Word: authority
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...there any substance to this life? Was Carsey a kind of scapegrace hero for clearing out? Good, portentous questions, explored by his former friends. The answers may not quite measure up, and the author uses the novelistic device of the omniscient narrator, leaving the reader uncertain of how evidence was tracked down. But when Carsey turns up tending bar more or less happily in the Southwest, it seems that his problems may have been nothing much more than an empty marriage and heavy drinking. He spoke eloquently by his action, and has little more...
LORD BYRON'S DOCTOR by Paul West (Doubleday; $19.95). A tour de force about the cruelty of genius, starring Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary (author of Frankenstein) and the narrator, an indiscreet physician...
AMONG SCHOOLCHILDREN by Tracy Kidder (Houghton Mifflin; $19.95). In this close-up view of a typical fifth-grade class, the Pulitzer-prizewinning author portrays living, breathing children, often overwhelmed by homegrown problems, and an outstanding teacher who scores an A for dedication...
...autobiography, The Education of Henry Adams, the author somewhat sourly recalls teaching at Harvard in the 1870s. What seemed to perplex Adams was the naive faith of his students that their education somehow had a purpose and a utility. When he finally asked an undergraduate what he intended to get out of his studies, Adams was startled by the answer: "The degree of Harvard College is worth money to me in Chicago...
...Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes. But these advantages tend to be small and transitory, especially when compared with the weight that anxious parents and students attribute to them. "For certain kinds of jobs, a Harvard degree might help you get a foot in the door," says economist Robert Klitgaard, the author of Choosing Elites. "But if you look at outcomes -- earnings and social status -- it is very hard to make the case that going to Harvard is worth eight times going to UCLA, which is roughly the difference in their tuitions...