Books published by W W Norton & Co Ltd

A finalist for the 1996 National Book Award, "Sun Under Wood" is full of wit and energy, sadness and humor, and a passion for language and experiences, words and ideas. Now in paperback, this collection explores family life, nature, history, and literature in Hass' singular intelligence and unmistakable voice.

The education Research Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (formerly the Science Teaching Center) was established to study the process of instruction, aids thereto, and the learning process itself, with special reference to science teaching at the university level. Generous support from the National Science Foundation and from the Kettering, Shell, Victoria, W. T. Grant, and Bing Foundations provided the means for assembling and maintaining an experienced staff to cooperate with members of the Institute's Physics Department in the examination, improvement, and development of physics curriculum materials for students planning a career in the sciences.After careful analysis of objectives and the problems involved, preliminary versions of textbooks were prepared, tested through classroom use at M.I.T. and other institutions, re-evaluated, rewritten, and tried again. Only then were the final manuscripts undertaken.In general the books in the series will be brief. Most may be covered in a single term or less. Each will be available in either cloth or paper binding. Their brevity and structure (as well as their reasonable price) will make it possible for teachers to select topics and organize courses according to individual needs and preferences.

A collection of short stories from R.K. Narayan, spanning five decades. Characters include a storyteller whose magical source of tales dries up, and a love-stricken husband who is told by astrologers that he must sleep with a prostitute to save his dying wife.

A classic artistic parody from two of the world's most satiric minds. Moss uncovers remarkable historical anecdotes, which are accompanied by Gorey's absurdly deadpan drawings. Although the insightful scenarios involving Emily Dickinson, Mozart, Henrik Ibsen, and El Greco are all the product of Moss's fertile imagination, his uncanny emulation of style makes us believe they (just possibly) might be true. 25 illustrations.

Richard Hubert ("Hubie") Ward is a wily young actor from the Easternmost world of prep schools and summers on the Cape. By the time he is twenty-five, he has lied, cheated, and seduced his way to the big-time on the Coast. Hollywood prizes Hubie for his air of respectability: "He was not a Latin or a Jew...he was not a booze artist...he was not actorish, he was not pugnacious...he was of the theater, he had been given good notices in an Art picture, he was not confused by an oyster fork, he stood up when ladies entered the room..". But Hubie's blind ambition quickly strips away the guise. He blackmails the man who gave him his first acting job, then spends an amorous afternoon with the wife of a studio head who happens to be his boss. Nothing, it seems, can stop the self-destructive philandering that dogs this shooting star.

American Noise is a rapturous exploration of American culture and landscape. With compassionate wit and insight, Campbell McGrath transports us on a journey through contemporary society, transforming the commonplace into scenes of profound revelation. From late-night bars to early-morning diners, suburban malls to the Mojave Desert, McGrath's meticulously detailed vision defines singular moments of joy and melancholy.

What did it mean for Germany, and the world, to have William II on the throne for the First World War? In The Kaiser and His Times, Michael Balfour analyzes the social, constitutional, and economic forces at work in imperial Germany, and sets the complex and disputed character of the Kaiser, who occupied such a central position in the three decades before 1918, in the context of his family background and the history of Germany.

A devastating revelation of violence, exploitation, and corrupt politics, Coming to Jakarta derives its title from the role played by the CIA, banks, and oil companies in the 1965 slaughter of more than half a million Indonesians. A former Canadian diplomat and now a scholar at the University of California, Peter Dale Scott has said that the poem "is triggered by what we know of the bloody Indonesian massacre... However it is not so much a narrative of exotic foreign murder as one person's account of what it is like to live in the 20th century, possessing enough access to information and power to feel guilty about global human oppression, but not enough to deal with it. The usual result is a kind of daily schizophrenia by which we desensitize ourselves to our own responses to what we read in the newspapers. The psychic self-alienation which ensues makes integrative poetry difficult but necessary." With a brilliant use of collage, placing the political against the personal--childhood acquaintances are among the darkly powerful figures--Scott works in the tradition of Pound's Cantos, but his substance is completely his own.

As a general background, the first two chapters of the book discuss characteristics of Malay rural society, especially in the coastal area, in Kelantan; the main features of Malay marine fishing; and the particular situation of the fisheries in Kelantan and Trengganu. The body of the book then deals with what is in effect an historical case study in economic anthropology, a community of peasant fishermen analyzed in detail. Finally, Professor Firth gives an account on a comparative basis of recent developments in the same community, to bring out some of the underlying social and economic forces that have been at work during the past generation.