Jay Parini: 17 books

Renowned poet and novelist Jay Parini’s The Way of Jesus is a book for progressive Christians and spiritual seekers who struggle, as Parini does, with some of the basic questions about human existence: its limits and sadnesses, and its possibilities for awareness and understanding. Part guide...

An acclaimed American poet, Jay Parini is widely recognized for his ability to confront modern issues in a variety of forms, while adding a highly musical sense of phrasing and a relentless sense of humor. Parini, as seen in his previous works of poetry-Anthracite Country (1982), Town Life (1988), andHouse...

**An intimate, authorized yet totally frank biography of Gore Vidal (1925–2012), one of the most accomplished, visible, and controversial American novelists and cultural figures of the past century ** The product of thirty years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini’s Empire of Self...

In House of Days, his fourth collection of poems, Jay Parini moves beyond his earlier work to address the environmental and spiritual crises that afflict us in the late twentieth century. The book moves from "Nature Revisited," an elegiac sequence of poems about the ontological status of nature itself,...

A new book, the first in over a decade, from acclaimed poet Jay Parini This volume revolves around his deep connection to nature and underlines his concerns about the impacts of pollution and climate change. In these beautiful, haunting poems, Parini writes about the landscapes of mining country,...

This fascinating reassessment of America's most popular and famous poet reveals a more complex and enigmatic man than many readers might expect. Jay Parini spent over twenty years interviewing friends of Robert Frost and working in the poet's archives at Dartmouth, Amherst, and elsewhere to produce...

Becoming an effective teacher can be quite painful and exhausting, taking years of trial and error. In The Art of Teaching, writer and critic Jay Parini looks back over his own decades of trials, errors, and triumphs, in an intimate memoir that brims with humor, encouragement, and hard-won wisdom...

Jay Parini's biography of the poet, Theodore Roethke. Parini views Roethke through the lens of a Romantic poet. With this incredibly researched and well written work, Parini reaffirms Roethke's reputation as a poet that came into his own after the publication of "The Lost Son," and then continued to develop from there and greatly extended his reputation with further works.

“Nothing less than spellbinding . . . It’s an eye-opener. Anecdotal without being tawdry, analytical without being academic, it captures the essence of Faulkner’s life with the narrative drive of a novel.” — Houston Chronicle “A splendid life of William Faulkner . . . Not only readable...

In this lively exploration of America’s intellectual heritage, acclaimed poet, novelist, and critic Jay Parini celebrates the life and times of thirteen books that helped shape the American psyche.   Moving nimbly between the great watersheds in American letters—including Walden, Huckleberry...

From the author of the international bestseller The Last Station, a stirring novel about the adventurous life and tragic literary career of Herman Melville.   As The Passages of H. M. opens, we see, through the eyes of his long-suffering wife Lizzie, an aging, angry, and drunken Herman Melville wreaking...

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE Starring Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, & James McAvoy In 1910, Count Leo Tolstoy, the most famous writer in the world, is caught in the struggle between his devoted wife and an equally devoted acolyte over the master's legacy. Sofya Andreyevna fears that...

From the author of the international bestseller The Last Station, a superb historical novel of the Apostle Paul, whose tireless and epic preaching of the message of Jesus brought Christianity into existence and changed human history forever. In the years after Christ's crucifixion, Paul of...

Ethics, Literature, and Theory: An Introductory Reader brings together the work of contemporary scholars, teachers, and writers into lively discussion on the moral role of literature and the relationship between aesthetics, art, and ethics. Do the rich descriptions and narrative shapings of...