one of the best English novelists of our time,” Nicholas Shakespeare decided to move to Tasmania after falling in love with its exceptional beauty. Only later did he discover a cache of letters that revealed a deep and complicated family connection to the island. They were written by an ancestor as corrupt as he was colorful: Anthony Fenn Kemp (1773–1868), the so-called Father of Tasmania.   Then Shakespeare discovered more unknown Tasmanian relations: A pair of spinsters who had never left their farm except once, in 1947, to buy shoes. Their journal recounted a saga beginning in Northern England in the 1890s with a dashing but profligate ancestor who ended his life in the Tasmanian bush.   In this fascinating history of two turbulent centuries in an apparently idyllic place, Shakespeare weaves the history of the island with multiple narratives, a cast of unlikely characters from Errol Flynn to the King of Iceland, a village full of Chatwins, and a family of Shakespeares.  “Tasmania is an enigmatic place and Shakespeare captures it with an appreciative eye.” —The Guardian

Available since: 06/22/2005.

Print length: 374 pages.

Other books that might interest you

Conversations with Isaiah Berlin

Ramin Jahanbegloo

An illuminating and witty dialogue with one of the greatest intellectual figures of the twentieth century. Ramin Jahanbegloo's interview with Isaiah Berlin grew into a series of five conversations which offer an intimate view of Berlin and his ideas. They include discussions on pluralism and liberty as well as the thinkers and writers who influenced Berlin. This revised edition provided an excellent introduction to Berlin's thought. Ramin Jahanbegloo is an Iranian philosopher, who has taught in Europe and North America. In 2006 he was imprisoned for several months in Iran. He is currently teaching Political Philosophy at Toronto University. 'Though like Our Lord and Socrates he does not publish much, he thinks and says a great deal and has had an enormous influence on our times'. Maurice Bowra 'Berlin never talks down to the interviewer. Conversations here means the minds of the interviewed and interviewer meet on equal terms in language that is transparently clear, informed, witty and entertaining'. Stephen Spender 'He is wise without seeming pompous, witty without seeming trivial, affectionate without seeming sentimental'. Michael Ignatieff 'Isaiah Berlin... has for fifty years in this talkative and quarrelsome city (Oxford) been something special, admired by all and disliked by no-one... a benevolent super-don'. John Bayley http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/

Show book

Sharp - The Women Who Made an...

Michelle Dean

A “deeply researched and uncommonly engrossing” book profiling ten trailblazing literary women, including Dorothy Parker and Joan Didion (Paris Review). 
 
In Sharp, Michelle Dean explores the lives of ten women of vastly different backgrounds and points of view who all made a significant contribution to the cultural and intellectual history of America. These women—Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Renata Adler, and Janet Malcolm—are united by what Dean calls “sharpness,” the ability to cut to the quick with precision of thought and wit. 
 
Sharp is a vibrant depiction of the intellectual beau monde of twentieth-century New York, where gossip-filled parties gave out to literary slugging-matches in the pages of the Partisan Review or the New York Review of Books. It is also a passionate portrayal of how these women asserted themselves through their writing despite the extreme condescension of the male-dominated cultural establishment. 
 
Mixing biography, literary criticism, and cultural history, Sharp is a celebration of this group of extraordinary women, an engaging introduction to their works, and a testament to how anyone who feels powerless can claim the mantle of writer, and, perhaps, change the world.

Show book