Best Selling Books by James Salter

Captain Cleve Connell has already made a name for himself among pilots when he arrives in Korea during the war there to fly the newly operational F–86 fighters against the Soviet MIGs. His goal, like that of every fighter pilot, is to chalk up enough kills to become an ace. But things do not turn out as expected. Mission after mission proves fruitless, and Connell finds his ability and his stomach for combat questioned by his fellow airmen: the brash wing commander, Imil; Captain Robey, an ace whose record is suspect; and finally, Lieutenant Pell, a cocky young pilot with an uncanny amount of skill and luck. Disappointment and fear gradually erode Connell''s faith in himself, and his dream of making ace seems to slip out of reach. Then suddenly, one dramatic mission above the Yalu River reveals the depth of his courage and honor. Originally published in 1956, The Hunters was James Salter''s first novel. Based on his own experiences as a fighter pilot in the Korean War, it is a classic of wartime fiction. Now revised by the author and back in print on the sixty–fifth anniversary of the Air Force, the story of Cleve Connell''s war flies straight into the heart of men''s rivalries and fears.

A literary event--a major new novel, his first work of fiction in seven years, from the universally acclaimed master and PEN/Faulkner winner: a sweeping, seductive love story set in post-World War II America that tells of one man''s great passions and regrets over the course of his lifetime.

A brilliant portrait of a marriage from the PEN/Faulkner Award-winner and author of A Sport and a Pastime, with an introduction by Richard Ford. “Light Years is a novel of almost holy radiance to me. It is great in every sense of the word: vast, and timeless, and enduring.”—Lauren Groff, bestselling author of Fates and Furies “Remarkable. An unexpectedly moving ode to beautiful lives frayed by time.”—James Wolcott, Esquire “[A] twentieth-century masterpiece. At once iridescent, lyrical, mystical and magnetic.”—Bloomsbury Review Nedra and Viri''s favored life revolves around delightful dinners, imaginative games with their children, enviable friends, and idyllic days spent skating on a frozen river or basking in the sun on the beach. But even as Salter lingers over the surface of their marriage, he lets us see the fine cracks that are spreading through it, flaws that will eventually mar the lovely picture beyond repair. Seductive, witty, and elegantly nuanced, Light Years is a classic novel of an entire generation that discovered the limits of its own happiness—and then felt compelled to destroy it.

Salter chronicles a love affair between a young shopgirl and an American college dropout against the backdrop of provincial France.

In this brilliant book of recollection, one of America''s finest writers re-creates people, places, and events spanning some fifty years, bringing to life an entire era through one man''s sensibility. Scenes of love and desire, friendship, ambition, life in foreign cities and New York, are unforgettably rendered here in the unique style for which James Salter is widely admired. Burning the Days captures a singular life, beginning with a Manhattan boyhood and then, satisfying his father''s wishes, graduation from West Point, followed by service in the Air Force as a pilot. In some of the most evocative pages ever written about flying, Salter describes the exhilaration and terror of combat as a fighter pilot in the Korean War, scenes that are balanced by haunting pages of love and a young man''s passion for women. After resigning from the Air Force, Salter begins a second life, becoming a writer in the New York of the 1960s. Soon films beckon. There are vivid portraits of actors, directors, and producers--Polanski, Robert Redford, and others. Here also, more important, are writers who were influential, some by their character, like Irwin Shaw, others because of their taste and knowledge. Ultimately Burning the Days is an illumination of what it is to be a man, and what it means to become a writer. Only once in a long while--Vladimir Nabokov''s Speak, Memory or Isak Dinesen''s Out of Africa--does a memoir of such extraordinary clarity and power appear. Unconventional in form, Burning the Days is a stunning achievement by the writer The Washington Post Book World said "inhabits the same rarefied heights as Flannery O''Connor, Paul Bowles, Tennessee Williams and John Cheever" --a rare and unforgettable book. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James Salter''s All That Is.

First published nearly a quarter-century ago and one of the very few short-story collections to win the PEN/Faulkner Award, this is American fiction at its most vital—each narrative a masterpiece of sustained power and seemingly effortless literary grace. Two New York attorneys newly flush with wealth embark on a dissolute tour of Italy; an ambitious young screenwriter unexpectedly discovers the true meaning of art and glory; a rider, far off in the fields, is involved in an horrific accident—night is falling, and she must face her destiny alone. These stories confirm James Salter as one of the finest writers of our time. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James Salter''s All That Is.

With prose at once stark and lyrical, Salter elucidates the spirit of those who abandon material pursuits in search of an unspoiled honesty. He tells of one man''s quest to rise above the mundane in search of peace and self-fulfillment.

