Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
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" O'Connor's School For Writers"

The distinct, distinguished Catholic voice from the South

Stellar Insights Into O'Connor's Writing And Fiction In General

Pea chickens

5 1/2 Stars...Fun in the Process!

Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
Flannery O'Connor
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Essays | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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O'Connor, Flannery | ( O ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0374508046

Book Description

At her death in 1964, O'Connor left behind a body of unpublished essays and lectures as well as a number of critical articles that had appeared in scattered publications during her too-short lifetime. The keen writings comprising Mystery and Manners, selected and edited by O'Connor's lifelong friends Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, are characterized by the directness and simplicity of the author's style, a fine-tuned wit, understated perspicacity, and profound faith.

The book opens with "The King of the Birds," her famous account of raising peacocks at her home in Milledgeville, Georgia. Also included are: three essays on regional writing, including "The Fiction Writer and His Country" and "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction"; two pieces on teaching literature, including "Total Effect and the 8th Grade"; and four articles concerning the writer and religion, including "The Catholic Novel in the Protestant South." Essays such as "The Nature and Aim of Fiction" and "Writing Short Stories" are widely seen as gems.

This bold and brilliant essay-collection is a must for all readers, writers, and students of contemporary American literature.

Customer Reviews:

" O'Connor's School For Writers".......2006-11-27

The recurrent subject in this first-rate collection of essays and occasional pieces is the business of writing. O'Connor was scrupulous in her insistence that the writer begin with the humblest of materials, the sights, sounds and smells of the concrete world. She found unreadable, apparently, those writers who had nothing to offer but one abstract psychological insight after another. At the same time she recognized that writers skilled only in giving the world's body a fond description would never transcend mere competence. And of writers merely competent, she asserted that there was in her time a glut. What distinguished the writer of the first rank, always a rare bird, she maintained, was vision, vision of a sort, allied with the aforementioned competence, that enabled such a writer to reveal through concrete events something of the mystery of our existence and experience on this odd planet. Such vision, she consistently held, was a gift that could not be learned in creative writing classes. Therefore, when asked if she thought such classes for writers stifled many talented practitioners, she quipped in her memorable style that such classes, unfortunately, "didn't stifle enough of them."

The distinct, distinguished Catholic voice from the South.......2006-08-19

I haven't read anything by Flannery O'Connor since "All Things That Rise Must Converge." I fell in love with her stories. There is so much life in them. I read this work to get an idea about her "sitz im leben", her life-situation, her milieu. A lot of it is correspondence, and there are some presentations as well. I am wondering if it speaks to the modern would-be novelist as much as it spoke to writers of her time and place. She says that one needs to write out of the context of where you are: the place, the people, the geography. This is mandatory, not optional.

This book is for writers. I appreciate her writing about how to be Catholic in the South, a very small minority. She has contributed much to finding faith in the stories of life, even violent and brutal stories. I look forward to my next work of hers.

Stellar Insights Into O'Connor's Writing And Fiction In General.......2005-07-11

This is a wonderful compilation of essays, speeches and musings by Flannery O'Connor, one of America's finest short story writers. If you have read O'Connor's stories, then this is an essential companion to her stories, because it reveals O'Connor's vision of the South, the grotesque, religion, other writers and the meaning and purpose of fiction. This book also contains some of the most succinct and lucid essays about the art and craft of writing. In sum, this is a superb book that, with the passage time, is timeless.

Pea chickens.......2004-08-10

Before reading this book, I never thought about the grandeur of peacocks and pea chickens this way. As a matter of fact, I do not believe I had ever thought about the royal pea chicken. Most of this book is really entertaining, although some is a little heavy-handed. If you are at all interested in the thought process of Flannery O'Connor, read this book

5 1/2 Stars...Fun in the Process!.......2003-09-22

O'Connor writes with such wit and wisdom that I found myself overwhelmed. I began to mark pages, then realized I was marking each and every one.

Tucked between two short pieces, the meat of the book deals with the craft of writing, the motivation and method, and the spiritual heart of fiction. Never have I read so direct an approach to the mix of religion and art. O'Connor's words can be applied to creative efforts in all fields and in all branches of Christendom. Why then, with such poignant insights penned over forty years ago, does the Church at large still look down on artistic endeavor? Must everything preach a literal sermon for the concrete Western mindset? As O'Connor makes clear, art speaks truth only when it embraces life in all its shades of good and evil.

