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Mary McCarthy elabora en El grupo una excepcional sátira social, política e intelectual gracias a su oído de narradora infalible y su mirada clarividente. En esta novela, más que en ninguna otra, McCarthy dibuja unos personajes con los que resulta imposible no empatizar al contemplar sus vidas desde una posición tan sumamente privilegiada y excepcional. La novela de la escritora Mary McCarthy más conocida y, paradójicamente, que causó una mayor polémica fue El grupo (1963). Con un estilo agudo y franco, McCarthy nos conduce hasta la Norteamérica de entre guerras para retratar la vida de ocho universitarios de Vassar College al finalizar sus estudios. Una mezcla explosiva y, sin duda alguna, ecléctica de personalidades y educaciones sentimentales bullen en este libro para ilustrar la semana de después de su graduación. Solo tras entregarse a la vida adulta, y prometer no continuar el camino recorrido por sus padres, se enfrentarán al mundo por vez primera para, años después, volver a encontrarse y llorar juntos la pérdida de uno de ellos: de un amigo, un confidente, pero, lo más importante de todo, uno de ellos, un miembro del grupo. Críticas'El deseo de escandalizar, así como la actualidad de su mensaje hacen de El grupo un clásico.'Kirkus Reviews'Un libro maravilloso, no solo por su humor, sino por la habilidad de la propia McCarthy a la hora de escribirlo: el furor de su ritmo y la agudeza de sus descripciones son magníficos.'Candance Bushnell'La bravura y la energía de El grupo hacen de su historia un retrato impactante de su tiempo.'A. S. Byatt'Una novela absorbente, divertida, dolorosa. Una obra maestra. Hilary Mantel'Desconfiada, atea, erudita, socarrona y punzante, la inteligencia de Mary McCarthy planea sobre toda la novela.'Jaime Royo-Villanova, Revista de Libros'Emocionante y con un toque ácido, El grupo es una novela deslumbrante, así como un retrato generacional temido y demoledor.'Laura Jacobs, Vanity Fair'La lectura de McCarthy es una recompensa para el lector: disfrutará de una prosa y un estilo inteligentísimos.'The New York Times'Una obra maestra de la literatura feminista, así como una tragedia épica y un análisis meticuloso de la sociedad neoyorkina de los años 30.'MAKE Literary Magazine

LA INOLVIDABLE AUTOBIOGRAFÍA DE UNA AUTORA IMPRESCINDIBLE «Una de las plumas más ágiles y más divertidamente corrosivas de la literatura anglosajona del siglo xx.» Fernando Schwartz, El País Muchas veces en el curso de estas memorias he deseado estar escribiendo ficción. Mary McCarthy, una de las escritoras norteamericanas más interesantes del siglo XX, nos traslada a los años veinte, cuando quedó huérfana y a su suerte en un mundo de relaciones tan pintoresco, potente y misterioso como la religión católica. Allí estaban sus abuelas: una cristiana piadosa, pero severa y aterradora; la otra judía, que llevaba siempre un velo para ocultar los efectos desastrosos de un estiramiento facial. También su malvado tío Myers, que la golpeaba por el bien de su alma, y la tía Margarita, que mezclaba jugo de naranja con aceite de ricino para pegarle los labios por la noche y evitar que respirara por la boca, una práctica, a sus ojos, nada saludable. Pero estos familiares, tan ajenos como terribles, junto con las monjas de la escuela del convento del Sagrado Corazón, ayudaron a inspirar su sentido devastador de lo sublime y ridículo, y su ingeniosa imaginación de novelista. Ácida, emocionante, lúcida y absolutamente actual, Memorias de una joven católica conforma uno de los testimonios autobiográficos más impresionantes del siglo XX. Críticas: «Un testimonio colorido y desenfadado del siglo XX.» Valèria Gaillard, Diari Ara «No solo me gustó sino que es de esos libros que hacen que te des cuenta de lo que es un buen libro.» Aloma Rodríguez, Letras Libres «Imprescindible. [...] No puede ser más digno de aplauso.» Andrés Rubín de Celis, Fashion & Arts «Todos agregamos a nuestra memoria fragmentos de lo que hemos leído u oído a lo largo de nuestra vida. En el excelente libro de McCarthy, este proceso añade arte.» Charles Poore, The New York Times «El tiempo no ha opacado la nitidez de las imágenes ni los acontecimientos rememorados. El retrato que ofrece McCarthy tiene una definición excepcional gracias a la precisión de su prosa.» KirkusReviews «Lo destacable de la escritura de McCarthy es esa nitidez de pensamiento, esa conciencia en estado de claridad que puede mirar a su alrededor sin dejar de verse a sí misma. La presión de los demás sobre los espíritus jóvenes y una voluntad forjada en el difícil ejercicio de madurar son elementos aquí transfigurados en material literario. [...] Una memoria que ordena y lo pasa todo por el filtro de una escritura inteligente.» Lourdes Ventura, El Cultural «Una autobiografía verdadera y auténtica, después de los miles de fragmentos de historias personales, de los miles de alter ego, de los miles de reflejos que Mary McCarthy, narradora, polemista, crítica, ha querido proponer a través de sus libros.» Irene Bignardi, El País «Lo sublime y lo ridículo en su visión de la sociedad estadounidense de los años 20 y 30. La mirada personal convertida en material literario de calidad.» Rosa Belmonte, Mujer Hoy Sobre la autora: «Desconfiada, atea, erudita, socarrona y punzante.» Jaime Royo-Villanova, Revista de Libros «McCarthy destacó por su inteligencia analítica y calculadora, y su particular voz literaria. Una voz capaz de pasar de lo frívolo a las preocupaciones más profundas, de la ingenuidad infantil a la furia más acérrima.» Michiko Kakutani, New YorkReview ofBooks

