The narrator looks back on his childhood and his relationship with his family

American Memory, An

History

Larsen, Eric

Americas

Anchor

Born in 1941 when her mother was only nineteen, Zoe faces her mother's lifelong anger only after Zoe goes off to college and lives on her own for the first time

I Am Zoe Handke

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Random House Value Publishing

An American Memory

Algonquin Books

Born in 1941 when her mother was only nineteen, Zoe faces her mother's lifelong anger only after Zoe goes off to college and lives on her own for the first time

I Am Zoe Handke: A Novel

Passionately intelligent essays lamenting the extent and enormous damage of the cover-up of 9/11 truth in American journalism and media.

The Skull of Yorick: The Emptiness of American Thinking at a Time of Grave Peril

Oliver Arts and Open Press

If you've never read the Iliad, it's possible that this little book could be a way for you to get a start on it. If you remember  just hating the Iliad because it was taught by the most boring instructor that the imagination of all of the gods could ever have produced-well, this book can offer a second shot at the poem that's likely to work out better this time. And if, like so many others, you're just intimidated by the "great classics," Homer for Real is for you.  The writer Eric Larsen was like that. Bored to tears by his first classics prof, he could barely stand the Iliad. Later, as a professor  himself, he had to teach it-and did so for 40 years. Afterward, he decided to write a book about what it was that made him come to love the poem. He brings the epic alive by citing passages, then analyzing what's really going on and why. We not only learn about the culture of Homer's time, but also understand the action through present day analogies. That's the purpose and aim of Homer for Real, first of a series called Great Literature for Regular People: A Course of Readings Drawn from a Life in the Classroom. It's user-friendly but it doesn't simplify. Chances are good that it's a book for you.

HOMER FOR REAL: A READING OF THE ILIAD

History & Criticism

THE OLIVER ARTS AND OPEN PRESS

Larsen stretches conventional fiction's reach with this story of a character whose childhood and coming-of-age consist of his gradual internalizing of history-as he puts it, his coming to understand "the mysteries of space and time." At first, he sees only glimpses of life-through the briefly-opened "windows" of eyesight in early childhood. Later on, everything begins serving as windows into the past-objects, locations, landscapes, the town he's born in, the people in it-even his aging great-aunts Marie and Lutie, whose origins are back in the 19th century.   Through small things like a visit from his great-aunts one afternoon in 1944 (when he's four years old), a blimp cruising overhead in 1946, goldfish hovering beneath the surface of a pond, the sound of a train whistle in the night, Malcolm Reiner comes to understand that things can be related "horizontally," then also "vertically"-relationships that, when combined with the element of time itself, reveal history-that is, as life, followed by the absence of life-to be a web of such intricate complexity that it can't ever be understood.   And yet Reiner dedicates his life to exactly this "study of the mysteries of space and time." In his "studies" he finds a sweep of time includes the history of West Tree, Minnesota; of the "Epoch of Walking"; and of his own "years of perfect seeing," the period when, living on a farm outside West Tree, he's able, with a poetic vividness rare in fiction, to sense and see what America once was.

The End of the 19th Century

Ursa Minor

Poetry

lulu.com

Kudzu

Arts & Photography

In March 2014, Eric Larsen and Ryan Waters set out to traverse nearly 500 miles across the melting Arctic Ocean, unsupported, from Northern Ellesmere Island to the geographic North Pole. Despite being one of the most cold and hostile environments on the planet, the Arctic Ocean has seen a steady and significant reduction of sea ice over the past seven years due to climate change. Because of this, Larsen’s and Waters’ trip—dubbed the “Last North Expedition”—is expected to be the last human-powered trek to the North Pole, ever. Filled with stunning, full-color photos and GPS maps plotting his progress, On Thin Ice is Larsen’s first-person account of this historic two-man expedition. Traveling across the retreating sea ice on skis, snowshoes, and even swimming through semi-frozen arctic slush, Larsen and Waters each pulled over 320 pounds of gear behind them on sleds through temperatures that plummeted to nearly 70 degrees below zero. At times, they covered little over a mile a day. They were stalked by polar bears and ran out of food. It was, in Larsen’s words, “easily one of the most difficult expeditions in the world.” More than just a heart-stopping adventure narrative, however, On Thin Ice offers an intimate and haunting look at the rapidly changing face of the Arctic due to global climate change.

On Thin Ice: An Epic Final Quest into the Melting Arctic

Science & Math

Lindenberger, Hudson

Nature & Ecology

Falcon Guides

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Books by Larsen, Eric