Whatever name she's writing under, mega-bestselling author Nora Roberts crafts top-notch stories with engaging characters and compelling plots. The latest volume in her near-future mystery series starring New York City homicide detective Eve Dallas is a perfect example of that: In Imitation in Death, summer has come to the city, but it's anything but a vacation for Eve as a serial killer with a flair for the dramatic begins a deadly game. The first victim is a prostitute, found slashed to death in an alley.
Jane Austen's Art of Memory offers a radical new thesis about Jane Austen's construction of her art. It argues that, with the help of her tenacious memory, she engaged in friendly dialogue with her predecessors, the English writers, a process that the eighteenth century called 'imitation'. Her allusions, far from being random, thicken and complicate her novels in a manner that is poetic rather than mimetic.
From earliest infancy, a typically developing child imitates or mirrors the facial expressions, postures and gestures, and emotional behavior of others. Where does this capacity come from, and what function does it serve? What happens when imitation is impaired? Synthesizing cutting-edge research emerging from a range of disciplines, this important book examines the role of imitation in both autism and typical development. Topics include the neural and evolutionary bases of imitation, its pivotal connections to language development and relationships, and how early imitative deficits in autism might help explain the more overt social and communication problems of older children and adults.