A finales de los años cuarenta, un grupo de entusiastas neoyorquinos, intelectuales urbanitas, se aventuran en las montañas de Nueva Inglaterra para crear una comuna a la que deciden bautizar muy apropiadamente como'Utopía'. Sin embargo, pronto surgen la discordia y el cisma ideológico entre las dos facciones del grupo: los utópicos puristas, entre los que se cuentan el estruendoso editor libertario Macdougal Macdermott, que carece de opinión propia, o la bienintencionada Katy Norell, que en el fondo solo desea agradar a los demás, y los realistas, encabezados por el amargado exmarxista William Taub, que pretende reírse del fracaso de Utopía al tiempo que alberga la secreta esperanza de que prospere. Así, alternarán'periodos líricos'de paz pastoral con la concepción de ideas alocadas, como crear unos'Estados Unidos de Europa en el exilio', hasta desembocar en un desenlace previsiblemente desastroso. Más controvertida y ácida que nunca, McCarthy se inspira sin disimulo alguno en sus amantes, amigos y conocidos, grandes personalidades de la cultura estadounidense, para plasmar un irónico y polémico retrato de la esfera intelectual de su época. Una sátira descarnada y certera sobre los sueños y las decepciones de toda una generación.

From a nuclear North Korea and territorial disputes in the East China Sea, to global climate change and Asia-Pacific free trade agreements, Japan is at the center of some of the most challenging issues that the world faces today. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, comprising contributions from the fields of politics, sociology, history, and gender studies, this handbook creates a comprehensive and innovative overview of the field, investigating the widening variety of interests, sometimes competing, that constitute Japanese foreign policy. Organized topically, it is divided into sections, including:• Japan's evolving foreign policy landscape• Global environmental and sustainable development• International and national security• International political economy• International norms and civil society.Providing an evaluation of the key actors, institutions, and networks influencing Japanese foreign policy, the Routledge Handbook of Japanese Foreign Policy is an essential resource for students and scholars of Japanese and Asian Politics, International Relations, and Foreign Policy.

Spirited and insightful essays from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Memories of a Catholic Girlhood and a “delightfully polished writer” (The Atlantic Monthly). Whether penning criticism, memoir, or fiction, the New York Times–bestselling author of The Group invariably wrote with “an icily honest eye and a glacial wit” (The New York Times). Gathered here are three collections of her personal essays and literary criticism. Occasional Prose: McCarthy imbues this collection with her unique gifts of clear-eyed observation, sharp insight, and heartfelt passion as she gives us the story of La Traviata in her own words, reviews a charming and practical book on gardening, revisits Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and eulogizes friends, including Hannah Arendt. “Bracing opinions tartly expressed... May she continue to call us all to attention... showing us the world of her imagination, thought and rich experience.” —The New York Times The Writing on the Wall: With engaging and thought-provoking essays on Madame Bovary, Macbeth, Vladimir Nabokov, George Orwell, William S. Burroughs, J. D. Salinger, and Hannah Arendt, this collection of literary reactions is distinguished by McCarthy's savage intelligence, clarity of thought, and utter lack of pretension. “The brand name tells all. Potential readers do not have to be informed by me of the excellence of this volume—the acumen, intelligence, clarity, wit and lack of bitchiness.” —Anthony Burgess, The New York Times Ideas and the Novel: In this lively, erudite book, McCarthy throws down the gauntlet: Why did the nineteenth century produce novels of ideas while the twentieth century is so lacking in serious fiction? Could Henry James be a big part of the problem? With verve and passion, McCarthy provides a critique of how the novel has evolved—or not—in the last century. “[McCarthy's] writing is spirited. [Her] musings serve a larger purpose, make a grander statement, or rather, indictment. She means to set the modern novel apart.” —The Harvard Crimson

