The Golden Door: Letters to America - Couverture souple

Gill, Adrian

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0753829169 ISBN 13 : 9780753829165

Editeur : W&N, 2013

Synopsis

Where were you when John F. Kennedy was shot? Today the answer more often than not is going to be 'not born'. You have to be some way past 45 to know where you were when Kennedy was shot in Dallas in 1963. A generation later, you could ask the same question about the World Trade Centre. Where were you when the plane hit the twin towers on 11 September 2001? But this book is about what happened between those two moments. The world's perception of America changed between those two waves. A.A. Gill's book is about the things he's always found admirable and optimistic about the United States and its citizens. Two of the happiest times of his life were spent living in New York and the mountains of Kentucky. The contrast between the two couldn't have been more complicated and different. The America he found was contradictory and elusive, not the simpletons' place he'd been led to believe. It was still a list of raw ingredients rather than the old stew of Europe. Now A.A. Gill takes another look at the America he knew in the 1970s, a place that seemed to hold promise, practical energy and a plan for the future.How did it become the political magnetic north, against which the liberal intellectuals from the rest of the world set their opinions? Why is it so easily mocked, so comprehensively blamed, so thoughtlessly hated? This book is a collection of linked essays based around places that will open up truths and mythologies about America and Americans. The theme of his journey will be searching for 'the home of'. Every other small town in America boasts on its Welcome sign that it is the home of something or other: a mountain, a mine, peaches, spotted pigs, a president, the world's biggest ball of string, barbecues, the deepest hole. So that's where A.A. Gill starts, going to find the home of everything.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Britain's most readable journalist takes on his biggest challenge - America.

Where were you when John F. Kennedy was shot? Today the answer more often than not is going to be 'not born'. You have to be some way past 45 to know where you were when Kennedy was shot in Dallas in 1963. A generation later, you could ask the same question about the World Trade Centre. Where were you when the plane hit the twin towers on 11 September 2001? But this book is about what happened between those two moments. The world's perception of America changed between those two waves.

A.A. Gill's book is about the things he's always found admirable and optimistic about the United States and its citizens. Two of the happiest times of his life were spent living in New York and the mountains of Kentucky. The contrast between the two couldn't have been more complicated and different. The America he found was contradictory and elusive, not the simpletons' place he'd been led to believe. It was still a list of raw ingredients rather than the old stew of Europe.

Now A.A. Gill takes another look at the America he knew in the 1970s, a place that seemed to hold promise, practical energy and a plan for the future. How did it become the political magnetic north, against which the liberal intellectuals from the rest of the world set their opinions? Why is it so easily mocked, so comprehensively blamed, so thoughtlessly hated?

This book is a collection of linked essays based around places that will open up truths and mythologies about America and Americans. The theme of his journey will be searching for 'the home of'. Every other small town in America boasts on its Welcome sign that it is the home of something or other: a mountain, a mine, peaches, spotted pigs, a president, the world's biggest ball of string, barbecues, the deepest hole. So that's where A.A. Gill starts, going to find the home of everything.

Biographie de l'auteur

A. A. Gill (1954-2016) was born in Edinburgh. He was the TV and restaurant critic and regular features-writer for the Sunday Times, a columnist for Esquire and contributor to Australian Gourmet Traveller. His books include A. A. Gill is Away, The Angry Island, Previous Convictions, Table Talk, Paper View, A. A. Gill is Further Away, The Golden Door and Lines in the Sand, as well as two novels and the memoir Pour Me, which was shortlisted for the 2016 PEN Ackerley Prize. The Best of A. A. Gill, a collection of his journalism, was published in 2017.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: W&N
• Date d'édition: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0753829169
• ISBN 13: 9780753829165
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 272