Books about Shattuck from Amazon.com

Helen Keller would not be bound by conditions Rendered deaf and blind at 19 months by scarlet fever, she learned to read (in several languages) and even speak, eventually graduating with honors from Radcliffe College in 1904, where as a student she wrote The Story of My Life. That she accomplished all of this in an age when few women attended college and the disabled were often relegated to the background, spoken of only in hushed tones, is remarkable. But Keller's many other achievements are impressive by any standard: she authored 13 books, wrote countless articles, and devoted her life to social reform. An active and effective suffragist, pacifist, and socialist (the latter association earned her an FBI file), she lectured on behalf of disabled people everywhere. She also helped start several foundations that continue to improve the lives of the deaf and blind around the world.

As a young girl Keller was obstinate, prone to fits of violence, and seething with rage at her inability to express herself. But at the age of 7 this wild child was transformed when, at the urging of Alexander Graham Bell, Anne Sullivan became her teacher, an event she declares "the most important day I remember in all my life." (Sullivan herself had once been blind, but partially recovered her sight after a series of operations.) In a memorable passage, Keller writes of the day "Teacher" led her to a stream and repeatedly spelled out the letters w-a-t-e-r on one of her hands while pouring water over the other. This method proved a revelation: "That living world awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away." And, indeed, most of them were.

In her lovingly crafted and deeply perceptive autobiography, Keller's joyous spirit is most vividly expressed in her connection to nature:

Indeed, everything that could hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom, had a part in my education.... Few know what joy it is to feel the roses pressing softly into the hand, or the beautiful motion of the lilies as they sway in the morning breeze. Sometimes I caught an insect in the flower I was plucking, and I felt the faint noise of a pair of wings rubbed together in a sudden terror....

The idea of feeling rather than hearing a sound, or of admiring a flower's motion rather than its color, evokes a strong visceral sensation in the reader, giving The Story of My Life a subtle power and beauty. Keller's celebration of discovery becomes our own. In the end, this blind and deaf woman succeeds in sharpening our eyes and ears to the beauty of the world. --Shawn Carkonen.
Price: $13.59 [Notify me when price goes down.]

For any reader who has been humbled by the language, the density, or the sheer weight of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, Roger Shattuck is a godsend Winner of the National Book Award for Marcel Proust, a sweeping examination of Proust's life and works, Shattuck now offers a useful and eminently readable guidebook to Proust's epic masterpiece, and a contemplation of memory and consciousness throughout great literature. Here, Shattuck laments Proust's defenselessness against zealous editors, praises some translations, and presents Proust as a novelist whose philosophical gifts were matched only by his irrepressible comic sense. Proust's Way, the culmination of a lifetime of scholarship, will serve as the next generation's guide to one of the world's finest writers of fiction..
Price: $10.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Out of print for nearly a century, The World I Live In is Helen Keller's most personal and intellectually adventurous work—one that transforms our appreciation of her extraordinary achievements. Here this preternaturally gifted deaf and blind young woman closely describes her sensations and the workings of her imagination, while making the pro-vocative argument that the whole spectrum of the senses lies open to her through the medium of language. Standing in the line of the works of Emerson and Thoreau, The World I Live In is a profoundly suggestive exercise in self-invention, and a true, rediscovered classic of American literature.