Sharply observed literary fiction from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Group and a “delightfully polished writer” (The Atlantic Monthly). New York Times–bestselling author Mary McCarthy wrote with “an icily honest eye and a glacial wit that make her portraits stingingly memorable” (The New York Times). From a trenchant portrait of marriage to an academic satire to an unconventional thriller, the three novels in this collection show the range of an author possessed of “an uncanny flair for fastening on detail that has an electric impact on the reader” (The Atlantic Monthly). A Charmed Life: In this New York Times bestseller, former actress and budding playwright Martha Sinnott longs to recapture the “charmed life” she abandoned when she divorced her first husband. So she returns to her beloved New England artists'colony with her second spouse. But her arrogant ex, Miles, lives dangerously close by with his new wife. And in a pervasive atmosphere of falsehoods and self-delusions, the biggest lie of all is Martha's belief that her reunion with Miles won't somehow wreak terrible havoc on all she holds dear. “A glittering tragedy.” —The New York Times The Groves of Academe: College instructor Henry Mulcahy embarks on a fanatical quest to save his job—and enact righteous revenge—in this “brilliantly stinging” satire of university politics during the early Cold War years (The New York Times). “Brilliant... Bitterly tongue-in-cheek.” —The New Yorker Cannibals and Missionaries: En route to Iran, a plane is hijacked by Middle Eastern terrorists intent on holding hostage the politicians, religious leaders, and activists on a mission to investigate charges of human rights violations by the Shah. Soon the kidnappers discover a greater treasure onboard: prominent art collectors with access to some of the world's most valuable paintings—which could fund global terrorism. As both captors and captives confront bitter truths about their conflicting values and ideologies, the clock races toward an explosive endgame. “Tense, intelligent entertainment.” —Chicago Tribune

Candid, sharp, and entertaining essays from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Memories of a Catholic Girlhood and a “delightfully polished writer” (The Atlantic Monthly). Whether penning criticism, memoir, or fiction, the New York Times–bestselling author of The Group invariably wrote with “an icily honest eye and a glacial wit” (The New York Times). Gathered here are two memorable collections: theatrical critiques and opinion pieces. Mary McCarthy's Theatre Chronicles, 1937–1962: McCarthy weighs in on Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Henrik Ibsen, Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller with candor, penetrating insight, and wit. On the Contrary: Articles of Belief, 1946–1961: McCarthy expresses her frank, unflinching, often contrarian point of view in these provocative essays addressing everything from fashion to fiction, the human condition, religion, sex, Arthur Miller's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt, Charles Dickens, and Gandhi.

This first volume of the definitive edition of her fiction includes four novels and eight classic stories by the witty and provocative writer who defined a generationIn 1942, Mary McCarthy provoked a scandal with her electrifying debut novel, The Company She Keeps, announcing the arrival of a major new voice in American literature. A candid, thinly-veiled portrait of the late-1930s New York intellectual scene, its penetrating gaze and creative fusion of life and literature—“mutual plagiarism,” she called it—became the hallmark of McCarthy's fiction, which the Library of America now presents in full for the first time in deluxe collector's edition. The Oasis (1949), a wicked satire about a failed utopian community, and The Groves of Academe (1952), a pioneering campus novel depicting the insular and often absurd world of academia, burnished her reputation as an acerbic truth-teller, but it was with A Charmed Life (1955), a searing story of small-town infidelity, that McCarthy fully embraced the frank and avant-garde treatment of gender and sexuality that would inspire generations of readers and writers. Also included are all eight of McCarthy's short stories, four from her collection Cast a Cold Eye (1950), and four collected here for the first time.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

A collection of three novels by the author who transformed the scope and style of twentieth-century American literature—including the landmark classic The GroupIn Mary McCarthy's most famous novel, The Group (1963), she depicts the lives of eight Vassar College graduates during the 1930s as they grapple with sex, sexism, money, motherhood, and family. McCarthy's final two novels—Birds of America (1971), a coming of age tale of 19-year-old Peter Levi, who travels to Europe during the 1960s, and Cannibals and Missionaries (1979), a thriller about a group of passengers taken hostage on an airplane by militant hijackers—are both concerned with the state of modern society, from the cross-currents of radical social change to the psychology of terrorism. As a special feature, this second volume contains McCarthy's 1979 essay'The Novels that Got Away,'on her unfinished fiction.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Captivating portraits of two of the world's most beguiling cities from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Group. Mary McCarthy blends art, politics, religion, music, and history to create unique living portraits of two of Italy's most enchanting cities in these enthralling books now available in one volume. The Stones of Florence: The book Library Journal called “Mary McCarthy's classic” takes readers on a timeless journey to the place where the Renaissance began. From Michelangelo to the Medicis, The Stones of Florence is McCarthy's hymn to this immortal hub of art and commerce. Venice Observed: McCarthy trains her gaze on the immortal City of Canals. At once a comprehensive travelogue and a powerful piece of reportage, Venice Observed contains “searching observations and astonishing comprehension of the Venetian taste and character” (New York Herald Tribune).

Three brilliant novels from a #1 New York Times–bestselling author. Navigating friendship, sex, careers, and the challenges of adulthood, the characters of Mary McCarthy's novels remain instantly relatable, whether they're living in 1930s New York City or 1960s Paris. Here, three of her most outstanding works are collected in one volume. The Group: This “witty... brilliant” blockbuster bestseller follows eight privileged girls from their youthful friendship at Vassar through their complicated journeys into womanhood (Cosmopolitan). The Company She Keeps: A “clever, witty, polished” novel about a young bohemian's daring political and romantic explorations among an intellectual Manhattan social circle (TheNew York Times). Birds of America: In 1964, a shy young student and birdwatcher arrives in Paris to study at the Sorbonne and finds himself disoriented by the rapidly changing world around him. This “endlessly fascinating novel” (San Francisco Chronicle) is “in the same class as Henry James's The American and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer” (Esquire). Known for her satirical wit and blending of autobiographical detail from her own colorful life into her fiction, McCarthy was a literary icon whose books provide a rich glimpse of mid-twentieth-century America and a psychologically astute, timeless reading experience.

