A poem in five books, of circular narrative design, titled with the Greek name for Homer, which simultaneously charts two currents of history: the visible history charted in events -- the tribal losses of the American Indian, the tragedy of African enslavement -- and the interior, unwritten epic fashioned from the suffering of the individual in exile.
Focusing on: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, The Passion, Sexing the Cherry, The Powerbook
(4)"Northerners know nothing at all about Slavery. They think it is perpetual bondage only. They have no conception of the depth of _degradation_ involved in that word, SLAVERY; if they had, they would never cease their efforts until so horrible a system was overthrown."
Ms. Morrison's first book, The Bluest Eye, tells the painful story of a 1940s black woman who obsesses over her desire to become white. Her futile longing for the "bluest eyes" eventually drives her mad, as she accepts someone else's definition of beauty and loses herself in a hopeless struggle. Sula concerns the growth and destruction of a friendship between two black girls from a poor town.
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In the first volume of an extraordinary autobiographical series, one of the most inspiring authors of our time recalls--with candor, humor, poignancy and grace--how her journey began....
Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands of readers to rethink their beliefs about life. In his internationally bestselling, now classic volume, The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains how the selfish gene can also be a subtle gene. The world of the selfish gene revolves around savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit, and yet, Dawkins argues, acts of apparent altruism do exist in nature. Bees, for example, will commit suicide when they sting to protect the hive, and birds will risk their lives to warn the flock of an approaching hawk. This revised edition of Dawkins' fascinating book contains two new chapters. One, entitled "Nice Guys Finish First," demonstrates how cooperation can evolve even in a basically selfish world. The other new chapter, entitled "The Long Reach of the Gene," which reflects the arguments presented in Dawkins' The Extended Phenotype, clarifies the startling view that genes may reach outside the bodies in which they dwell and manipulate other individuals and even the world at large. Containing a wealth of remarkable new insights into the biological world, the second edition once again drives home the fact that truth is stranger than fiction.
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Black Boy, an autobiography of the author's boyhood, explores the theory of human behavior determined by environment. Richard Wright's novel is profoundly American by being a distinctly African-American chronicle. What makes the book unique is its tone, which is that of the blues, both lyrical and ironic, and yet purely tragic.