This book could be titled aptly, "Freedom and Frustrations." Any writer diving into this work will discover O'Connor's pearls of wisdom beneath the waves of public narrowmindedness. Don't pass this by if you wish to make art that matters. You'll be encouraged. You'll also be freed to have fun in the process.

Flannery O'Connor Mystery and Manners, Occasional Prose Selected
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Flannery O'Connor Mystery and Manners, Occasional Prose Selected
Robt and Sally Fitzgerald
Manufacturer: Farrar Straus & Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OYJ35K

Amazon.com

Setting: Yucatan coast, present day

Sensuality rating: 4-5

An Affair to Remember collides with Romancing the Stone in bestselling author Debbie MacOmber's Moon Over Water.. Lorraine Dancy and Jack Keller have little in common, but that doesn't stop their romance from blossoming under the scorching Yucatan sun. Framed for the theft of an ancient artifact and pursued by the police, a drug dealer nursing a grudge, and a crazed archeologist, Lorraine finds herself thrust into the questionable company of Jack Keller, retired mercenary. Jack's task is to get Lorraine safely back to the United States--all the while avoiding border patrols--but Lorraine keeps landing in trouble, right up to her pretty neck! Will the seemingly star-crossed lovers make it out of the jungle alive? And if they do, will they have the courage to live their dream and let love grow where it is meant to be--in each other's arms? Find out in this fast-paced and unpredictable contemporary that will delight loyal fans and make converts out of new readers. --Alison Trinkle

Customer Reviews:

a fun adventure romance.......2005-08-22

This is third book in the Deliverance Company mercenary series, following Someday Soon (Cain's story) and Sooner or Later (Murphy's story), about unscrupulous but likable heros who rescue victims of third world terrorists. I wish I had realized that this was a series so I could have avoided reading the books out of order!

Exciting to read! A lesson in fighting for survival. It also contained a valuable lesson on coming to terms with past familial wrongs, forgiveness and reconciliation with estranged parents.

I enjoyed this book........2002-06-13

Not the best I've read, but it was entertaining. I recommend it.

Too dull to finish........2000-05-30

I couldn't finish this book-----it moved too slow and was too boring.

An easy read for a forgettable afternoon.......1999-11-11

I whipped through this 400 page book in record time. The book, though entertaining, does not require much brain power. It's definitely not one of Macomber's best.

I was perhaps most disappointed in the characters. The impetuously-witty-and-yet-often-ditzy-blond heroine, the unrequited-love-but-I'll-sleep-with-someone-else-to-chase-away-the-demons father, the happy-when-with-daughter-but-unhappy-inside-although-I-did-it-to-myself mother, and the typical-hardened-lonely-noble hero. Even the drug smuggler was a stereotype and the wicked villian was obvious from the first. It seems that chance, fate, and pure idiocy on the part of the characters create most of the action, and it doesn't work.

The biggest disappointment was the ending. The climax--a big, exciting action scene--was resolved 80 pages before the book ended. The last 80 pages wither away as the hero and heroine finally come together after literally months apart. After all, they are static characters: we know they haven't changed and (even after such a long time) will still be perfect for each other heading into happily ever after land.

If you want a brainless novel, get this one. If you want literature, try somewhere else.

???.......1999-10-19

This book is not one of Macomber's best, but it is interesting to see how Jack ties the noose.

Moon over Water: Meditation Made Clear With Techniques for Beginners and Initiates

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Moon over Water: Meditation Made Clear With Techniques for Beginners and Initiates
Jessica MacBeth
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Thrilling Waters spectacle takes Floyd fans over Moon.(Music - Reviews): An article from: Winnipeg Free Press

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Thrilling Waters spectacle takes Floyd fans over Moon.(Music - Reviews): An article from: Winnipeg Free Press
Gale Reference Team
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000SUPIIQ
Release Date: 2007-06-30

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Winnipeg Free Press, published by Thomson Gale on June 29, 2007. The length of the article is 851 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Thrilling Waters spectacle takes Floyd fans over Moon.(Music - Reviews)
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication: Winnipeg Free Press (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 29, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Page: c5

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Debbie Macomber
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Autumn: Purification
Average customer rating:

Humanity's final stand.

Zombie action, but no gore.