A tribute to the author's beloved Florence, blending history, artistic reflection, and keen social observation.Renowned for her sharp literary style, essayist and fiction writer Mary McCarthy offers a unique history of Florence. From its inception to the dominant role it came to play in the world of art, architecture, and Italian culture, McCarthy captures the brilliant Florentine spirit and revisits the legendary figures Dante, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and others who exemplify it so iconically. Her most cherished sights and experiences color this timeless portrait of a city that is as famous as it is alluring.“Mary McCarthy...may be writing the most stimulating guidebooks of our time.”—Lincoln Kirstein, The Nation“Miss McCarthy is not only well versed in the subject but her taste is sure and her style—cool, astringently witty, yet eloquent—seems tailor-made for depicting the brilliant, mercurial, skeptical Florentines....no student of the Renaissance should be without The Stones of Florence.”—Carlo Beuf, The New York Times Book Review“A solid tribute to the city and its people past and present, an estimate achieved without the least sentimentality, and free of solemn artiness.”—William D. Patterson, Saturday Review Syndicate

Cuando se cumplen cien años del nacimiento de Hannah Arendt, reeditamos un documento fundamental para entender no solo la obra y la vida de la gran pensadora alemana sino también la biografía moral, política e intelectual de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. La correspondencia que la autora de Eichmann en Jerusalén o Los orígenes del totalitarismo mantuvo a lo largo de veinticinco años con Mary McCarthy, una de las novelistas y ensayistas norteamericanas más brillantes del pasado siglo, constituye, en efecto, un diálogo inteligentísimo, edificante, ameno e iluminador sobre la historia y la cultura de Europa y Estados Unidos desde los años posteriores a la Segunda Guerra Mundial hasta las secuelas de los movimientos del 68, además del emotivo testimonio de una amistad -intensa y vibrante- entre dos de las mujeres más lúcidas de su tiempo. La crítica ha dicho... «Uno de los diálogos más inteligentes que se han dado en el siglo.» The New York Times «Un agudo diagnóstico de nuestro tiempo.» The Washington Post «Da testimonio de una delicada situación geopolítica, la que puso en relación a la hegemónica potencia estadounidense con una maltrecha Alemania que trataba de rehacerse —ya no solo materialmente, sino identitariamente— después de más de una década bajo el régimen nazi. [...] Amén del cuidadoso y lúcido análisis sociocultural, el volumen también da cuenta de la relación entre dos mujeres de gran y diversa inteligencia, capaces de iluminarse entre sí y de encontrar formas de discurso alternativas en una intimidad descapitalizada, abierta, honesta». Zenda «El vocabulario que empleó [Arendt] para pensar y narrar el mundo, sus reflexiones y esa escritura tan bella, tan suya, nos ayudan a interpretar lo que nos ocurre, aunque solo sea como simples enanos mirando el mundo a hombros de gigantes. Ella, desde luego, lo fue.» Máriam Martínez-Bascuñán, Babelia «Hannah Arendt volvió a pensar el espacio público después de su destrucción y nosotros debemos volver a ella para prevenir que se destruya de nuevo.» Andreu Jaume «[McCarthy posee] una de las plumas más ágiles y más divertidamente corrosivas de la literatura anglosajona del siglo xx.» Fernando Schwartz, El País «Lo destacable de la escritura de McCarthy es esa nitidez de pensamiento, esa conciencia en estado de claridad que puede mirar a su alrededor sin dejar de verse a sí misma.» Lourdes Ventura, El Cultural «Discuten, se critican, se admiran, se leen, se echan de menos. Se cuentan sus problemas, sus altibajos, sus alegrías, sus relaciones personales. En fin, lo habitual entre dos amigas, pero con el ingenio, la espontaneidad y la fluidez que ambas empleaban en el oficio literario que ocupaba su existencia». Ana M. Serrano, Loff «El testimonio de una excelente y conmovedora amistad. [...] Un libro valioso y ameno.» Los Angeles Time

In this no-holds-barred memoir with a foreword by Elizabeth Hardwick, the bestselling author of The Group recalls her early life in New York, revealing the genesis of and genius behind her groundbreaking fiction Mary McCarthy is a married twenty-four-year-old Communist and critic when this memoir begins. She's disciplined, dedicated, and sexually experimental: At one point she realizes that in twenty-four hours she “had slept with three different men.” But she believes in the institution of marriage. Over the course of three years, she will have had two husbands, the second being the esteemed, much older critic Edmund Wilson. It is Wilson who becomes McCarthy's mentor and muse, urging her to try her hand at fiction.McCarthy's powers of observation are on witty display here, as the seventy-something writer recalls events that took place half a century earlier. Her eye for the revealing detail will be recognized by readers of her novels as she describes marching in May Day parades, attending parties for the Scottsboro Boys, and witnessing firsthand the American left wing's response to the Moscow trials and the Spanish Civil War.Picking up where How I Grew left off and unfinished at the time of her death in 1989, Intellectual Memoirs is a vivid snapshot of a distinctive place and time—New York in the late 1930s—and the forces that shaped Mary McCarthy's life as a woman and a writer.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

