Books by Robert Stone
Born: 1937
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Robert Stone Biography & Notes
Robert Stone (born 1937) is a critically well regarded American novelist, whose work is typically characterized by psychological complexity, political concerns, and dark humor.
Stone was born in Brooklyn, New York. Until the age of six he was raised by his mother, who suffered from schizophrenia; after she was institutionalized, he spent several years in a Catholic orphanage.
He dropped out of high school in 1954 and joined the Navy for four years, where he worked as a journalist. In the early 1960s, he briefly attended New York University; worked as a copyboy at the New York Daily News; married and moved to New Orleans; attended a workshop with Wallace Stegner in San Francisco, where he began writing a novel; met the influential Beat Generation writer Ken Kesey and travelled with the Merry Pranksters, before returning to New York.
In 1967 Stone published his first novel, A Hall of Mirrors, which won a William Faulkner Foundation award for best first novel. Set in New Orleans in 1962 and based partly on actual events, the novel depicted a political scene dominated by right-wing racism, but its style was more reminiscent of Beat writers than of earlier social realists: alternating between naturalism and stream of consciousness, with a large cast of often psychologically unstable characters, it set the template for much of Stone's later writing. It was adapted into the 1970 film WUSA. The novel's success led to a Guggenheim Fellowship and began Stone's career as a professional writer and teacher.
His second novel, Dog Soldiers (1974), was a thriller of sorts about a journalist smuggling heroin from Vietnam (where Stone had briefly travelled as a war correspondent in 1971). It won the 1975 National Book Award, and was also adapted into a film, Who'll Stop the Rain.
A Flag for Sunrise (1981) made Stone's left-wing politics even more explicit than in his earlier work, portraying a fictional Central American country in which U.S.-backed forces commit atrocities to suppress a Marxist revolution; it won a PEN/Faulkner Award. His next two novels focused on smaller-scale conflicts: the psychotic breakdown of a movie actress in Children of Light (Stone's least critically successful novel), and a circumnavigation race in Outerbridge Reach (based loosely on the story of Donald Crowhurst). He returned to current events with Damascus Gate (1998), about a man with messianic delusions caught up in a terrorist plot in Jerusalem.
Stone currently lives in New York with his wife. He has two children.
Stone was born in Brooklyn, New York. Until the age of six he was raised by his mother, who suffered from schizophrenia; after she was institutionalized, he spent several years in a Catholic orphanage.
He dropped out of high school in 1954 and joined the Navy for four years, where he worked as a journalist. In the early 1960s, he briefly attended New York University; worked as a copyboy at the New York Daily News; married and moved to New Orleans; attended a workshop with Wallace Stegner in San Francisco, where he began writing a novel; met the influential Beat Generation writer Ken Kesey and travelled with the Merry Pranksters, before returning to New York.
In 1967 Stone published his first novel, A Hall of Mirrors, which won a William Faulkner Foundation award for best first novel. Set in New Orleans in 1962 and based partly on actual events, the novel depicted a political scene dominated by right-wing racism, but its style was more reminiscent of Beat writers than of earlier social realists: alternating between naturalism and stream of consciousness, with a large cast of often psychologically unstable characters, it set the template for much of Stone's later writing. It was adapted into the 1970 film WUSA. The novel's success led to a Guggenheim Fellowship and began Stone's career as a professional writer and teacher.
His second novel, Dog Soldiers (1974), was a thriller of sorts about a journalist smuggling heroin from Vietnam (where Stone had briefly travelled as a war correspondent in 1971). It won the 1975 National Book Award, and was also adapted into a film, Who'll Stop the Rain.
A Flag for Sunrise (1981) made Stone's left-wing politics even more explicit than in his earlier work, portraying a fictional Central American country in which U.S.-backed forces commit atrocities to suppress a Marxist revolution; it won a PEN/Faulkner Award. His next two novels focused on smaller-scale conflicts: the psychotic breakdown of a movie actress in Children of Light (Stone's least critically successful novel), and a circumnavigation race in Outerbridge Reach (based loosely on the story of Donald Crowhurst). He returned to current events with Damascus Gate (1998), about a man with messianic delusions caught up in a terrorist plot in Jerusalem.
Stone currently lives in New York with his wife. He has two children.
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Banderas Al Amanecer by Robert Stone ( 1982) |
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Bay of Souls by Robert Stone ( 2004)
Becoming involved with new faculty member Lara, who claims to be possessed, professor Michael Ahern journeys to Lara's native island of St. Trinity, where he becomes enmeshed in a smuggling scheme. By the author of the National Book Award-winning Dog Soldiers. Reprint.
