Books by David Young
Black Lab
by David Young
David Young, the distinguished poet and translator, offers us a gorgeous cycle of poems attuned to the Midwestern seasons—to weather both emotional and actual. A writer of thrilling invention and humanity, Young beckons the reader into an effortless proximity with the fox at the field’s edge, with the chattering crow and the startling first daffodils of spring. In his tour of both exterior and interior landscapes, the poet scatters his father’s ashes and remembers losing his wife, Chloe, to cancer, a loss at times still fresh after several decades; pays homage to the wisdom of the Chinese masters whose aesthetic has helped shape his own; and reflects on the gladdening qualities of a walk in a snowstorm with his black labrador, Nemo:
and in this snowfall that I should detest,
late March and early April, I’m still rapt
to see his coat so constellated, starred, re-starred,
making a comic cosmos I can love.
Young’s expert shaping of this world in which, as he writes, “We’re never going to get God right. But we / learn to love all our failures on the way,” becomes for the reader a fresh experience of life’s mysterious goodness and of the abundant pleasure of the language that embodies it.
Copies
No copies available.
Field of Light and Shadow: Selected and New Poems
by David Young
A career-spanning volume from one of our most valuable living American poets, offering poems that display an exquisite ear tuned to the natural world, to love and friendship, and to the continually renewable possibilities of language. David Young’s settings are at once local and universal—an adolescence in Omaha, late summer on Lake Erie, a sleepless night in the backyard during a meteor shower. He moves with dazzling ease between culture and nature, between the literary and the philosophical, microcosm and macrocosm. Here are poems on Osip Mandelstam and Chairman Mao, the meaning of boxcars on the track, the beautiful names of the months, and a fox at the field’s edge, charged in each case by Young’s fierce intelligence and candor in the face of grief and loss.
“We float through space. Days pass,” Young writes in “The Portable Earth-Lamp.” “Sometimes we know we are part of a crystal / where light is sorted and stored.” His metaphysical reach, balancing remarkable humility with penetrating vision, is one of the great gifts of this exemplary career in poetry.
Copies
No copies available.
Field of Light and Shadow: Selected and New Poems
by David Young
A career-spanning volume from one of our most valuable living American poets, offering poems that display an exquisite ear tuned to the natural world, to love and friendship, and to the continually renewable possibilities of language. David Young’s settings are at once local and universal—an adolescence in Omaha, late summer on Lake Erie, a sleepless night in the backyard during a meteor shower. He moves with dazzling ease between culture and nature, between the literary and the philosophical, microcosm and macrocosm. Here are poems on Osip Mandelstam and Chairman Mao, the meaning of boxcars on the track, the beautiful names of the months, and a fox at the field’s edge, charged in each case by Young’s fierce intelligence and candor in the face of grief and loss.
“We float through space. Days pass,” Young writes in “The Portable Earth-Lamp.” “Sometimes we know we are part of a crystal / where light is sorted and stored.” His metaphysical reach, balancing remarkable humility with penetrating vision, is one of the great gifts of this exemplary career in poetry.
Copies
No copies available.
Black Lab: Poems
by David Young
David Young, the distinguished poet and translator, offers us a gorgeous cycle of poems attuned to the Midwestern seasons—to weather both emotional and actual. A writer of thrilling invention and humanity, Young beckons the reader into an effortless proximity with the fox at the field’s edge, with the chattering crow and the startling first daffodils of spring. In his tour of both exterior and interior landscapes, the poet scatters his father’s ashes and remembers losing his wife, Chloe, to cancer, a loss at times still fresh after several decades; pays homage to the wisdom of the Chinese masters whose aesthetic has helped shape his own; and reflects on the gladdening qualities of a walk in a snowstorm with his black labrador, Nemo:
and in this snowfall that I should detest,
late March and early April, I’m still rapt
to see his coat so constellated, starred, re-starred,
making a comic cosmos I can love.
Young’s expert shaping of this world in which, as he writes, “We’re never going to get God right. But we / learn to love all our failures on the way,” becomes for the reader a fresh experience of life’s mysterious goodness and of the abundant pleasure of the language that embodies it.
Copies
No copies available.
Duino Elegies
by Rainer Maria Rilke, David Young
Named after the Castle of Duino on a rocky headland of the Adriatic, the Duino Elegies speak in a voice that is both intimate and majestic on the mysteries of human life and our attempt, in the words of the translator, to use our self-consciousness to some advantage: to transcend, through art and the imagination, our self-deception and our fear.
Copies
No copies available.
Duino Elegies
by Rainer Maria Rilke, David Young
One of the literary masterpieces of the century, this translation is now presented with facing-page German. We have a marvelous, almost legendary, image of the circumstances in which the composition of this great poem began. Rilke was staying at a castle (Duino) on the sea near Trieste. One morning he walked out on the battlements and climbed down to where the rocks dropped sharply to the sea. From out of the wind, which was blowing with great force, Rilke seemed to hear a voice: Wer, wenn ich schriee, horte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen? (If I cried out, who would hear me up there, among the angelic orders?). He wrote these words, the opening of the first Duino Elegy, in his notebook, then went inside to continue what was to be his major work and one of the literary masterpieces of the century.
Copies
No copies available.
Magical Realist Fiction: An Anthology
by David Young, Keith Hollaman
This capacious anthology has selections from the authors you would expect to find, from others you may be less familiar with, and from writers you might not expect to show up in this company. The result is a treasure trove of unusual fiction, one of the most exciting anthologies to appear in the last decade. This is a poet's companion, a student's delight, great bedside reading: the kind of book you'd take to a desert island!
Copies
No copies available.
The Art of Japanese Architecture
By examining the Japanese history of buildings and building designs from prehistory to modern day, lovers of Japan will develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of this island country.
Simplicity, sensitivity to the natural environment, and the use of natural materials are the hallmarks of Japanese architecture. The Art of Japanese Architecture provides a broad overview of traditional Japanese design in its historical and cultural context. It begins with a discussion of prehistoric dwellings and concludes with a description of modern Japanese buildings. Critical historical influences and trends—notably the introduction of Buddhist culture from Korea and China, the development of feudalism, and the impact of modern Western styles of building—are all discussed in detail as facets of Japanese design.
Through all of these changes, a restrained architectural tradition developed in marked contrast to an exuberant tradition characterized by monumentality and the use of bold colors. The book provides tremendous insights into the dynamic nature of Japanese architecture and how it reflects an underlying diversity within Japanese culture.
The book is profusely illustrated with over 370 color photographs, woodblock prints, maps, diagrams, and specially commissioned watercolors. A classic in the making, The Art of Japanese Architecture will be sure to enlighten and delight readers.
Copies
No copies available.
Stasi Child: A Karin Müller Thriller
by David Young
David Young's chillingly intricate Stasi Child was A London Times “Crime Book of the Month” and a Telegraph Pick of the Week.
1975: When Oberleutnant Karin Muller is called to investigate a teenage girl's body at the foot of the Berlin Wall, she imagines she's seen it all before. But she soon realizes that this is a death like no other before it - the girl was evidently trying to escape from West Berlin.
As a member of the People's Police, Muller's power in East Germany only stretches so far. The Ministry for State Security, the Stasi, assures her the case is closed, all they need to know is the girl's name. Yet they strongly discourage her from asking questions. The evidence doesn't add up, and it soon becomes clear the crime scene has been staged. But this regime does not tolerate curious minds, and it takes Müller too long to realize that the trail she's been following may lead her dangerously close to home ...
Copies
No copies available.