Books by John Jeremiah Sullivan
Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son
From the award-wining author of Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan's first book, Blood Horses, combines personal reflections about his father and an in-depth look at the history and culture of Thoroughbred racehorses.
Winner of a 2004 Whiting Writers' Award
"Sullivan has found the transcendent in the horse."--Sports Illustrated
One evening late in his life, veteran sportswriter Mike Sullivan was asked by his son what he remembered best from his three decades in the press box. The answer came as a surprise. "I was at Secretariat's Derby, in '73. That was ... just beauty, you know?"
John Jeremiah Sullivan didn't know, not really-but he spent two years finding out, journeying from prehistoric caves to the Kentucky Derby in pursuit of what Edwin Muir called "our long-lost archaic companionship" with the horse. The result-winner of a National Magazine Award and named a Book of the Year by The Economist magazine-is an unprecedented look at Equus caballus, incorporating elements of memoir, reportage, and the picture gallery.
In the words of the New York Review of Books, Blood Horses "reads like Moby-Dick as edited by F. Scott Fitzgerald . . . Sullivan is an original and greatly gifted writer."
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Pulphead: Essays
Named A Best Book of 2011 by the New York Times, Time Magazine, the Boston Globe and Entertainment Weekly
A sharp-eyed, uniquely humane tour of America's cultural landscape―from high to low to lower than low―by the award-winning young star of the literary nonfiction world.
In Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan takes us on an exhilarating tour of our popular, unpopular, and at times completely forgotten culture. Simultaneously channeling the gonzo energy of Hunter S. Thompson and the wit and insight of Joan Didion, Sullivan shows us―with a laidback, erudite Southern charm that's all his own―how we really (no, really) live now.
In his native Kentucky, Sullivan introduces us to Constantine Rafinesque, a nineteenth-century polymath genius who concocted a dense, fantastical prehistory of the New World. Back in modern times, Sullivan takes us to the Ozarks for a Christian rock festival; to Florida to meet the alumni and straggling refugees of MTV's Real World, who've generated their own self-perpetuating economy of minor celebrity; and all across the South on the trail of the blues. He takes us to Indiana to investigate the formative years of Michael Jackson and Axl Rose and then to the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina―and back again as its residents confront the BP oil spill.
Gradually, a unifying narrative emerges, a story about this country that we've never heard told this way. It's like a fun-house hall-of-mirrors tour: Sullivan shows us who we are in ways we've never imagined to be true. Of course we don't know whether to laugh or cry when faced with this reflection―it's our inevitable sob-guffaws that attest to the power of Sullivan's work.
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$20.00
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
by Mark Twain, John Jeremiah Sullivan
Product Description An often overlooked masterpiece of historical fiction by the same author who brought us beloved classics such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, here is Mark Twain's last completed novel--a work of lifelong fascination that involved over a decade of rigorous research.Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte (original full title) is the rigorously researched biography of the young girl who saved a nation, installed a King, and was burned alive at the stake, told in the voice of a fictional page (de Conte) and with an additional narrative frame of having been "translated out of the ancient French into Modern English from the original unpublished manuscript in the National Archives of France."With a side of Twain--reverent instead of mocking--few readers know, the book covers Joan of Arc's childhood, her tours of battle, and her trial and martrydom.In Mark Twain's own words: "I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others need no preparation and got none."For enthusiasts of both Joan of Arc and Mark Twain, this brilliant, fascinating work confirms once again Twain's storytelling genius and his enduring legacy that continues to resonate with readers today. About the Author Mark Twain, who was born Samuel L. Clemens in Missouri in 1835, wrote some of the most enduring works of literature in the English language, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was his last completed book—and, by his own estimate, his best. Its acquisition by Harper & Brothers allowed Twain to stave off bankruptcy. He died in 1910.
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