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Bear and His Daughter Stories by Robert Stone ( 1997)
In "Miserere", Mary Urquhart is a widowed librarian whose unspeakable secret concerning the death of her husband and children causes her to undertake a most unusual and grisly role in the anti-abortion crusade. In his classic and widely anthologized story" Helping" Stone examines with beautifully composed acuity a moment of climactic confrontation in the life of Elliot, a therapist beset by his own demons. Reminiscent of Dog Soldiers and A Flag for Sunrise, "Under the Pitons" is a harrowing story about Blessington, a somewhat reluctant participant in a drug-running scheme, and the grim and unexpected consequences of his involvement. And finally, the title story, a novella published here for the first time, is a powerful, riveting account of the tangled lines that weave together the relationship of a father and his grown daughter.
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Best American Short Stories 1992 by Robert Stone ( 1992)
In the 1992 installment in the best-selling series, twenty of the year's finest short stories from magazines large and small display the talents of Joyce Carol Oates, Denis Johnson, Alice Munro, and others.
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Citizenship Cross-curricular Resource Pack by Robert Stone, Victor Watton ( 2003) |
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Damascus Gate by Robert Stone ( 1998)
Jerusalem: where earth meets heaven, home to seekers and heretics, hustlers and madmen, dreamers and the faithful of every persuasion. In this holiest and most fractious city, where religion and politics are inextricably bound, a plot unfolds to bomb the sacred Temple Mount. Christopher Lucas, an expatriate American journalist, skeptical and searching, stumbles upon the Temple Mount plot while on assignment to investigate religious fanatics. Unwittingly entangled in the bombing plan is another American, Sonia Barnes, a Sufi convert and nightclub singer, who is drawn with Lucas into the dangerous intrigues surrounding the Old City. They encounter Adam De Kuff, an unstable Jewish guru; Raziel Melker, a strung-out Kabbalist who foists De Kuff into the role of messiah; and Jan Zimmer, a soldier of fortune routinely at the center of the world's flashpoints.
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Day Hikes Around Big Sur 80 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2003)
Big Sur is an awesome stretch of spectacular coastline in central California, where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise over 5,000 feet from the ocean. The area is characterized by craggy coastal head lands backed by mountains and carved canyons. The area’s topography, as well as its wilderness and national forest designations, have kept Big Sur unspoiled.
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Day Hikes Around Monterey & Carmel 77 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2002) |
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Day Hikes Around Napa Valley 88 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2008) |
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Day Hikes Around Orange County 109 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2005) |
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Day Hikes Around San Luis Obispo 128 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2006) |
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Day Hikes Around Santa Barbara 82 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2003)
Santa Barbara is a captivating, inviting community that is located in a beautiful, natural setting along the Pacific coast. The temperate climate and refreshing ocean breezes, very similar to the Mediterranean, have distinguished this area as "the jewel of the American Riviera." The landscape around the city includes
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Day Hikes Around Sedona, Arizona 100 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2006) |
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Day Hikes Around Sonoma County 95 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2007) |
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Day Hikes Around Ventura County 82 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2003)
Day Hikes Around Ventura County covers 82 of the best hikes in this scenic coastal county just north of Los Angeles. The hikes span from the Pacific Coast to the mountainous interior and the Los Padres National Forest. This is a comprehensive guide that includes trails from national forests, state parks, wilderness area, undeveloped coastline, and green space within the metropolitan areas. No other hiking book concentrates exclusively on Ventura County.
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Day Hikes In Yellowstone National Park 82 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2005) |
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Day Hikes in Grand Teton National Park 72 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2004) |
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Day Hikes in Hawaii 90 Great Hikes On Kauai, Maui, Oahu by Robert Stone ( 2006) |
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Day Hikes in the Beartooth Mountains From Billings To Red Lodge To Yellowstone National Park by Robert Stone ( 2006) |
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Day Hikes on the California Central Coast 120 Coastal Hikes from Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara by Robert Stone ( 2009)
A guide for both amateur and advanced hikers includes 120 hikes, covering 400 miles of coastline from San Francisco to California along Highway 1, which feature some of the most spectacular and varied scenery in the state. Original.
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Day Hikes on the California Southern Coast 100 Great Hikes by Robert Stone ( 2004) |
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Deeds of War by Robert Stone, James Nachtwey ( 1989)
Photographs show the victims and suffering of war, and feature Nicaragua, El Salvador, Lebanon, the West Bank, Afghanistan, and Northern Ireland.