Please see my other review for Autumn

An entertaining read

Subdued climax to a subdued zombie series

Autumn: Purification
David Moody
Manufacturer: INFECTED BOOKS
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Book Description

David Moody brings the AUTUMN trilogy to a stunning and brutal conclusion. The survivors from AUTUMN: THE CITY are imprisoned in an underground base, trapped between the door to the outside world and the sealed entrance to the airtight cocoon where hundreds of soldiers sit and wait. The crowd of bodies on the surface continues to grow in size, drawn there by the heat, light and noise occasionally produced by the people buried underground beneath their rotting feet. The sheer mass of shuffling figures and decaying flesh above them begins to cause problems for the military with vents and exhaust shafts becoming blocked and useless. Soldiers are sent above ground to begin clearing the bodies away. Encouraged by a relatively successful first strike which is met with little resistance from the corpses, the officers order their troops to the surface again, this time to destroy them all. Trapped in the middle of a long and bloody battle between the military and the dead, the survivors' safety is compromised and they are forced to flee the base. Exposed and vulnerable once again, the group run for their lives without aim or direction. All hope is gone, but in the rotting shadows of the past they find the key to what remains of their future...

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Customer Reviews:

Humanity's final stand........2007-05-12

David Moody, Autumn: Purification (Infected Books, 2004)

The third entry in Moody's popular Autumn quartet, Purification picks up where The City left off, with the survivors being driven out of the military base by hordes of the (still not flesh-eating!) dead and scrambling to find some place more permanent to make their last stand.

Simply by dint of the fact that Moody's not bouncing back and forth between two unrelated storylines, Purification starts off stronger than The City, and the momentum keeps up throughout the book. The undead continue to evolve, which keeps both the survivors and the reader guessing, and the human relationships between the main characters evolve, as they should. (The minor characters are, for the most part, still cardboard cutouts, however.) The ending does put one in mind of another novel whose ghost has shadowed the entire series, but I figured that was going to be the case.

Quite enjoyable. ***

Zombie action, but no gore........2007-03-27

I have read and reviewed the first 2 "Autumn" books and I am probably sounding like a broken record. There is not enough of the over-the-top Zombie gore that I enjoy so much. There is however more action in this book than the first two in the series.
The books are well written and interesting. The problem I have, besides the absence of extreme Zombie gore, is that the books focus mainly on the characters. The Zombies almost seem secondary to the story.
I enjoyed all three books, but this was my favorite so far. The suspense is tight throughout almost the entire book. You get a possible explanation of what may have caused most of the world's population to die. The Zombies are more violent than ever, and the feeling of despair is at an all time high. Then the mood changes, there may be hope!
These books wouldn't be my first choice in the Zombie genre, but they are entertaining. The story does lure you into wanting to know how it all ends. I have read the first three in the series and plan to read all five books.

Please see my other review for Autumn.......2007-01-04

I've read all the books from the Autumn series. Really good stories, but at times it was hard for me to force myself to pick the books up. For more on this check my other review for the first book of the series, Autumn.

An entertaining read.......2006-11-10

Overall I recommend this series of books for those who like zombie stories. I've read all four and have enjoyed each one.

However, I do have a few issues.

1. David Moody should do a little more research on modern military technology. The military does possess protective suits like those used by the soldiers in his books. However, they protect only against a chemical attack. They do not filter out airborne biological agents. Bacteria is just too small. Viruses are even smaller. You would probably have to carry your own air supply. While it might be possible that the government anticipated this event and created suits customized for this particular bioligical agent, I just had a hard time buying it.

It seems like the survivors are mostly idiots. I can think of a number of ways to fight the zombies that were never even tried in the book.

1. Your in an airfield or some other enclosure and there are so many zombies around that it is difficult to get in an out without letting loads of them in. What do you do?

a. Create a "zombie lock." Think of an air lock on a space ship. You have an smaller enclosed area around the entrance to your large enclosed area. You can use fencing or just create a circle of cars. When you need to let someone in or out, have a crew of guys with baseball bats at the ready. You open the get and let your people out/in. When that happens many of the zombies are going to get in as well. Your bat boys jump in and start smashing skulls while you close the gate. Any zombies that get in are contained in the zombie lock. Then your bat boys kill them all. If there are really lots of them, get .22 rifles and pistols and start shooting them in the head to bring their numbers down.

b. When the number of zombies surrounding your safe haven get too numerous, send out people in tough vehicles to simply do laps around the perimeter while mowing them down. Sure this will make a lot of noise, but I bet you could kill them faster then they could show up.

c. Create a diversion. The zombies are attracted to noise and activity, so have a brave crew of people set up a noise maker at a location farther away but still within earshot. Put a CD player with fresh batteries on a roof top of a nearby building. Have the player loop so it will go on constantly. This will draw the zombies away from you and toward the distraction. Then you can get in your vehicle and start mowing them down.