This new edition of The World I Live In also includes Helen Keller's early essay "Optimism," as well as her first published work, "My Story," written when she was twelve..
Price: $6.15 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Portrays the cultural bohemia of turn-of-the-century Paris who carried the arts into a period of renewal and accomplishment, who laid the ground-work for Dadaism and Surrealism .
Price: $7.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Book of Common Prayer runs like a golden thread through the history of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer is the first comprehensive guide to the history and usage of the original Book of Common Prayer and its numerous descendants throughout the world. It shows how a seminal text for Christian worship and devotion has inspired a varied family of religious resources that have had an influence far beyond their use in the churches of a single tradition.
The Guide is unique. In it, experts from every part of the globe and every branch of Anglicanism, as well as from the Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Methodist, and Unitarian traditions, provide an unparalleled examination of The Book of Common Prayer and its lineage. Much more than simply a history, this volume describes how Anglican churches at all points of the compass have developed their own Prayer Books and adapted the time-honored Anglican liturgies to their diverse local cultures. In the dozens of editions now in use throughout the world, the same texts--Daily Prayers, the Eucharist, Marriage and Funerals, and many others--resemble each other, and yet differ from each other in interesting ways. A brief look at "electronic Prayer Books" offers a glimpse at how this story of development and adaptation may continue in the Information Age.
From 1549 to the twenty-first century, The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer offers a fascinating journey through the history and development of a classic of world literature.
"A wonderful and useful book. This book asks all the important questions and provides essential material for those who are looking for answers."
--(The Rev.) Christopher Webber, The Living Church
"It is well conceived physically, graced with both illustrations of historic prayer books and text boxes from the liturgies being discussed, which are a significant help to the reader. This authoritative guide to the Book of Common Prayer as it once was and has now become will well serve anyone interested in Anglicanism or the prayer book tradition."
--Christian Century
"The editors have assembled a roster of authors that is a veritable who's who among Anglican liturgical scholars. [They] have provided a service to the entire Communion by editing this worldwide survey of the Book of Common Prayer."
--Frank C. Senn, Anglican Theological Review
"Hefling and Shattuck have kept a tight hand; they have maintained narrative interest, eliminated overlaps, discreetly filled holes themselves. Excerpts from specimen prayers and documents are given in boxes on the page. In a big book, room has been found for thirty black-and-white illustrations, a chronology, a glossary, a bibliography, a good index, and a world map in the endpapers."
--John Whale, Times Literary Supplement
"Monumental and magnificent! This Guide makes clear why The Book of Common Prayer is both a religious and a literary masterpiece."
--Phyllis Tickle
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Price: $16.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Scooters tells the story of the scooters' transition from a practical, efficient workhorse to a counter-cultural catalyst

The Scootering hobby blends a healthy obsession for things mechanical with a distinct taste for the unusual. Scooters offers an insiders' look at the massive growth of the avocation in North America since the mid 1980's and explores the diversity of characters that make up the scooter scene. Filled with photographs and revving with color and personality, this wonderful book takes the reader along to the rally and should prove revealing and entertaining to those involved in Scootering and those who simply appreciate what it means to love and ride a work of art.

Invented in America and perfected in Europe, the scooter became a critical component in post-war reconstruction on the continent. Out-of-work munitions and aircraft factories churned out the user-friendly two wheelers as a boost to manufacturing and a way of providing inexpensive transportation capable of traversing a beleaguered infrastructure. Two key Italian marques, Vespa and Lambretta, lead a wave of stylish offerings from across Europe and created instant fan fare. Enthusiasm for the machine was such that scooter clubs were formed almost as quickly as the first models rolled off of the assembly lines. Competitive scooter riding events soon followed, and, in their heyday, scooters gave motorcycles a run for their money both on the racetrack and in showrooms.

Colin Shattuck is an active and well-traveled Scooterist involved in DCD, a Denver coalition of Scooter Clubs dedicated to hosting the annual Mile-High Mayhem Rally, one of the most heavily attended in North America. Shattuck is also co-founder of Sportique Scooters, a small chain of Scooter Shops based in Colorado.

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Price: $14.15 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Greer Sands has always downplayed her psychic abilities, but when she moves to a sleepy Los Angeles suburb with her teenage son to open another branch of her successful salon and spa, it doesn't take long for her to sense that something deeply evil is about to break over this peaceful community. There is imminent danger in the lives of her new friends and neighbors, and Greer knows she must find a way to protect them..
Price: $1.70 [Notify me when price goes down.]

An intellectual tour-de-force, Forbidden Knowledge is a study of the ethics of literary and scientific inquiry. Shattuck first approaches his subject indirectly, conducting an engaging tour of Western literature: Adam and Eve, Prometheus, Milton's Paradise Lost, Goethe's Faust, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He then uses these tales to address the moral questions raised by mankind's tendency to search for dangerous knowledge. He contrasts J. Robert Oppenheimer's acceptance of guilt for the atomic bombings with Edward Teller's dismissal of the same. In his own field of literary criticism he argues against the neutral analysis of immoral works as "pure literature," illustrating his point with a critique of the Marquis de Sade. Forbidden Knowledge is a stimulating and forceful intellectual argument against moral relativism, as well as a practical approach to difficult ethical problems, from genetic engineering to pornography..
Price: $2.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]