Banks, Russell 1940-

Dreaming up America by Russell Banks( Book )
7 editions published between 2008 and 2010 in English and Spanish and held by 688 libraries worldwide
"Russell Banks, uno de los narradores más sobresalientes de la literatura estadounidense actual, analiza en este breve, ágil y escalaredor ensayo, la mentalidad de ciudadano norteamericano, ahondando en las fuentes de la formación de una colectividad conformada por la herencia de distintas culturas europeas. Para ello realiza un rápido repaso por la historia tal como se ha cristalizado en el imaginario de los norteamericanos, del Mayflower a la era de Internet, pasando por el decisivo papel que el cine hollywoodiense, con sus filmes destinados a la divulgación de gestas bélicas y a la sacralización de sus héroes, ha desempeñado en la coniencia patriótica de una nación. La religión, la doctrina económica, el individualismo, los mitos de la colectividad, la peculiar democracia estadounidense, los distintos orígenes de los pioneros que empezaron a forjar el gran imperio, son analizados, con ludidez, por Banks para proporcionar al lector europeo una idea sobre la concepción que los americanos del norte tienen de sí mismos y del resto del mundo"--Cover, p. 4.

The book of Jamaica by Russell Banks( Book )
12 editions published between 1980 and 2001 in English and French and held by 647 libraries worldwide
Visiting Jamaica, where he is confronted with the beauty, brutality, and social complexity of the island, the unnamed narrator struggles to come to grips with a series of events that frighten and confuse him.

Trailerpark by Russell Banks( Book )
16 editions published between 1981 and 1998 in 4 languages and held by 640 libraries worldwide

Hamilton Stark : a novel by Russell Banks( Book )
14 editions published between 1978 and 2008 in English and French and held by 520 libraries worldwide
Les mystères de l'identité mis en scène dans un roman polyphonique. Un personnage romanesque insaisissable qu'essaient tour à tour de capturer des voix de femmes, avec en toile de fond les traditions du New Hampshire...

Searching for survivors by Russell Banks( Book )
8 editions published between 1975 and 2004 in French and English and held by 489 libraries worldwide

Family life by Russell Banks( Book )
14 editions published between 1975 and 1996 in English and Undetermined and held by 455 libraries worldwide
In Family Life, Russell Banks's first novel, he transforms the dramas of domesticity into the story of a royal family in a mythical contemporary kingdom. Life inside this kingdom includes the king (dubbed "the Hearty" or "the Bluff"), who squeals angrily as is his wont; the queen, who, while pondering the mirror in her chambers, decides to write a book; three adolescent princes who are, respectively, a superb wrestler, a fanatical sports car driver, and a sullen drunk. Then there are the mysterious Green Man with a thing for princes; the Loon, who lives in a tree house designed by Christopher Wren; and a whole slew of murders, mayhem, coups, debauches, world tours, and love and loss and laughter.

The new world : tales by Russell Banks( Book )
4 editions published between 1978 and 1995 in English and held by 426 libraries worldwide
The New World is, in the words of its author, "a carefully structured gathering of ten tales that dramatize and explore the process and progress of self-transcendence, tales that describe and embrace the spiritual limits and possibilities of life in the New World". Both religious and funny, the stories mark a giant step forward in Banks's rapid development into one of the nation's most exciting young writers.

The relation of my imprisonment : a fiction by Russell Banks( Book )
6 editions published between 1983 and 1999 in English and held by 414 libraries worldwide
The Relation of My Imprisonment a work of fiction utilizing a form invented in the seventeenth century by imprisoned Puritan divines. Designed to be exemplary, works of this type were aimed at brethren outside the prison walls and functioned primarily as figurative dramatization of the test of fait all true believers must endure. These "relation," framed by scripture and by a sermon explicating the text, were usually read aloud in weekly or monthly installments during religious services. Utterly sincere and detailed recounting of suffering, they were nonetheless highly artificial. To use the form self-consciously, as Russell Banks has done, is not to parody it so much as to argue good-humoredly with the mind it embodies, to explore and, if possible, to map the limits of that mind, the more intelligently to love it.

Beneath the roses by Gregory Crewdson( Book )
4 editions published in 2008 in English and held by 376 libraries worldwide

Lost memory of skin by Russell Banks( Book )
5 editions published between 2011 and 2012 in English and held by 149 libraries worldwide
This is a novel that illuminates the shadowed edges of contemporary American culture with startling and unforgettable results. Suspended in a strangely modern day version of limbo, the young man at the center of this morally complex new novel must create a life for himself in the wake of incarceration. Known in his new identity only as the Kid, and on probation after doing time for a liaison with an underage girl, he is shackled to a GPS monitoring device and forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of anywhere children might gather. With nowhere else to go, the Kid takes up residence under a south Florida causeway, in a makeshift encampment with other convicted sex offenders. Barely beyond childhood himself, the Kid, despite his crime, is in many ways an innocent, trapped by impulses and foolish choices he himself struggles to comprehend. Enter the Professor, a man who has built his own life on secrets and lies. A university sociologist of enormous size and intellect, he finds in the Kid the perfect subject for his research on homelessness and recidivism among convicted sex offenders. The two men forge a tentative partnership, the Kid remaining wary of the Professor's motives even as he accepts the counsel and financial assistance of the older man. When the camp beneath the causeway is raided by the police, and later, when a hurricane all but destroys the settlement, the Professor tries to help the Kid in practical matters while trying to teach his young charge new ways of looking at, and understanding, what he has done. But when the Professor's past resurfaces and threatens to destroy his carefully constructed world, the balance in the two men's relationship shifts. Suddenly, the Kid must reconsider everything he has come to believe, and choose what course of action to take when faced with a new kind of moral decision. In this novel the author examines the indistinct boundaries between our intentions and actions. It probes the zeitgeist of a troubled society where zero tolerance has erased any hope of subtlety and compassion, a society where isolating the offender has perhaps created a new kind of victim.