Amherst Reads All Books

Leo Brice is dead, in a sense (not the traditional one). When the neurotic law student meets his cosmic match in Fiona Haeberle, an impulsive spirit and burgeoning soap star, all seems well―the two fall fast in love, and spend three years navigating their twenties in wide-eyed wonder. But once the fantastical woman who had defined his future bolts to pursue a fantasy life of her own, Leo is forced to come to terms with a reality that more closely resembles an epilogue than the story he’d hoped it might be. Now a junior death row advocate, Leo immerses himself in the esoteric world of his condemned client, a born-again Georgia inmate named Michael Tiegs. As both men become consumed by the question of an afterlife―and as Leo becomes increasingly confused by his own future and past―Tiegs’ fate hangs in the balance. Leaning on his friends and grappling with his memories, Leo must try to save a client who may not want to be saved after all, even as he struggles to confront the prospect of his own mortality.

Virtually everything about the way people live and do business is changing faster than ever before. Digital technology, global development, urbanization, and business disruption represent both a major opportunity and a threat in the global economy. Although individuals and organizations are aware that the world is changing exponentially, most are ill-equipped to face this level of disruption and volatility. The Disruptors' Feast is a unique look into the trends that are shaping the world of the future, and a guide on how to avoid being eaten alive.

Frits van Paasschen is a seasoned global executive whose work has brought him to more than 100 countries. In The Disruptors' Feast, van Paasschen takes readers on a literary journey to far-flung places around the globe to uncover the forces that are disrupting the status quo and driving change. His travel experiences illustrate how the stage is being set for even greater disruption, and what individuals and organizations can do to prepare for change and stay relevant in a tumultuous environment.

This book isn't about the end of an era, but the end of eras. People have everything to gain or lose in how they deal with what is coming, regardless of their location, industry, profession, or aspirations. van Paasschen's unique insight offers a fresh perspective that is dearly needed in business today.

Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Richard Wilbur (b. 1921) is part of a notable literary cohort, American poets who came to prominence in the mid-twentieth century. Wilbur's verse is esteemed for its fluency, wit, and optimism; his ingeniously rhymed translations of French drama by Molière, Racine, and Corneille remain the most often staged in the English-speaking world; his essays possess a scope and acumen equal to the era's best criticism. This biography examines the philosophical and visionary depth of his world-renowned poetry and traces achievements spanning seventy years, from political editorials about World War II to war poems written during his service to his theatrical career, including a contentious collaboration with Leonard Bernstein and Lillian Hellman.

Wilbur's life has been mistakenly seen as blessed, lacking the drama of his troubled contemporaries. Let Us Watch Richard Wilbur corrects that view and explores how Wilbur's perceived "normality" both enhanced and limited his achievement. The authors augment the life story with details gleaned from access to his unpublished journals, family archives, candid interviews they conducted with Wilbur and his wife, Charlee, and his correspondence with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, John Malcolm Brinnin, James Merrill, and others.