This collection offers two dozen essays and sketches about one of the passions of Salter''s life, travel, a subject beloved by writers across the centuries. Over twenty years of skiing, hiking, climbing — from Colorado to Japan to the Tyrol, from Austria and Switzerland to Germany and France, Salter is an engaging companion sharing his great enthusiasm and adventures. James Salter''s novels and volumes of memoir have been widely celebrated and he is now recognized as one of America''s most important writers. Susan Sontag once remarked, "[Salter] is among the very few North American writers all of whose work I want to read, whose as yet unpublished books I wait for impatiently."

A singular life often circles around a singular moment, an occasion when one''s life in the world is defined forever and the emotional vocabulary set. For the extraordinary writer James Salter, this moment was contained in the fighter planes over Korea where, during his young manhood, he flew more than one hundred missions. James Salter is considered one of America''s greatest prose stylists. The Arm of Flesh (later revised and retitled Cassada) and his first novel, The Hunters, are legendary in military circles for their descriptions of flying and aerial combat. A former Air Force pilot who flew F–86 fighters in Korea, Salter writes with matchless insight about the terror and exhilaration of the pilot''s life.

“[A] well–edited collection . . . More than friends and less than lovers, Salter and Phelps were literary soul mates.” —Publishers Weekly It was James Salter’s third novel, A Sport and a Pastime—together with his film Three and a script he had written for Downhill Racer—that in 1969 prompted Robert Phelps to write a letter of admiration. Though the two writers didn’t know each other, their correspondence went on to span decades. The letters themselves are exceptionally alive, uninhibited, gossipy, touching, and brilliant. The successes of Salter and the struggles of Phelps are fully explored by the writers themselves in the kind of honest exchange only letters can divulge. With an insightful foreword by Michael Dirda, this book gives voice to a nearly forgotten figure and his friendship with a man he admired.

In Cassada, Salter captures the strange comradeship of loneliness, trust, and alienation among military men ready to sacrifice all in the name of duty and pride. The lives of officers in an Air Force squadron in occupied Europe encompass the contradictions of military experience and the men''s response to a young newcomer, bright and ambitious, whose fate is to be an emblem of their own. After futile attempts at ordinary revision, Salter elected to begin with a blank page, to compose an entirely new novel based upon the characters and events of his second long unavailable novel, The Arm of Flesh. The result, Cassada, is a masterpiece.

The lives of officers in an Air Force squadron in occupied Europe encompass the contradictions of military experience and the men''s response to a young newcomer, bright and ambitious, whose fate is to be an emblem of their own. In Cassada, Salter captures the strange comradeship of loneliness, trust, and alienation among military men ready to sacrifice all in the name of duty and pride.

James Salter’s exalted place in American letters is based largely on the intense admiration of other writers, but his work resonates far beyond the realm of fellow craftsmen, addressing themes--youth, war, erotic love, marriage, life abroad, friendship--that speak to us all. Following the publication of his first novel, Salter left behind a military career of great promise to write full-time and--through decades of searching, exacting work--became one of American literature’s master stylists. Only months before he died, at the age of eighty-nine, he agreed to serve as the first Kapnick Writer-in-Residence at the University of Virginia, where he composed and delivered the three lectures presented in this book and introduced by his friend and fellow novelist, National Book Award-winning author John Casey. Salter speaks to us here with an easy intimacy, sharing his unceasing enchantment with the books that made up his reading life, including works by Balzac, Flaubert, Babel (whose prose is "like a handful of radium"), Dreiser, Céline, Faulkner. These talks provide an invaluable opportunity to see the way in which a great writer reads. They also offer a candid look at the writing life--the rejection letters, not one but two negative reviews in the New York Times for the same book, writing in the morning or at night and worrying about money during the long afternoons. Salter raises the question, Why does one write? For wealth? For admiration, or a sense of "importance"? Confronting a blank sheet that always offers too many choices, practicing a vocation that often demands one write instead of live, the answer for Salter was creating a style that captured experience, in a world where anything not written down fades away. Kapnick Foundation Distinguished Writer-in-Residence Lectures

Last Night is a spellbinding collection of stories about passion–by turns fiery and subdued, destructive and redemptive, alluring and devastating. These ten powerful stories portray men and women in their most intimate moments. A lover of poetry is asked by his wife to give up what may be his most treasured relationship. A book dealer is forced to face the truth about his life. And in the title story, a translator assists his wife’s suicide, even as he performs a last act of betrayal. James Salter’ s assured style and emotional insight make him one of our most essential writers. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James Salter''s All That Is.

