{"product_id":"9781101874745","title":"The William H. Gass Reader","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA literary delight—a reading feast; a Gassian celebration—the best of the best: more than fifty selections chosen by Gass himself from his essays, criticism, commentary, short stories, and novels.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt begins with his essays, in which Gass looks back at varying points in his writing life at those writers (from Plato, Hobbes, and James, to Joyce, Beckett, Stein, and Gaddis) whose work he found inspiring . . . and at those whose work he explores and embraces (Laurence Sterne's \u003ci\u003eTristram Shandy;\u003c\/i\u003e Ford Madox Ford's \u003ci\u003eParade's End;\u003c\/i\u003e Thomas Mann's \u003ci\u003eThe Magic Mountain;\u003c\/i\u003e Stendhal's \u003ci\u003eThe Red and the Black\u003c\/i\u003e). He writes (from \u003ci\u003eA Temple of Texts\u003c\/i\u003e) on the nature and value of writing (\"The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words\").\u003cbr\u003e     Here is a rich experience of Gass's short fiction: from \u003ci\u003eEyes\u003c\/i\u003e, his masterfully crafted novella, \"In Camera,\" about collecting, hording; about suspicions run amok . . . from \u003ci\u003eCartesian Sonata\u003c\/i\u003e . . . and \u003ci\u003eIn the Heart of the Heart of the Country\u003c\/i\u003e (1968), a mythical reimagining of America's heartland.\u003cbr\u003e     And from his nimble, daredevil novels: \u003ci\u003eMiddle C\u003c\/i\u003e (2013), the chronicle of an Austrian-born man who, as a child with his mother, relocates to America's Midwest (Woodbine, Ohio), grows up a low-skilled amateur piano player to become a music professor at a small Bible college; his only hobby a fantasy life as the curator of his Inhumanity Museum . . . and from \u003ci\u003eThe Tunnel\u003c\/i\u003e (\"The most beautiful, most complex, most disturbing novel to be published in my lifetime\" —Michael Silverblatt,\u003ci\u003e Los Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47035370012912,"sku":"9781101874745","price":40.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781101874745_p0.jpg?v=1763689722","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781101874745","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}