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Digital Faces and Post-Modern Social Landscapes by Robert Stone ( 2004) |
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Dispatches by Michael Herr ( 2009)
DISPATCHES is considered by many to be one of the finest nonfiction books on the Vietnam War. Assigned in 1967 to cover the war by Esquire magazine, Michael Herr filed reports on his own schedule and without deadlines. His memoir, DISPATCHES, was published several years later and is based on those reports for Esquire. In a candid and non-judgmental manner, Herr captured the voices of young American soldiers, or "grunts," as they spoke of the horrors of battle: their ever-present fear, and what it was like to kill "gooks," take human souvenirs, and sometimes realize that they had fired on women and children. Herr's details later became standard Vietnam war associations: the body bags, the helmets with individualized slogans on them, large amounts of drugs, and even music from the likes of the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and Johnny Cash. Events covered include the aftermath of the battle of Hue, the Tet offensive of 1968, and the assaults on the Marine base at Khe Sanh, a battle which was seen by many as a sign that winning the war might not be possible. Herr illustrates the daily realities and surreal experiences of the soldiers in the trenches, the growing unease among Americans back home, and the gulf between what the generals saw and what they said. In addition, he includes war stories from his colleagues in the press corps, both reporters and photographers, some of whom were killed in action. Herr is also known for writing the narration on Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film APOCALYPSE NOW, and for working as a producer and writer on Stanley Kubrick's 1985 film FULL-METAL JACKET.
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Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone ( 1997)
In Saigon during the waning days of the Vietnam War, a small-time journalist named John Converse thinks he'll find action - and profit - by getting involved in a big-time drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong for him. Dog Soldiers perfectly captures the underground mood of America in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered profiteering cops and professional killers - and the price of survival was dangerously high.
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A Flag for Sunrise A Novel by Robert Stone ( 1992)
An emotional, dramatic and philosophical novel about Americans drawn into a small Central American country on the brink of revolution.
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Fun With Problems by Robert Stone ( 2010) |
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A Hall of Mirrors by Robert Stone ( 1987)
After arriving in New Orleans at the end of Mardi Gras in 1962, three young American drifters are drawn under the influence of a powerful man.
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Outerbridge Reach by Robert Stone ( 1993)
Owen Browne, a Vietnam vet, embarks on a solo sail around the world, hoping to prove his courage and heroism and find out some things about himself. He is not an expert sailor, and to complicate matters further he is filming his voyage while, on land, a documentary filmmaker conducts interviews and shoots footage that will supplement Owen's work. In the process, the filmmaker falls in love with Owen's wife while, at sea, Owen and the sailboat become increasingly endangered. Stone's story, quite obviously influenced by the tales of Melville, Conrad, and Hemingway, has been called one of the great American sea novels.
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Playboy The Complete Centerfolds by Robert Stone, Paul Theroux, Robert Coover, Chronicle Books ( 2008)
Organized chronologically to reveal the world's changing perceptions of feminine beauty, a complete collection of centerfolds ranges from the first issue of
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The Principle of 12 by Robert Stone ( 2007) |
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The Quiet American Text and Criticism by Graham Greene ( 2004)
Set in Vietnam in the 1950s, during the last days of French colonial rule, THE QUIET AMERICAN was based partly on Graham Greene's own experiences in Vietnam as a correspondent for the London Times. The book's narrator is an English journalist named Fowler who lives in Saigon with his Vietnamese mistress, Phuong, but is unable to convince his Catholic wife to grant him a divorce. Fowler meets Pyle, a young American intelligence agent who talks of setting up a "third force" to oppose both the colonial powers and the Communist rebels. Fowler's growing conviction that Pyle is orchestrating a campaign of terror coincides with the discovery that Phuong has betrayed him with Pyle. When THE QUIET AMERICAN was published in the US in 1956, its implication that Americans were involved in terrorism against the Vietnamese was met with outrage. As years have passed, however, the book has come to be seen as a prescient and probing look at a volatile situation that paved the way for America's tragic involvement in the Vietnam War.
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Robert Stone, Interview by Robert Stone ( 1987) |
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The Stories of Paul Bowles by Paul Bowles ( 2006)
These 62 stories--called by Gore Vidal "among the best ever written by an American"--are set in many different parts of the globe, and are often about the culture clash between Westerners and the inhabitants of the places Bowles preferred to his native America, such as Tangiers, Mexico, and parts of Europe. Bowles is revered not only for his acknowledgement of the fascinations of what many consider degenerate or decadent, but for his poetic prose and precise use of language. Stories include the very early "By the Water," "A Distant Episode" (notorious for its particularly cruel and macabre plot), "Pastor Dowe at Tacate" (in which a missionary in South America realizes how completely he misunderstands his flock), "Pages from Cold Point" (with its themes of incest and homosexuality), and "Allal" (about a boy who is transformed into a deadly serpent). A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.
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Warlock by Oakley Hall ( 2005)
Sharpshooter Clay Blaisedell is called to Warlock, a wild frontier town, to restore order, but the more he tries to fix the town's problems, the more the town plunges into chaos all around him. Reprint.
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