Gary Schmidt

Miril Li poterjala luchshego druga, i roditeli otpravili ee uchitsja v prestizhnuju shkolu-pansion - chtoby ona smenila obstanovku. Mett tozhe poterjal luchshego druga, i zhivet teper v zabroshennoj lachuge na beregu okeana - on skryvaetsja ot opasnogo prestupnika. I Miril, i Mett slishkom khorosho znajut, chto takoe pustota vnutri i nakryvajuschaja tebja Mgla. No im udastsja vse preodolet: pust eto budet ne prosto, pust ne v mgnovenie oka, - Mgla rano ili pozdno rasseetsja. Glavnoe - slushat svoe serdtse i ne bojatsja. Zakljuchitelnaja kniga trilogii Geri Shmidta, v kotoruju voshli "Bitvy po sredam" i "Poka normalno".

U Duga Sviteka i tak zhizn ne sakhar: odin brat sluzhit vo Vetname, u vtorogo kriminalnye naklonnosti, s ottsom voobsche luchshe ne sporit - srazu vrezhet. I tut esche pereezd v duratskij gorodishko Merisvill. No v Merisville Duga zhdet ne tolko chuzhoe, muchitelnoe i gorkoe, no i po-nastojaschemu prekrasnoe. Tak, naprimer, on uvidit gravjury Odjubona i nachnet risovat, pouchastvuet v brodvejskoj postanovke, a glavnoe - poznakomitsja s Lil, u kotoroj samye zelenye glaza na svete. "Poka normalno" - vtoraja chast zadumannoj Geri Shmidtom trilogii, nachatoj povestju "Bitvy po sredam" (no glavnyj geroj pomenjalsja, v "Bitvakh" Dug Svitek igral vtorostepennuju rol). Kak i v pervoj chasti, Geri Shmidt issleduet zhizn obychnoj amerikanskoj semi v kontse 1960-kh gg., v period istoricheskikh potrjasenij i vojn, mezhpokolencheskikh razryvov, moschnykh grazhdanskikh dvizhenij i sloma privychnogo zhiznennogo uklada. Vojna vo Vetname i Kholodnaja vojna, grazhdanskie protesty i dvizhenie "detej-tsvetov", domashnee nasilie i patriarkhalnye tsennosti - eto ne prosto istoricheskie dekoratsii, na fone kotorykh proiskhodit dejstvie knigi. V "Poka normalno" dykhanie istorii kosnulos kazhdogo personazha. I kazhdomu predstoit razobratsja s tem, kak emu teper zhit dalshe. Tem ne menee, "Poka normalno" - eto ne istoricheskaja povest o sobytijakh poluvekovoj davnosti. Eto v pervuju ochered kniga dlja podrostkov o podrostkakh. Vosmiklassnik Dug Svitek, khuligan i dvoechnik, uzhe mnogoe uznal o surovosti i nespravedlivosti zhizni. No v tot moment, kogda kazhetsja, chto vykhoda net, Geri Shmidt, kak nastojaschij gumanist, prikhodit na pomosch geroju. Dlja Duga znakomstvo s rabotami amerikanskogo khudozhnika Dzhona Dzhejmsa Odjubona, razmyshlenija nad gravjurami, tschatelnoe kopirovanie rabot mastera stali kljuchom k otkrytiju samogo sebja i mira. A otchajannye i, na pervyj vzgljad, obrechennye na neudachu popytki sobrat voedino rasprodannye gravjury iz knigi Odjubona - pervoj nastojaschej zhiznennoj pobedoj. Na etom puti Dug Svitek vstretil novykh druzej i pervuju ljubov. Geri Shmidt predlagaet proverennyj vremenem retsept: iskusstvo, druzhba i ljubov, - i my nadeemsja, chto on pomozhet ne tolko gerojam knigi, no i chitateljam. Razumeetsja, ko vsemu etomu neobkhodimo dobavit prekrasnyj jazyk (otlichno peredannyj Vladimirom Babkovym), zakruchennyj sjuzhet i otlichnoe chuvstvo jumora - neizmennye sostavljajuschie vsekh knig Geri Shmidta.

A beautiful collection of meditative and relaxing piano solos from award winning pianist, Gary Schmidt. Features all the piano scores from the recordings "Landscapes of the Heart" (produced by Windham Hill founder Will Ackerman) and "Even For a Moment" (HeartDance Records). Difficulty level - moderate.

A Charming tale to remind us all that our kindness works miracles. “When the sun sets and stars fill the sky, the square in the little town grows quiet and still. The cool air of distant hills mingles with the sweet scent of baking bread. The moon rises and glows softly. It’s the sort of place where miracles could happen.” David and Jacob live in the same little, ordinary town, but it’s almost as if they’re from different worlds. David is so poor he can barely feed his family. Jacob is so consumed with staying rich he thinks about nothing but money. But the two men have one thing in common: they both believe that miracles are big, magical things that can only happen somewhere else, to someone else. But when Jacob wakes up from a nap in synagogue one day, sure that God has demanded twelve loaves of bread from him, all this changes in amazing ways you’d never expect. A delightful, timeless legend based on Jewish tradition, In God’s Hands tells of the ordinary miracles that occur when we really, truly open our eyes to the world around us.

In a literary environment dominated by men, the first American to earn a living as a writer and to establish a reputation on both sides of the Atlantic was, miraculously, a woman. Hannah Adams dared to enter - and in some ways was forced to enter - a sphere of literature that had, in eighteenth-century America, been solely a male province. Driven by poverty and necessity, and aided by an extraordinarily adept mind and keen sense of business, Adams authored works on New England history, sectarian history, and Jewish history, using and citing the most recent scholarly works being published in Great Britain and America. As a female writer, she would always remain something of an outsider, but her accomplishments did not by any means go unrecognized: embraced by the Boston intelligentsia and highly regarded throughout New England, Adams came to epitomize the possibility in a democratic society that anyone could rise to a circle of intellectual elites. In A Passionate Usefulness, the first book-length biography of this remarkable figure, Gary Schmidt focuses primarily on the intimate connection between Adams's reading and her own literary work.

The male homosexual appears in many guises in postwar West German literature: whether he is a sexually predatory soldier, corrupt teacher, decadent artist, purveyor of kitsch, or powerful industrialist, he appears almost always as an insider of the social and political system. Writers such as Heinrich B ll, Wolfgang Koeppen and Alfred Andersch utilized images of homosexuality in order to examine the Nazi past and to critique the Federal Republic of Germany. Their literary depictions are informed by discourses that circulated in the early twentieth century, including the scientism of Magnus Hirschfeld, the masculinism of the German youth movement and the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen, and the literary irony of Thomas Mann. Pre-Nazi images of homosexuality reappear in postwar West German literature in a new sociohistorical context, in which the meaning of the Nazi past and its relationship to the new Federal Republic is debated on many levels. The Nazi Abduction of Ganymede traces the development of a postwar West German literary tradition that participated in parallel developments in philosophy, psychoanalysis, and popular culture, all of which continued to find new ways to link homosexuality with fascism.