Jack Ross

Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance collects the work of 27 poets who came of age during the 1960s and 1970s, stamping their mark irrevocably on the New Zealand poetic scene and introducing new forms, new language and new freedoms. We hear the instantly recognisable, laconic but swaggering voice of Sam Hunt as he performs one of his 'road songs'; the understated reading of Bill Manhire; the plain-spoken storytelling of Keri Hulme; and the quiet humour of Cilla McQueen - lively, entertaining and moving work from some of New Zealand's best-loved poets. Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance is a follow-up and companion to last year's bestselling Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance. Once again, Jack Ross and Jan Kemp have selected and presented on two CDs material from the Waiata Recordings Archive, collected in 1974 and the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive, completed in 2004. There are more than two hours of poets reading their own work and the accompanying book prints the texts of the poems as they have been read. Selected bibliographies and short biographies for each poet are also included, as well as an appendix of variant readings. As Kemp and Ross write in their introduction, 'these recordings serve to remind us that we are not always a silent people'. Their diverse voices are a treasure.

Poems read aloud bring a new resonance to bare words and familiar texts; poems performed by their authors expand meaning further, enhancing the rightness of cadences and the exactness of language. In Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance some of New Zealand’s favourite poems, by our most celebrated poets, come vividly to life. It is exciting to hear R. A. K. Mason reading lines from ‘Be Swift O Sun’; fascinating to hear James K. Baxter declaiming ‘Poem in the Matukituki Valley’; and moving to hear Janet Frame reading new poems just months before her death. Editors Jack Ross and Jan Kemp have selected and presented on two CDs material from the Waiata Recordings Archive, collected in 1974, and the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive, completed in 2004. There are two hours of poets reading their own work and the accompanying book prints the texts of the poems as they have been read. Selected bibliographies and short biographies for each poet are also included, as well as an appendix of variant readings. The readings in Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance are some of the highlights of New Zealand’s poetic history, and these performances will refresh the interest of those to whom the poems are familiar and inspire those who are encountering these classic poems for the first time.

Home ownership is a continuous learning process, and staying informed is key to maintaining and enhancing your property. 101 THINGS HOME OWNERS SHOULD KNOW is a comprehensive guide breaking down helpful tips, hacks, and advice for new and experienced home owners. In this book, you'll learn: All About Purchasing Your First Home. Maintenance Basics. Landscaping and Outdoor Care. Common Plumbing and Electrical Fixes. Financial Advice. And so much more Whether you use these tips to fix a leaky faucet, tackle a renovation project, or simply understand the intricacies of home systems, you're now better prepared to handle whatever challenges come your way. Your home is a reflection of your care and attention, and with the knowledge you'll gain in this guide, you're well on your way to creating a space that's not only functional but truly yours.

What do we actually mean by the word haunt? In this new set of stories inspired by the term, Jack Ross invokes a series of his favourite haunts via voices from the past, beginning with Samuel Butler's Erewhon and concluding with Emanuel Swedenborg. In between he visits with Irish ghost-story maestro Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, along with others ranging from James Joyce to H. P. Lovecraft - not to mention Scheherazade herself, creator / narrator of The 1001 Nights. Most importantly of all, perhaps, he tries to settle accounts with his own father, the architect of a vast entangled empire of native bush and weeds at the back of their suburban quarter-acre section in Mairangi Bay. The book ends with the novella Cartographies of the Afterlife, an exploration of the penumbra between life and death, based on accounts from recent visitors. In the immortal words of Bette Davis: 'Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.'

David Foster Wallace once wrote that "every love story is a ghost story." Not all of the stories in Jack Ross's new collection are about love, but certainly all of them concern ghosts - imaginary, real, or entirely absent. As it turns out, there are even stranger things in the world: from haunted hotel rooms in Beijing to drunken poetry readings on Auckland's North Shore. Or perhaps, as the Mayan prophets foresaw, the world really did end on the 21st December, 2012, and "all bets are off, all the rules have changed, and - new Adams, new Eves - we have to find the courage somehow to start naming the strange new things we see."

At a time when the word "socialist" is but one of numerous political epithets, divorced from its historical context in America's political history, The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History presents a new, mature understanding of America's most important minor political party of the twentieth century. From its origins in the Labor and Populist movements at the end of the nineteenth century, to its heyday under the charismatic Eugene V. Debs and persistence through the Depression and Second World War under the steady leadership of "America's conscience," Norman Thomas, The Socialist Party of America guides readers through the Socialist party's twilight, ultimate demise, and the successor groups that arose from the party's collapse.

Dramatic changes have taken place in the last decade with respect to the views of the American Jewish community toward Israel and Zionism. Since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000, the involvement of the Israel lobby in precipitating the Iraq War and promoting war on Iran, and Israel's widely condemned wars in Lebanon and Gaza, large swaths of the American Jewish community have been disenchanted with Israel and Zionism as at no other time since the founding of the State of Israel. However, anti-Zionism in America has a long history. Elmer Berger was undoubtedly the best-known Jewish anti-Zionist during most of his lifetime, particularly from World War II through the 1967 Six-Day War and its aftermath. A Reform rabbi, Berger served throughout that period as the executive director of the American Council for Judaism, an anti-Zionist organization founded by leading Reform rabbis. Author Jack Ross places liberal Jewish anti-Zionism (as opposed to that of Orthodox or revolutionary socialist Jews) in historical perspective. That brand of anti-Zionism was virtually embodied by Rabbi Berger and his predecessors in the Reform rabbinate. He advocated forcefully for his position, much to the chagrin of his Zionist detractors. The growing renaissance of liberal Jewish anti-Zionism, combined with the forgotten work of Rabbi Berger and the American Council for Judaism, makes a compelling case for revisiting his work in this full-length, definitive biography.

A collection of the work of 28 young and mid-career poets - who came to prominence in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s - notable for their variety, their fresh approaches to poetic form and subject - and their distinctive but complementary voices. This book is a companion to the bestselling Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance and Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance. It presents material from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive, completed in 2004 - more than two hours of poets reading their own work. The accompanying book contains the texts of the poems as they have been read. Selected bibliographies and short biographies for each poet are also included, as well as an appendix of variant readings.

This work departs from other important sociological studies of voluntary associations in its use of occupation, rather than status and social class, as the clue to the nature of work conditions that directly affect participation in community voluntary associations.