2. You want a safe haven where you can have food and water as well as the conveniences of the pre-catastrophe world without having to worry about getting trapped by too many zombies.

a. How about a boat? Go to the coast, or even a large lake or a large river and get in a house boat. Go a short distance from shore and drop your anchor. You can stock the boat with all the food and water and fuel you will need for a long time. On board you will have electricity, running water, flush toilets and safety. If you are close to shore you can expect the zombies to gather at your launch point, but you can just travel to a different harbor to get resupplies. The only real worry is bad weather.

b. Just keep moving. There is pleny of gas and vehicles. Do what Mike and Emma did and get a motor home and travel the country. Camp in remote locations and when there are too many zombies around, just step on the gas. Not as good as the boat idea because you will have to be very quiet whenever you stop for a while, but still workable.

Subdued climax to a subdued zombie series.......2006-08-29

It would not be correct to say The Autumn series is a Romero-fan's ultimate zombie series, but its not fair to say its "the thinking man's" zombie series either.

If you worked your way through Autumn and its sequel, The City, you pretty much know what you're getting. Some occassional grisle and gore but mostly a lot of complaining and "didnt-we-already-go-over-this" dialogue. Still, I know I was at least invested enough to see how things turn out. The sadist in me wanted more of the survivors to get mauled by the hordes but the Lost fan in me was interested to see how the ending would develop from here.

Most of the most annoying characters have been weeded out by now, so you know that you won't get too many "what's the point" speakers from here on in, but you still get your gaggle of quitters and whiners, which would be fine, if it weren't every other conversation.

The scenes at the airport are certainly intense and make for the most thrilling in the series since the farmhouse stand-off on the first book.

The Autumn series did just-enough blood/guts/gore to keep me invested, the characters were interesting at time, annoying at others, and Moody's reliance on describing the state of decay on the zombies became less powerful the more and more he did it. By then, he needed to raise the bar and emotional resonance by sacrificing a few more brave souls in a gruesome demise.

Book Description

Five volumes on sanctification published under one cover, presenting biblical foundations and keys to spiritual growth in Christ. It includes "Abide Above", "The Green Letters", "The Ground of Growth", "The Principle of Position", and "The Reckoning That Counts".

Customer Reviews:

In Him ..........2007-10-06

This book has many truths taken from the Bible to make every Christian complete in Christ. Meaning all we need is in Christ, His crucifition, death and resurrection. It's a very good book and helps to explain many wonderful truths of the Bible and the kind of life God wants us to have. Perhaps in ways we didn't really understand at first but after many failures and dissapointments in ourselves, we realize the only way we can have a Godly life. Our vehicle is the Cross and our fuel is the Holy Spirit needed for us to travel down Gods path.... I was put to death on the cross with Christ, and I do not live anymore -- it is Christ who lives in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself to save me. NCV Its a very good book.

Good book, but a little long and repetitive........2007-07-09

This book makes good use of scripture and presents a very Biblical message. There are a lot of great insights and this book can be a great blessing to many.

The major problem with this book is that it is really five books that have been put into one volume. This makes it longer than most modern readers are willing to read. It also gets very repetitive. By the end of the third book, I was finding very little new material. The later books just repackage the previous ones. If you have to finish books that you start (like me) then you may not want to start this book. The last half sort of drags down the greatness of the first half.

For those looking for a similiar, but more readable book, I would recommend "TrueFaced".

A must for anyone who ever doubts their salvation........2007-01-30

Well worth the read. All of us at some time or other has doubts, questions and needs to be strengthened in their knowledge of the finished work of the cross. This book makes great strides in those directions.

Spiritual Eye-Opener.......2006-08-21

This book is a gem; it remains one of my favorites-- to read and re-read. It brought about a turning point in my Christian life, and introduced me to many other helpful authors.

Back to Basics.......2005-12-21

God has stripped away my dependence on most modern authors and led me to this book. It has been like the missing piece to the puzzle of how to live a victorious life in Christ. I have also been able to obtain most of his recommended 'further growth reading' material, much early 20th century. If you have a hungry heart (you'll know if you do!), you must read this book.

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THE COMPLETE GREEN LETTERS
Miles J. Stanford
Manufacturer: Clarion Classic/Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JJVGSC

Average customer rating:

Complete Green Letters, The
Mr. Miles J. Stanford
Manufacturer: Zondervan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OT16WI

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