crown publishing group ny apr 2010 (3 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Before Federer versus Nadal, before Borg versus McEnroe, the greatest tennis match ever played pitted the dominant Don Budge against the seductively handsome Baron Gottfried von Cramm. This deciding 1937 Davis Cup match, played on the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon, was a battle of titans: the world's number one tennis player against the number two; America against Germany; democracy against fascism. For five superhuman sets, the duo s brilliant shotmaking kept the Centre Court crowd and the world spellbound.But the match s significance extended well beyond the immaculate grass courts of Wimbledon. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the brink of World War II, one man played for the pride of his country while the other played for his life. Budge, the humble hard-working American who would soon become the first man to win all four Grand Slam titles in the same year, vied to keep the Davis Cup out of the hands of the Nazi regime. On the other side of the net, the immensely popular and elegant von Cramm fought Budge point for point knowing that a loss might precipitate his descent into the living hell being constructed behind barbed wire back home.Born into an aristocratic family, von Cramm was admired for his devastating good looks as well as his unparalleled sportsmanship. But he harbored a dark secret, one that put him under increasing Gestapo surveillance. And his situation was made even more perilous by his refusal to join the Nazi Party or defend Hitler. Desperately relying on his athletic achievements and the global spotlight to keep him out of the Gestapo s clutches, his strategy was to keep traveling and keep winning. A Davis Cup victory would make him the toast of Germany. A loss might be catastrophic. Watching the mesmerizingly intense match from the stands was von Cramm s mentor and all-time tennis superstar Bill Tilden a consummate showman whose double life would run in ironic counterpoint to that of his German pupil.Set at a time when sports and politics were inextricably linked, A Terrible Splendor gives readers a courtside seat on that fateful day, moving gracefully between the tennis match for the ages and the dramatic events leading Germany, Britain, and America into global war. A book like no other in its weaving of social significance and athletic spectacle, this soul-stirring account is ultimately a tribute to the strength of the human spirit.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - A celebration of the language and culture of Italy, La Bella Lingua is the story of how a language shaped a nation, told against the backdrop of one woman s personal quest to speak fluent Italian. For anyone who has been to Italy, the fantasy of living the Italian life is powerfully seductive. But to truly become Italian, one must learn the language. This is how Dianne Hales began her journey. In La Bella Lingua, she brings the story of her decades-long experience with the the world s most loved and lovable language together with explorations of Italy s history, literature, art, music, movies, lifestyle and food in a true opera amorosa a labor of her love of Italy.Over the course of twenty-five years, she has studied Italian through Berlitz, books, CDs, podcasts, private tutorials and conversation groups, and, most importantly, time spent in Italy. In the process the Italian language became not just a passion and a pleasure, but a passport into Italy s storia and its very soul.She invites readers to join her as she traces the evolution of Italian in the zesty graffiti on the walls of Pompeii, in Dante s incandescent cantos and in Boccaccio s bawdy Decameron. She portrays how social graces remain woven into the fabric of Italian: even the chipper ciao, which does double duty as hi and bye, reflects centuries of bella figura. And she exalts the glories of Italy s food and its rich and often uproarious gastronomic language: Italians deftly describe someone uptight as a baccala (dried cod), a busybody who noses into everything as a prezzemolo (parsley), a worthless or banal movie as a polpettone (large meatball). Like Dianne, readers of La Bella Lingua will find themselves innamorata, enchanted, by Italian, fascinated by its saga, tantalized by its adventures, addicted to its sound, and ever eager to spend more time in its company.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, STARRING JASON SEGAL AND JESSE EISENBERG, DIRECTED BY JAMES PONSOLDTAn indelible portrait of David Foster Wallace, by turns funny and inspiring, based on a five-day trip with award-winning writer David Lipsky during Wallace sInfinite JesttourIn David Lipsky s view, David Foster Wallace was the best young writer in America. Wallace s pieces for Harper s magazine in the 90s were, according to Lipsky, like hearing for the first time the brain voice of everybody I knew: Here was how we all talked, experienced, thought. It was like smelling the damp in the air, seeing the first flash from a storm a mile away. You knew something gigantic was coming. ThenRolling Stonesent Lipsky to join Wallace on the last leg of his book tour forInfinite Jest, the novel that made him internationally famous. They lose to each other at chess. They get iced-in at an airport. They dash to Chicago to catch a make-up flight. They endure a terrible reader s escort in Minneapolis. Wallace does a reading, a signing, an NPR appearance. Wallace gives in and imbibes titanic amounts of hotel television (what he calls an orgy of spectation ). They fly back to Illinois, drive home, walk Wallace s dogs. Amid these everyday events, Wallace tells Lipsky remarkable things everything he can about his life, how he feels, what he thinks, what terrifies and fascinates and confounds him in the writing voice Lipsky had come to love. Lipsky took notes, stopped envying him, and came to feel about him that grateful, awake feeling the same way he felt aboutInfinite Jest. Then Lipsky heads to the airport, and Wallace goes to a dance at a Baptist church.A biography in five days,Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourselfis David Foster Wallace as few experienced this great American writer. Told in his own words, here is Wallace s own story, and his astonishing, humane, alert way of looking at the world; here are stories of being a young writer of being young generally trying to knit together your ideas of who you should be and who other people expect you to be, and of being young in March of 1996. And of what it was like to be with and as he tells it what it was like to become David Foster Wallace.'If you can think of times in your life that you ve treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves.To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself.And I think it s probably possible to achieve that.I think part of the job we re here for is to learn how to do it.I know that sounds a little pious.' David Foster Wallace.