In November of 2010, I read at the ‘Ear Eater’ reading series in Chicago. Ana was another reader. She was reading via Skype. There were a lot of people at the reading. After I read, I walked out of the room and stood in a hallway, staring at the floor. After a few difficult conversations with people in the hallway, I heard the host of the reading talking to someone on the computer. It was Ana. Ana started reading. I laughed a lot and enjoyed her reading. Seemed like other people weren’t enjoying it as much as me but I was enjoying it a lot. I stood in the hallway laughing and shaking my head ‘Yes’ and people looked at me. I kept thinking, ‘I want to go into the room and watch her face reading’ but then I would think, ‘No, don’t do that, just listen.’ Not sure why I kept telling myself not to go into the room where she was reading but I stood in the hallway and listened and enjoyed it a lot. Two years later, Ana emailed me Baby Babe. I opened the PDF just to skim a few poems but then I read the whole book. When I was done reading the book, I thought, ‘I’ll be glad to have this book so I can look at it whenever I want.’” — Sam Pink

    This collection of his poems is representative of the best in contemporary Urdu writing. The Urdu text is presented with English translations.

    They also produced much of the country's best literature. Three of these amazing ladies wrote these diaries, among them the highly skilled writer Murasaki Shikibu (ca. 973-1025 a.d.). A lady-in-waiting to the Japanese Empress, she became very adept at observing the daily activities and attitudes of the upper classes. Her diary is a remarkable record of events staged with rare and exquisite taste. The Sarashina Diary, filled with an appreciation of nature, begins with a nine-year-old girl's dreams and ends with the grown woman's account of her husband's funeral (1009-1059 a.d.). Izumi Shikibu's diary is a delicately written work, with poetic thoughts characteristic of the lady's shy reserve. Brimming with poetry and understated social observations, all three provide an extraordinary glimpse of court life in old Japan. Unabridged republication of the edition originally published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1920. 2 color illustrations. 12 black-and-white illustrations. Appendix.

    His love affair with punk comes full circle as he learns to hate it and then learns to love it again. The pieces in this book take us from his Southern roots, his brief stay in St. Louis, and his journey to California on a quest for punk bliss. Sinister finds himself in Oakland, where he gets exactly what he wanted, but it may just kill him. From recounts of specific shows to metaphorical dreams of Abraham Lincoln to the tragic stories of circus elephants, All Blacked Out & Nowhere to Go mixes tragedy and comedy into a book that's louder and faster than any book of its kind.

    The Mencius, in which he recounts his dialogues with kings, dukes and military men, as well as other philosophers, is one of the Four Books that make up the essential Confucian corpus. It takes up Confucius's theories of jen, or goodness and yi, righteousness, explaining that the individual can achieve harmony with mankind and the universe by perfecting his innate moral nature and acting with benevolence and justice. Mencius' strikingly modern views on the duties of subjects and their rulers or the evils of war, created a Confucian orthodoxy that has remained intact since the third century BCE.

    Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

    It is a vulnerable cross section of his writing that moves from disarmingly human to sudden bursts of beast, able to seamlessly blend back into grounded stories of humor, heartache and identity using crisp, innovative and unforgettable metaphors. If you can only buy one Buddy Wakefield book, this collection is the most comprehensive of his most compelling works to date. His craft mimics the intrigue of propellers when they make themselves invisible. Buddy’s honest story is a one-man relay race to the light; that of a boy at gentleman practice who sometimes wants to blend in so badly he forgets his purpose has already arrived and there is no need to fight a war that’s long been over. The reader must be prepared for the recurring nightmares from which Buddy wakes up only to realize that whatever supposedly awful thing was stalking him was actually just trying to help.

    

    It is an acquired taste, for those who do not mind profanity and dishevelled emotions.

    "While McCartney is of a completely different cast than Bob Dylan, his appeal may be even greater than that of the latter great poet-songwriter," wrote Publishers Weekly; The Guardian hailed McCartney's words as "a remarkable feat of historical imagination." The best-selling Blackbird Singing now includes several new poems and lyrics, including "Freedom," which McCartney performed in New York City at a benefit concert last fall. To actually read McCartney's poems, whether exuberant ballads of love or poignant messages of deepest grief, is to appreciate the electrifying power of the confluence of dream and song. Inspired by his late wife, Linda McCartney, Blackbird Singing gives us extraordinary access to the inner life of one of the most influential figures of our time.

    It provides a fascinating portrayal of a woman fighting to free herself from the constraints of ancient Chinese tradition amid the dramatic changes that shook China during the 1920s, '30s, and '40s.

    This is the first English translation by noted writer Thomas Cleary of the authorized biography by two longtime disciples of this living master of the Dragon Gate branch of the Complete Reality school of Taoism, which integrated Buddhism and Confucianism into a comprehensive new form of Taoism.

    

    It will then be about them only. It will be all about the one they loved like thunder, about the one they struggled hard to keep, about the one who had left them in the middle of their 'forever', about their world shattering into pieces, about them gluing together every piece, and about them falling in love one more time.And if you still think it is about you and me, you haven't loved someone like thunder, yet.

    The misunderstandings caused by language recur throughout the book: contemplating what "yes" means in different cultures; watching Nickelodeon's "Nick at Nite" with a husband who grew up in the Philippines and never saw The Patty Duke Show; misreading another poet's title "The Difference Between Pepsi and Coke" as "The Difference Between Pepsi and Pope" and concluding that "Pepsi is all for premarital sex. / The Pope won't stain your teeth." Misunderstandings also abound as characters mingle with others from different classes. In "Cockroaches," a father-in-law refers to budget-minded American college students backpacking in Europe as cockroaches, not realizing his daughter-in-law was once, not so long ago, such a student/roach herself.With welcome levity and refreshing irreverence, The Star-Spangled Banner addresses issues of ethnicity, class, and gender in America.