Mary McCarthy, one of our most brilliant and beloved authors, serves up wit, insight, and her unique worldview in this diverse collection of essaysIn provocatively titled pieces such as “The Contagion of Ideas,” “Tyranny of the Orgasm,” and “No News, or,What Killed the Dog,” Mary McCarthy expresses her frank, unflinching, often contrarian point of view.Nothing—and no one—is safe from her merciless writer's eye—from politics to the ever-changing social scene to the strengths and weaknesses of her native country, where she believes “passivity and not aggressiveness is the dominant trait of the American character.” On the Contrary also features a cast of memorable characters. In “Naming Names,” Arthur Miller's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee results in an indictment for contempt of Congress. McCarthy reviews The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt's breakthrough book, and despairs of finding a “really American place” to take a visiting existentialist—a thinly disguised Simone de Beauvoir? From Dickens to Gandhi to the Kinsey Reports, with pithy and wide-ranging articles on everything from fashion to fiction, the human condition, religion, and sex, On the Contrary raises controversial questions to which, even today, there are no easy answers.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

From Madame Bovary to Macbeth, this collection by Mary McCarthy offers surprising revelations about some of the world's most beloved worksShakespeare, Nabokov, Orwell, and Burroughs are just a few of the literary immortals featured in this engaging and thought-provoking volume.In one remarkable essay, McCarthy provides a lively discourse on the true nature of evil in Shakespeare's plays. Focusing on the character of Macbeth, she reveals why Lady Macbeth, who has to “unsex herself” and “wear the pants,” is the more human of the two. She tells us why the often-overlooked character of Madame Bovary's husband, Charles, is the true hero, and not Emma Bovary, whom Flaubert once famously said was himself. Also included here is McCarthy's impassioned defense of Hannah Arendt's controversial book Eichmann in Jerusalem, as well as a discussion of the reactionary leftist writers, and a look at why J. D. Salinger was the obvious successor to Hemingway.Distinguished by McCarthy's savage intelligence, clarity of thought, and utter lack of pretension, The Writing on the Wall is a timeless gem from an author who reveres the written word.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

The author of The Group, the groundbreaking bestseller and 1964 National Book Award finalist that shaped a generation of women, brings reminiscences of her girlhood to this intimate and illuminating memoirHow I Grew is Mary McCarthy's intensely personal autobiography of her life from age thirteen to twenty-one.Orphaned at six, McCarthy was raised by her maternal grandparents in Seattle, Washington. Although her official birthdate is in 1912, it wasn't until she turned thirteen that, in McCarthy's own words, she was “born as a mind.” With detail driven by an almost astonishing memory recall, McCarthy gives us a masterful account of these formative years. From her wild adolescence—including losing her virginity at fourteen—through her eventual escape to Vassar, the bestselling novelist, essayist, and critic chronicles her relationships with family, friends, lovers, and the teachers who would influence her writing career.Filled with McCarthy's penetrating insights and trenchant wit, this is an unblinkingly honest and fearless self-portrait of a young woman coming of age—and the perfect companion to McCarthy's Memories of a Catholic Girlhood.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

A journey through the glorious Italian city's scenery, history, and culture, from the New York Times–bestselling author of Venice Observed and The Group. Mary McCarthy's classic celebrates the Italian city often looked upon as the provincial sister to the better-dressed, more “feminine” Venice. To McCarthy, Florence, or Firenze, is a place of ageless enchantment, from the Duomo to the fortressed palaces. The Renaissance began here; art and architecture flourished. From its roots as a center of medieval trade to its transformation into one of the world's wealthiest cities, McCarthy charts Florence's rich and turbulent history. She introduces a cast of towering real-life characters. Through her probing writer's lens, the poetry of Dante and the magnificent artistry of Raphael and Botticelli come vibrantly alive. Along this illuminating journey, McCarthy offers fascinating bits of trivia: There are no ruins in Florence because the Florentines aren't sentimental about their past; America took its name from a Florentine traveler named Amerigo Vespucci. From Michelangelo to the Medicis to the story behind a statue's missing head, The Stones of Florence is Mary McCarthy's hymn to this unique city. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

Reading and romance, gardening tips, a farewell to a friend, even an opera retold make up this stellar collection from the bestselling author of The Group and Memories of a Catholic GirlhoodThis intriguing nonfiction collection by Mary McCarthy is a cornucopia of literary delights that challenges the mind and captivates the senses.“On Rereading a Favorite Book” is McCarthy's reaction to returning to Tolstoy's Anna Karenina after more than thirty years. In “Politics and the Novel,” she shatters a myth about the American versus European style of storytelling. Acts of reading, when consummated, are akin to “Acts of Love.” And “Saying Good-bye to Hannah” is a poignant farewell to the author of The Human Condition and, in particular, The Life of the Mind, the book Hannah Arendt saw as her crowning achievement.Whether giving us the story of La Traviata in her own words or reviewing a charming and practical book on gardening, McCarthy imbues Occasional Prose with her powerful sense of time and place. Uninhibited and uncensored, it filters the world through her unique gifts of observation and novelist's masterful eye for detail. This is a book for anyone interested in the life of the mind—and heart. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

