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The Savage God
An intelligent and sympathetic analysis of one of the true taboos of modern life. Using the untimely death of the poet and friend, Sylvia Plath, as a point of departure, Al Alvarez confronts the controversial and often taboo area of human behaviour: suicide. The Savage God explores the cultural attitudes, theories, truths and fallacies surrounding suicide and refracts them through the windows of philosophy, art and literature: following the black thread leading from Dante, through Donne, Chatterton and the Romantic Agony, to Dada and Pavese. Entwined within this sensitive study is the author's deeply personal account of his own unsuccessful suicide attempt, and together they form the most fa...
Where Did It All Go Right?
Al Alvarez - poet, critic, novelist, sportsman, and poker player - has for seventy years been hard to categorize. He is the author of the best-selling study of suicide, THE SAVAGE GOD, and as poetry editor of the OBSERVER, he has known most of the leading poets of the second half of last century. For a time he was an influential critic and his anthology THE NEW POETRY scandalised the literary community. Much of the liveliness of Alvarez's story is inspired by the ambiguous fate of being an English Jew. Although his family had been settled in London for more than two centuries, being Jewish always made them feel like outsiders. From public schools to Oxford to the hardscrabble world of freelance writing, Alvarez found time to climb mountains, play poker and write books about these pastimes which are now regarded as classics. WHERE DID IT ALL GO RIGHT? is his memorable, irreverent account of that journey.
Pondlife
From the author of The Savage God, a unique memoir of growing old, and a lesson in not going gently into that good night The ponds of Hampstead Heath are small oases; fragments of wild nature nestled in the heart of north-west London. For the best part of his life Al Alvarez – poet, critic, novelist, rock-climber and poker player – has swum in them almost daily. An athlete in his youth, Alvarez chronicles what it is to grow old with humour and fierce honesty – from his relentlessly nagging ankle which makes daily life a struggle, to infuriating bureaucratic battles with the council to keep his disabled person's Blue Badge, the devastating effects of a stroke, and the salvation he finds...
The Biggest Game in Town
Since its first publication twenty years ago, The Biggest Game in Town has become a sought-after cult classic. Acclaimed writer and critic Al Alvarez delves into the murky and compelling world of high-stakes Vegas poker, where 'the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing'. Uncovering an exotic underground rich in ambiance and eccentricity, The Biggest Game in Town is a real one of a kind, deftly capturing the skewed psyches and peculiar rites of professional poker players who descend every year for the World Series of Poker. It's a world that seems almost too surprising and bizarre to be true. 'A cool, precise, sharply witty, vivid evocation of a place and people, their ...
Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist
During World War II, Luis W. Alvarez participated in the Allies’ development of radar at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, and of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. He then worked as an experimental physicist on cyclotrons, particle accelerators and bubble chambers at UC-Berkeley with Ernest Lawrence. Later in life, he used cosmic rays to “X ray” an Egyptian pyramid, developed a new theory about the extinction of the dinosaurs, and won the 1968 Nobel prize in physics for his work on elementary particles. In this autobiography, Alvarez shares insights on the process of scientific discovery, risk-taking in science and how theoretical and experimental physics interact. “[A] delightful autobiogr...
The Savage God
'To write about suicide . to transform the subject into something beautiful - this is the foreboding task that Alvarez set for himself . he has succeeded.' The New York Times
The Writer's Voice
'Should not be neglected by anybody with a serious interest in modern literature and literary criticism.' Frank Kermode 'Is there a more charming literary companion than Al Alvarez? To read this book is to feel the shutters of the mind being slowly jemmied apart, an agonising delight' Spectator _____________________ 'For a writer, voice is a problem that never lets you go, and I have thought about it for as long as I can remember - if for no other reason than that a writer doesn't properly begin until he has a voice of his own.' What makes good writing good? In his brilliant new book, Al Alvarez argues that it is the development of the voice - voice as distinct from style - that makes a writer great. A poet as well as a critic, Al Alvarez approaches his subject both as an informed observer and an insider. Here are - among others - Sylvia Plath, John Donne, Jean Rhys, Shakespeare, TS Eliot, Coleridge and W.B. Yeats, dissected with clarity, depth and a profound understanding of the mechanics of writing. Like the best literary criticism, The Writer's Voice makes writing come vividly alive. Written with passion and insight, it is the ideal gift for anyone who loves to read.
Feeding The Rat
Feeding the Rat is the story of an extraordinary man: climbing legend Mo Anthoine, who found his greatest joy in adventures that tested the far limits of human endurance. That passion for "feeding the rat" made him the unsung hero of dozens of horrifying epics in the mountains, including the famous Ogre expedition that nearly killed Doug Scott and Sir Chris Bonington. The book is also the story of the extraordinary friendship between Mo and adrenaline junkie Al Alvarez - the distinguished poet, journalist and critic - whose deeply moving portrait of his longtime climbing partner is a classic of adventure literature.
Risky Business
Al Alvarez's writing career has come in many guises. One of the most influential post-war critics, he has written profoundly and eloquently about writers and their craft for over fifty years. But Alvarez has also been a passionate amateur of risky pursuits - poker playing, mountaineering, flying in aeroplanes - and he written about these subjects with a rare depth, liveliness and perception. This is a collection of his finest essays. Ranging from trenchant literary criticism to accounts of polar expeditions and poker championships, Risky Business is a sparkling and eclectic anthology from our most unusual man of letters.
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