Talking about detective fiction

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Liam Burke

In 1978 Superman made audiences believe a man could fly. Since then, Superhero Movies have shown that man can not only fly, but swing from webs through New York's concrete canyons, turn monstrous shades of green if suitably vexed and dress as giant rodents to safeguard the city streets. Today, there are more Superhero Movies than ever before as the cinematic skies are filled with caped crusaders and nocturnal vigilantes that continue to delight and excite cinemagoers the world over. This book reveals the secret identity of the Superhero Movie, examining how cinema has come to represent the mythological icons of our age. Through detailed analysis and fascinating facts, Superhero Movies explores how, in a single bound, the Superhero has made the leap from the comic book page to the silver screen. So fasten your utility belt as you prepare to take flight with Superhero Movies. Includes an exclusive interview with Stan Lee, former president of Marvel Comics, creator of Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Iron Man, the Hulk, the Silver Surfer and Daredevil.

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Steven Watson

From New York to San Francisco, Texas, Mexico, and beyond, the fascinating group of maverick poets and writers known as the Beats lived a life of wild experimentation, rebelling against the buttoned-up conformity of the 1950s. With text accompanied by more than one hundred photographs, The Birth of the Beat Generation brings their rebellion into sharp focus, tracing the connections between such figures as William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and Herbert Huncke to reveal the legend that would make them into cultural icons.

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Ronald H. Wainscott

From World War I to the stock-market crash of 1929, New York theatre enjoyed a period of unequaled creative output and experimentation that redefined the direction of American theater - both mainstream and avant-garde - for decades to come, says Ronald Wainscott. In this handsomely illustrated book, Wainscott explores the emergence of the modern American theater in New York during a turbulent era of clashing artistic tastes and conflicting cultural, economic, and political events. He provides the first complete historical and cultural examination of the period he deems Broadway's most prolific and influential, and he offers an immense trove of material on plays and productions from 1914 to 1929.

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Herbert C. Morton

The publication of Webster's Third New International Dictionary in 1961 set off a storm of controversy both in the popular press and in scholarly journals that was virtually unprecedented in its scope and intensity. The New York Times ridiculed the new dictionary's alleged failure to label slang in a now-famous editorial that began, "A passel of double-domes at the G. & C. Merriam Company joint in Springfield, Mass., have been confabbing and yakking for twenty-seven years...and now they have finalized...a new edition of a swell and esteemed book.". The attack was joined by Life magazine, the Saturday Review, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and other magazines and newspapers across the country. Critics charged that Webster's Third had abandoned its responsibility to uphold standards of good English and that it would encourage permissiveness in the teaching of English. Rejoinders by the dictionary's editor, Philip Babcock Gove, and sympathetic journalists and scholars had little effect. Herbert Morton tells the story from the beginning, drawing on new sources: Gove's papers, the files of the publisher, and interviews with former staff members and participants in the controversy. He describes how the Third Edition was planned and put together by Gove, where it went astray, and how it was misunderstood and misinterpreted by its detractors. Later assessments showed that its flaws were exaggerated. It has come to be regarded by virtually all language experts as one of the great dictionaries of our time. This is a very human story as well as the first full account of an extraordinary episode in the annals of lexicography. The issues it brought to the fore are still alive and will be of interest to all those fascinated by the English language and by how it is recorded in our dictionaries.