The American theatre comes alive in Mary McCarthy's provocative anthology of essaysHer literary writings and dramatic criticism have appeared in the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. Mary McCarthy's Theatre Chronicles gathers together a wide-ranging collection featuring a cast of playwrights, actors, and directors that reads like a “who's who” of American theatre. With chapters ranging from “The Unimportance of Being Oscar” to “Odets Deplored,” this lively and witty volume opens a revealing window onto every aspect of theatre. McCarthy brings singular productions of the world's most famous plays to vivid dramatic life while dissecting literary giants like Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. She offers her controversial opinion on everything from the American school of realism as epitomized by Brando to what creates a great actress to how a badly written play can still make for good theatre.With passages on theatre figures from Shakespeare to Shaw to Ibsen and O'Neill, this is a must-have for theatre lovers and armchair critics everywhere.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

In this eye-opening book, Mary McCarthy shares her love of the novel and her fear that it is becoming an endangered literary species“He had a mind so fine that no idea could violate it.”So begins Mary McCarthy's fascinating critical analysis of the novel (and its practitioners) from her double-edged perspective as both reader and writer. The bestselling author of The Group takes T. S. Eliot's quote about Henry James, written in 1918, as a jumping-off point to discuss how the novel has evolved—or not—in the last century. In this lively, erudite book, McCarthy throws down the gauntlet: Why did the nineteenth century produce novels of ideas while the twentieth century is so lacking in serious fiction? She winnows out the underachieving (read: overhyped) authors from the geniuses, explores why Jean Valjean personifies man's conscience in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, and shows how Stendhal's The Red and the Black “illustrates the evil effects of reading.” She also tackles the role of the omniscient narrator and analogizes novels to air travel.With its exploration of authors from Balzac to D. H. Lawrence, Ideas and the Novel holds inviolate the idea of the novel as a means ultimately of liberating ideas.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

The #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Group takes readers on a captivating journey to one of the world's most celebrated cities. Mary McCarthy brings her novelist's unerring eye to a book that blends art, politics, religion, music, and history to create a living portrait of “the world's loveliest city.” Like a painter capturing the city's essence on canvas, McCarthy uses words to create stunning visuals that bring both the old and new Venice to enchanting life. From her apartment overlooking the garden of a palazzo, McCarthy takes us into the museums and monasteries of this city of canals and gondolas, Machiavelli and Tintoretto. And she reveals some little-known facts: Venetians love pets, but prefer cats to dogs; during World War II, the Allies captured the city with a fleet of gondolas; and without Napoleon, Venice wouldn't be what it is today. From the ancient roots of The Merchant of Venice's pound of flesh to the quotidian details of daily life, it's all here—the magnificent frescoes, the sublime music of Mozart, the virgins, and the saints. At once a comprehensive travelogue and a powerful piece of reportage, Venice Observed is a testimony of McCarthy's love affair with the City of Canals. This ebook features superb color reproductions of the works of Giorgione, Veronese, Titian, Canaletto, Guardo, Bellini, and Tiepolo, and an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

Tracing her moral struggles to the day she accidentally took a sip of water before her Communion—a mortal sin—Mary McCarthy gives us eight funny and heartrending essays about the illusive and redemptive nature of memory“During the course of writing this, I've often wished that I were writing fiction.”Originally published in large part as standalone essays in the New Yorker and Harper's Bazaar, Mary McCarthy's acclaimed memoir begins with her recollections of a happy childhood cut tragically short by the death of her parents during the influenza epidemic of 1918.Tempering memory with invention, McCarthy describes how, orphaned at six, she spent much of her childhood shuttled between two sets of grandparents and three religions—Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. One of four children, she suffered abuse at the hands of her great-aunt and uncle until she moved to Seattle to be raised by her maternal grandparents. Early on, McCarthy lets the reader in on her secret: The chapter you just read may not be wholly reliable—facts have been distilled through the hazy lens of time and distance.In Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, McCarthy pays homage to the past and creates hope for the future. Reminiscent of Nabokov's Speak, Memory, this is a funny, honest, and unsparing account blessed with the holy sacraments of forgiveness, love, and redemption.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

A vicious and brilliant satire of human vanity from the author of the classic bestseller The GroupLong out of print, Mary McCarthy's second novel is a bitingly funny satire set in the early years of the Cold War about a group of writers, editors, and intellectuals who retreat to rural New England to found a hilltop utopia. With this group loosely divided into two factions—purists, led by the libertarian editor Macdougal Macdermott, and the realists, skeptics led by the smug Will Taub—the situation is ripe not only for disaster but for comedy, as reality clashes with their dreams of a perfect society.Though written as a roman à clef, McCarthy barely disguised her characters, including using her former lover Philip Rahv, founder of Partisan Review, as the model for Will Taub. As a result, the novel caused an absolute explosion of outrage among the literary elite of the day, who clearly recognized themselves among her all-too-accurate portraits. Rahv threatened a lawsuit to stop publication. Diana Trilling, Lionel Trilling's wife, called McCarthy a'thug.'McCarthy's friend Dwight McDonald (Macdougal Macdermott) called it'vicious, malicious, and nasty.'Never one to shy away from controversy, McCarthy's portrait of her generation had indeed drawn blood. But the brilliance of the novel has outlasted its first detonation and can now be enjoyed for its aphoritic, fearless dissection of the vanities of human endeavor.In an added bonus, the renowned essayist Vivian Gornick details in a moving introduction the importance of McCarthy's intellectual and artistic bravery, and how she influenced a generation of young writers and thinkers.

