Aufsätze

Inhaltsangabe zu "Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language"

'More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to...' Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English. From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue; its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity; its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling and pronunciation, Bryson covers all this as well as the many curious eccentricities that make it as maddening to learn as it is flexible to use. Bill Bryson's classic "Mother Tongue" is a highly readable and hilarious tale of how English came to be the world's language.

Inhaltsangabe zu "Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body"

A Memoir of (My) Body
Broschiertes Buch
I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.' New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as "wildly undisciplined," Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties-including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life-and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life. With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and tells a story that hasn't yet been told but needs to be.

Inhaltsangabe zu "Deutsche Hörer [Rundfunkansprache über BBC, Ende 1945]"

Insgesamt achtundfünfzig Mal hatte Thomas Mann ab dem Jahr 1940 im Rahmen seiner mittlerweile berühmten Rundfunkansprachen ›Deutsche Hörer!‹ an seine ehemaligen Landsleute appelliert. Erst die teils sehr kritischen Reaktionen auf seinen ›Brief nach Deutschland‹ (zuerst erschienen im Aufbau, September 1945) hatten Mann veranlasst, das erneuerte Angebot der BBC anzunehmen und sich noch einmal über das Radio an die Deutschen zu wenden. Nachdem er vom 5. bis 8. November 1945 an seinem Text gearbeitete hatte, erfolgte am 30. Dezember die Ausstrahlung der Aufnahme. Anfang Januar druckten mehrere deutsche Zeitungen den stellenweise gekürzten Vortrag ab, der zudem in Band XIII der ›Gesammelten Werke‹ (1974) aufgenommen wurde.

Inhaltsangabe zu "Sentimentale Reisen"

Im April 1989 wurde eine weiße Endzwanzigerin auf ihrer abendlichen Laufrunde durch den Central Park von sechs schwarzen Jugendlichen überfallen und vergewaltigt. Sie überlebte den Angriff lebensgefährlich verletzt, der darauf folgende Strafprozess hielt New York über Monate in Atem. In ihrer titelgebenden Reportage "Sentimentale Reisen" beschäftigt Joan Didion allerdings weniger der Vorfall selbst als vielmehr die öffentliche Debatte und die sie bestimmende "sentimentale" Sehnsucht danach, die oft frustrierend komplexe Realität auf vereinfachende Narrative von gut und böse, schwarz und weiß zu reduzieren.
In diesem und den weiteren Essays und Reportagen aus den 80er und frühen 90er Jahren widmet sich Didion unterschiedlichen Phänomenen ihrer Zeit, die ihr an den exemplarisch ausgewählten Orten Washington, New York und Kalifornien begegnet sind. Indem sie von Momentaufnahmen der amerikanischen Gegenwart ausgeht und von persönlichen Begegnungen mit Schauspielern, Politikern und anderen Figuren des öffentlichen Lebens, zeigt sie die Sehnsüchte und Widersprüche, die Denkmuster und Handlungsweisen auf, die den Geist jener Jahre prägen.

Inhaltsangabe zu "Wonderbook"

Inhaltsangabe zu "Yes Please"

In Amy Poehler's highly anticipated first book, Yes Please, she offers up a big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much).

Powered by Amy's charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, and including a star-studded guest list of vocal appearances from Carol Burnett, Seth Meyers, Michael Schur, Patrick Stewart, Kathleen Turner, and even Amy's parents Yes Please is chock-full of words, and wisdom, to live by.

Inhaltsangabe zu "Bossypants"

Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update", before "Sarah Palin", Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.

She has seen both of those dreams come true.

At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon - from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.

Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.

(Includes Special, Never-Before-Solicited Opinions on Breastfeeding, Princesses, Photoshop, the Electoral Process, and Italian Rum Cake!)

Inhaltsangabe zu "The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories"

An affecting and hope-filled posthumous collection of essays and stories from the talented young Yale graduate whose title essay captured the world’s attention in 2012 and turned her into an icon for her generation.

Marina Keegan’s star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash.

As her family, friends, and classmates, deep in grief, joined to create a memorial service for Marina, her unforgettable last essay for the Yale Daily News, “The Opposite of Loneliness,” went viral, receiving more than 1.4 million hits. She had struck a chord.

Even though she was just twenty-two when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation. The Opposite of Loneliness is an assem­blage of Marina’s essays and stories that, like The Last Lecture, articulates the universal struggle that all of us face as we figure out what we aspire to be and how we can harness our talents to make an impact on the world.

Inhaltsangabe zu "Bad Feminist: Essays"

'Pink is my favourite colour. I used to say my favourite colour was black to be cool, but it is pink - all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue.' In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of colour (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny and sincere look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better.

Inhaltsangabe zu "The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories"

An affecting and hope-filled posthumous collection of essays and stories from the talented young Yale graduate whose title essay captured the world’s attention in 2012 and turned her into an icon for her generation.

Marina Keegan’s star was on the rise when she graduated magna cum laude from Yale in May 2012. She had a play that was to be produced at the New York International Fringe Festival and a job waiting for her at the New Yorker. Tragically, five days after graduation, Marina died in a car crash.

As her family, friends, and classmates, deep in grief, joined to create a memorial service for Marina, her unforgettable last essay for the Yale Daily News, “The Opposite of Loneliness,” went viral, receiving more than 1.4 million hits. She had struck a chord.

Even though she was just twenty-two when she died, Marina left behind a rich, expansive trove of prose that, like her title essay, captures the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of her generation. The Opposite of Loneliness is an assem­blage of Marina’s essays and stories that, like The Last Lecture, articulates the universal struggle that all of us face as we figure out what we aspire to be and how we can harness our talents to make an impact on the world.