Books published by Counterpoint

"Ceremonial time" is the moment when past, present and future can be perceived simultaneously. In this, John Mitchell's most magical book, first published in 1984, he traces the life in a single spot in New England from the last ice age, through years of Indians, shamans, and bears to the colonists, witches, and farmers, and now computer hackers. Illustrated.

This is the author's own story of miracles found and fears allayed in the journey out of a confining urban existence and into a simpler, more joyous life. To tell this story fully, she must look through changed eyes at her past - at childhood anxieties, family disaffections, failed marriages, late motherhood, restless boredom and, paradoxically, a native talent for joy. She learns that she has been guided by faith even when she thought she had none. She begins to discern purpose and design both in her stories and in the light by which she sees them - a light refracted through a Quaker lens that searches for the sacred in all people. As the four seasons turn, she celebrates the loves of her new life - family, friends, language, silence and the extraordinary landscape of Vermont.

A literary eventtwenty short stories by the late Maeve Brennan, one of The new Yorker's most admired writers. Five are set in the author's native Dublin, a city, like Joyce's, of paralyzed souls and unexpressed love. the others are set in and around her adopted Manhattan, which she once called "e;the capsized cityhalf-capsized, anyway, with the inhabitants hanging on, most of them still able to laugh as they cling to the island that is their life's predicament."e; Some of the stories are quietly tender, some ferociously satirical, some unique in their chilly emotional weather. All are Maeve Brennan at her incomparable best.

The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry gathers one hundred poems written between 1957 and 1996. Chosen by the author, these pieces have been selected from each of nine previously published collections. The rich work in this volume reflects the development of Berry's poetic sensibility over four decades. Focusing on themes that have occupied his work for years-land and nature, family and community, tradition as the groundwork for life and culture-The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry celebrates the broad range of this vital and transforming poet.

Black Saga: The African American Experience presents the people, places, and events that have shaped the culture and identity of Blacks in the United States. From the African kingdoms that thrived in the days before Columbus to the struggles that continue today, Black Saga's panoramic scope offers a vivid, definitive picture of this rich and complex history. More than a chronology of dates and events, Black Saga interweaves the histories of famous figures with those of unsung heroes. Here are the stories of escaped slaves Ellen and William Craft, California pioneer and entrepreneur Biddy Mason, inventor and businessman Jan Matzeliger, and civil rights activist Hannah Atkins. With more than 230 illustrations - many of them rare - Black Saga also provides information on key issues and accomplishments, Black elected officials from Reconstruction to the present, Black-owned businesses and news papers, and Black musicians, athletes, and recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

In the literary world, there is little that can match the excitement of opening a new book by David Markson. From Wittgenstein's Mistress to Reader's Block to Springer's Progress to This Is Not a Novel, he has delighted and amazed readers for decades. And now comes his latest masterwork, Vanishing Point, wherein an elderly writer (identified only as "Author”) sets out to transform shoeboxes crammed with notecards into a novel - and in so doing will dazzle us with an astonishing parade of revelations about the trials and calamities and absurdities and often even tragedies of the creative life - all the while trying his best (he says) to keep himself out of the tale. Naturally he will fail to do the latter, frequently managing to stand aside and yet remaining undeniably central throughout - until he is swept inevitably into the narrative's startling and shattering climax. A novel of death and laughter both - and of extraordinary intellectual richness.

A collection of stories touches on art, philosophy, and literature, often featuring historical figures and places.Since the publication of Tatlin! in 1974, Guy Davenport has established himself as one of the most original and stimulating writers of fiction today. Twelve Stories draws the best work from Davenports early collections: Tatlin!, Apples and Pears, and The Drummer of the Eleventh North Devonshire Fusiliers. Chosen by the author, these stories are nowhere else in print. Guy Davenports short stories are journeys through history and the imagination. Radically original and surprising, comic and sensuous, Davenports virtuoso talent charms us into a world both familiar and strange. Whether in the timelessness of deep woods or fleeing the bloody dreamscape of battle, Davenports characters embody lifes contradictions.