An “endlessly fascinating novel” of an American student finding his way in 1960s Paris from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Group (San Francisco Chronicle). It is 1964, and Peter Levi, a young student and bird watcher, has come to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. Shy and innocent at nineteen years old, he arrives fresh from an extended Maine holiday with his vivacious mother, and is determined to live a life free of unwanted complications and unnecessary stress. But this is an era of great change in the world, a time when war is looming in Southeast Asia and social unrest is simmering. There is much to trouble and confuse the young American as he journeys through foreign countries—and feelings—into adulthood. For Peter, the simplicity of childhood is over—and his new life is becoming increasingly complex in a world growing more unrecognizable by the day. Mary McCarthy's splendid Birds of America is a moving and surprising coming-of-age tale: the unforgettable story of a young man's awakening, and a stunning evocation of the disorienting change of the 1960s.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

Hailed as “the most provocative and disturbing analytical indictment... of America's role in Vietnam” by the New York Times, this is Mary McCarthy's riveting account of her journeys to Saigon and Hanoi In 1967, the editor of the New York Review of Books sent Mary McCarthy to Vietnam. In this daring and incisive account, McCarthy brings her critical thinking and novelist's eye to one of the most unpopular wars in our nation's history.Outraged over America's role in the Vietnam War, McCarthy arrived in Saigon with her own preconceived notions. Her time there did little to alter those beliefs. Focusing on the moral consequences—“the worst thing that could happen to our country would be to win this war”—McCarthy provides firsthand reports from the front line. She describes visits to villages built for Vietnamese refugees torn between the terror that Americans would stay and the fear that they would go.From its coverage of the daily horrors of war to notes on the logistical challenge of bringing 494,000 soldiers home, this is a timely and timeless work from one of America's most outspoken and respected critics.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

This smash bestseller about privileged Vassar classmates shocked America in the sixties and remains “juicy... witty... brilliant” (Cosmopolitan). At Vassar, they were known as “the group”—eight young women of privilege, the closest of friends, an eclectic mix of vibrant personalities. A week after graduation in 1933, they all gather for the wedding of Kay Strong, one of their own, before going their separate ways in the world. In the years that follow, they will each know accomplishment and loss in equal measure, pursuing careers and marriage, experiencing the joys and traumas of sexual awakening and motherhood, all while suffering through betrayals, infidelities, and sometimes madness. Some of them will drift apart. Some will play important roles in the personal dramas of others. But it is tragedy that will ultimately unite the group once again. A novel that stunned the world when it was first published in 1963, Mary McCarthy's The Group found acclaim, controversy, and a place atop the New York Times bestseller list for nearly two years for its frank and controversial exploration of women's issues, social concerns, and sexuality. A blistering satire of the mores of an emergent generation of women, The Group is McCarthy's enduring masterpiece, still as relevant, powerful, and wonderfully entertaining fifty years on. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

The celebrated author of The Group offers a “clever, witty, polished” portrait of the 1940s NYC literary bohemia she knew so well in this debut novel (The New York Times). Margaret Sargent is young and fearless, a deep thinker inspired by the bohemian energy that abounds in New York City in the years leading up to the Second World War. With careless abandon, she destroys her marriage and numerous love affairs as she moves through the social circles of artists and writers, playing at the fringes of political extremism. She is an enigma, often wanton and frivolous, but possessing intelligence and a razor-sharp wit, as well as a troubling core of inner darkness, self-doubt, and puzzling tendencies toward self-destruction. For Margaret, urban life in the 1930s is an ongoing adventure—ever-changing, always surprising, and deeply, profoundly unsatisfying. Mary McCarthy, author of the bestselling American classic The Group, burst boldly onto the literary scene with her provocative debut, The Company She Keeps. A brilliant, stylistically inventive novel, it offers a rich portrait of a truly fascinating protagonist in six revealing episodes. Love her, despise her, or fear for her, you will never forget Margaret Sargent.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

A writer's life is upended by her destructive ex-husband in this intensely personal novel by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Group. Former actress and budding playwright Martha Sinnott longs to recapture the “charmed life” she abandoned when she divorced her first husband. So she returns to her beloved New England artists'colony with her second husband—and discovers that little has changed. The same people make up the same tightly knit society. Nevertheless, her eagerly anticipated homecoming does include some rude awakenings. Martha's arrogant ex, Miles, is dangerously close by, living with his new wife. The people Martha once counted among her closest friends have become also-rans and never-weres, unhappy and often resentful. And in this pervasive atmosphere of falsehoods and self-delusions, the biggest lie of all is Martha's belief that her reunion with Miles won't somehow wreak terrible havoc on all she holds dear. A New York Times bestseller by an author with “an icily honest eye and a glacial wit that make her portraits stingingly memorable,” A Charmed Life is a smart, mesmerizing portrait of love, marriage, and deception (The New York Times). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