From the PEN/Faulkner Award–winning author James Salter and his wife, Kay—amateur chefs and terrific hosts—here is a charming, beautifully illustrated food lover’s companion that, with an entry for each day of the year, takes us from a Twelfth Night cake in January to a champagne dinner on New Year’s Eve. Life Is Meals is rich with culinary wisdom, history, recipes, literary pleasures, and the authors’ own stories of their triumphs—and catastrophes—in the kitchen. For instance: The menu on the Titanic on the fatal night Reflections on dining from Queen Victoria, JFK, Winnie the Pooh, Garrison Keillor, and many others The seductiveness of a velvety Brie or the perfect martini How to decide whom to invite to a dinner party—and whom not to John Irving’s family recipe for meatballs; Balzac’s love of coffee The greatest dinner ever given at the White House Where in Paris Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter had French onion soup at 4:00 a.m. Sophisticated as well as practical, opinionated, and indispensable, Life Is Meals is a tribute to the glory of food and drink, and the joy of sharing them with others. “The meal is the emblem of civilization,” the Salters observe. “What would one know of life as it should be lived, or nights as they should be spent, apart from meals?”

"A lone bather drifts placidly in a crystalline pool. A field of sunflowers bows beneath a sky threatening rain. A long, gleaming wave curves across the surface of a dark lake. At water''s edge, the sensuality of immersion, the tactility of water, and the transparency of air combine visually to create an otherworldly terrain, an eerie paradise where nature and dreams meet." "Superb compositions that capture and enhance the ever-changing play of light, water, and land, these ethereal images by photographer Sally Gall are at once ominous and serene, disturbing and reassuring. Suddenly we are made aware of the unconscious that lies just below the unrippled veneer, a storehouse of repressed desires - nature empowered with a soul." "In an eloquent introduction, writer James Salter explores the relationship between the photographer and her subject, as well as the mystery, the longing, and the trepidation that these photographs inevitably conjure up for the viewer."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Reprint of the original, first published in 1882.

This chapter provides an overview of social networks, the basic discipline from which ideas and terminology are drawn when characterizing popular phenomena such as “social networking” Internet sites like Facebook. The authors offer the reader a flavor of the theoretical and empirical research conducted by social network scholars since the 1930s. They explore how researchers have used social networks to generate and test economic, sociological, and organizational theories. They also examine broad insights from this research, as well as management implications in areas such as advertising, brands, loyalty, authenticity, and segmentation. The overriding message is that as power shifts from firms to social networks, companies have less control over their own destinies and need to pay more attention to networks.

James Salter inédito. Descubre sus fascinantes reportajes literarios y crónicas de viajes «Uno de los pocos escritores estadounidenses de quienes quiero leerlo todo.» Susan Sontag Reconocido como uno de los grandes maestros de la ficción estadounidense por cimas literarias como Años luz o Juego y distracción, James Salter despuntó también como un virtuoso del reportaje y la crónica de viajes, géneros que cultivó a lo largo de su vida y cuyas piezas más significativas reunió él mismo en este volumen único, inédito hasta ahora. Observador curioso y abierto a todo tipo de encuentros, paisajes y azares, Salter logra fascinarnos con esta evocación sensual y apasionada de los sitios que visitó o donde residió en el curso de treinta años. Con un estilo nítido, confesional y elegíaco que recuerda algunas de las páginas más brillantes de su narrativa, Salter captura la esencia de personas, lugares y momentos para ofrecernos, ya sin las máscaras de la ficción, una particular imagen de sí mismo como una persona dispuesta a adentrarse con idéntico fervor en los cementerios de París, los castillos del Loira, las pistas de esquí de los Alpes, el Japón de Mishima, el corazón de Colorado, la paz de los Cotswolds o el caos de los estudios de Hollywood. Un explorador incansable que seguía las huellas de los escritores que más admiraba y que no dejaba nunca de reflexionar sobre algunos de los aspectos básicos de la cultura, que son también asuntos recurrentes de su obra: la gloria yel heroísmo, la soledad, la grandeza del paisaje, la transitoriedad de las cosas, el amor, las mujeres, el sexo y el escándalo. La crítica ha dicho: «Con el toque literario del autor, estas piezas elegíacas muestran el enamoramiento que Salter mantuvo durante toda su vida con Europa y Japón.» Publishers Weekly «Los recuerdos de Salter se sienten como propios en estos bellos textos que parecen poemas en prosa.» Orlando Weekly «Un maestro.» Richard Ford «Uno de los pocos escritores estadounidenses de quienes quiero leerlo todo.» Susan Sontag «De una sutileza, inteligencia y belleza fuera de lo común.» Joyce Carol Oates «Un estilo excepcional, deslumbrante.» John Irving «Una prosa tensa como un arco y de un impacto asombroso.» The Sunday Times