Seven “remarkable” stories from the bestselling author of The Group (The New York Times). Two American tourists find themselves seriously befuddled by their unorthodox Italian guide. A hospitalized graduate student turns the sounds of pain and despair into music. A family is tragically taken apart, and then reformed, by a deadly outbreak of influenza. The short fiction in this collection, some of it autobiographical in inspiration, reflects both the adept, witty storytelling and the insightful social commentary of New York Times–bestselling author Mary McCarthy. A National Book Award finalist known for such novels as Birds in America and The Groves of Academe—as well as memoir (Memories of a Catholic Girlhood) and travel writing (Venice Observed)—McCarthy shows in Cast a Cold Eye why she has been called “a brilliant writer with a rare talent for corrosive satire” (The Atlantic Monthly). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

A riveting and unconventional thriller about a motley group of airplane passengers taken hostage by militant hijackersEn route to Iran, a plane is captured by Middle Eastern terrorists intent on holding hostage the committee of politicians, religious leaders, and activists on a mission to investigate alleged human rights violations by the shah. But the kidnappers soon discover that there is a greater treasure onboard. Among the passengers are prominent art collectors with access to some of the world's most valuable paintings—priceless works that could fund global terrorist activities for decades.After the captured plane sets down in a remote Dutch farming collective by the sea, events go rapidly and frighteningly awry. As negotiations with government agencies stall, concerns over rare artwork threaten to trump the regard for human life, and both captors and captives will face bitter truths about their conflicting values, manners, and ideologies as the ticking clock races inexorably toward an explosive endgame.Mary McCarthy's masterful Cannibals and Missionaries is a remarkable novel of events and ideas that sheds light on the tragic foibles of human nature while exploring the terrorist psychology with supreme intelligence and insight.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

A college instructor embarks on a fanatical quest to save his job—and enact righteous revenge—in this brilliantly acerbic satire of university politics during the early Cold War yearsHenry Mulcahy's future is in question. An instructor of literature at Jocelyn College, an institute of higher learning renowned for its progressive approach to education, he has just received word that he will not be teaching next semester. He strongly suspects that his dismissal has been engineered by his nemesis, the college president, who Henry believes resents his superior skills as an educator. Or perhaps he is being targeted by the government in this Cold War era, now that Senator Joseph McCarthy's communist witch hunt is in full swing, especially since Henry's dedication to independent thinking is, he believes, renowned. Whatever the case, Henry Mulcahy wants justice—and vengeance—and he will not go quietly without a fight. But the battle might expose too much of Henry's true nature...Witty and biting, Mary McCarthy's The Groves of Academe is a deliciously pointed satire of the world of higher education and its petty despots, tiny wars, and internal politics.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

Three candid, affecting memoirs by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Group, including a National Book Award finalist. In Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, Mary McCarthy begins with her recollections of a happy childhood cut tragically short by the death of her parents during the influenza epidemic of 1918. Tempering memory with invention, McCarthy describes how, orphaned at six, she spent much of her childhood shuttled between two sets of grandparents and three religions—Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. Early on, McCarthy lets the reader in on her secret: The chapter you just read may not be wholly reliable—facts have been distilled through the hazy lens of time and distance.How I Grew is McCarthy's intensely personal autobiography of her life from age thirteen to twenty-one. With detail driven by an almost astonishing memory recall, the author gives us a masterful account of these formative years. From her wild adolescence—including losing her virginity at fourteen—through her eventual escape to Vassar, the bestselling novelist, essayist, and critic chronicles her relationships with family, friends, lovers, and the teachers who would influence her writing career. And Intellectual Memoirs opens with McCarthy as a married twenty-four-year-old Communist and critic. She's disciplined, dedicated, and sexually experimental: At one point she realizes that in twenty-four hours she “had slept with three different men.” Over the course of three years, she will have had two husbands, the second being the esteemed, much older critic Edmund Wilson. It is Wilson who becomes McCarthy's mentor and muse, urging her to try her hand at fiction. Intellectual Memoirs is a vivid snapshot of a distinctive place and time—New York in the late 1930s—and the forces that shaped Mary McCarthy's life as a woman and a writer.

“A passionate, humane intelligence addressing itself to the fundamental problem of how the mind operates.” —Newsweek Considered by many to be Hannah Arendt's greatest work, published as she neared the end of her life, The Life of the Mind investigates thought itself, as it exists in contemplative life. In a shift from her previous writings, most of which focus on the world outside the mind, this work was planned as three volumes that would explore the activities of the mind considered by Arendt to be fundamental. What emerged is a rich, challenging analysis of human mental activity, considered in terms of thinking, willing, and judging. This final achievement, presented here in a complete one-volume edition, may be seen as a legacy to our own and future generations.