La elegancia, la claridad y la agudeza de estas páginas deleitarán tanto a los fieles seguidores de James Salter como a los que se acerquen a su obra por primera vez. En estas tres conferencias dictadas en la Universidad de Virginia a los ochenta y nueve años, pocos meses antes de morir, James Salter desmenuza los aspectos esenciales de su oficio con el mismo tono íntimo y directo tan apreciado por los amantes de la buena literatura. Rememorandosus libros y autores predilectos -entre ellos, Madame Bovary, los cuentos de Bábel, Céline o Faulkner-, Salter desgrana los desafíos que invariablemente balizan la carrera de todo escritor: las cartas de rechazo, las reseñas desfavorables o los desvelos económicos. Asimismo, como narrador de vocación tardía, se interroga con acerada lucidez sobre los motivos que lo impulsaron a escribir: ¿fue sólo por dinero? ¿O también en busca de reconocimiento o admiración? Ante las innumerables posibilidades que ofrece la hoja en blanco, Salter nos confía su meditada respuesta: elaborar un estilo que logre captar la experiencia real ante la certeza de que lo que no queda escrito se desvanece. El gran novelista norteamericano expone los misteriosos engranajes que consiguen transformar e intensificar nuestra percepción de la realidad, así como revela cuáles son, a su juicio, las lecturas imprescindibles. La crítica ha dicho... «En las breves páginas de estas charlas sobre el arte de la ficción se aprende tanto que uno tiene la sensación de escuchar la voz de James Salter.» Del prólogo de Antonio Muñoz Molina «La precisión de su prosa era inmutable, ya fuera cuando Salter escribía sobre el deseo sexual, o cuando su protagonista participaba en misiones de combate en Corea. Siempre lograba expresar de manera sucinta lo que creía: "l estilo es el escritor en su totalidad." Estas conferencias hacen que lo eche de menos, a él y a su voz generosa y certera.» John Irving «Un último y generoso regalo del gran James Salter. El lector palpa su devoción por la literatura en cada página, así como su legendaria minuciosidad. Todo aspirante a escritor debería leer este libro, aunque sólo fuera para tener una somera idea de lo que piensa y siente un maestro: desde lo más concreto a lo más poético, aunque siempre respetando el misterio que debe latir en el interior del arte con mayúsculas.» George Saunders

Famós pel seu estil depuradíssim i precís, i per la seva profunditat psicològica i emocional, James Salter és un dels grans escriptors nord-americans contemporanis, fins ara mai traduït al català. L''última nit, un recull de deu relats magistrals, n''és una prova claríssima: a partir del retrat íntim de les relacions entre homes i dones, Salter retrata matrimonis que trontollen i relacions que s''ensorren, i explora temes com l''amor i el desamor, l''engany i el desengany, la incomunicació, la soledat o la passió. Sobri, subtil i afilat però mai inaccessible, capaç d''il·luminar les foscors que s''amaguen darrere les parelles aparentment convencionals i amb un talent especial per als diàlegs vius i directes, Salter s''ha guanyat un lloc a la prestatgeria dels imprescindibles de la literatura universal.

« Toute vie est un processus de démolition », écrivait Scott Fitzgerald. James Salter semble lui donner raison avec ce roman cruel et subtil.Nedra est belle, assurée, et sait donner aux gestes quotidiens une sorte d’élégance. Viri est architecte. Il rêve d’accomplir une œuvre qui lui survivra, et dévore les biographies d’hommes illustres. Ils habitent une vieille demeure non loin de New York, ils s’aiment. Peut-être sont-ils moins heureux qu’ils ne le disent. Quand le temps aura fait son œuvre, il ne restera plus, des amours de Nedra et Viri, que des ruines et des regrets. Tendre est la nuit, mais la perfection du bonheur n’est pas de ce monde.James Salter est né en 1925 à New York. Pilote de chasse dans l’US Air Force pendant la guerre de Corée, il a également été scénariste à Hollywood. Ses romans (Un sport et un passe-temps, Cassada...) et ses mémoires (Une vie à brûler) sont les œuvres d’un stylistique subtil et remarquable.Traduit de l’anglais (États-Unis) par Lisa Rosenbaum et Anne Rabinovitch.

Onze variations sur le passage. Le passage du jour à la nuit, de l''enfance à l''âge adulte, de la vie à la mort. Un accident de cheval, un oiseau mort, la couleur du Rhin à Bâle, une chambre d''hôtel à Vérone, une fille au pair un peu trop provocante: tels sont les motifs à partir desquels James Salter développe sa mélodie - ce mélange de mélancolie, d''émotion et de sécheresse, qui n''appartient qu''à lui.