Celebrating the year in music writing by gathering a rich array of essays, missives, and musings on every style of music from rock to hip-hop to R&B to jazz to pop to blues, it is essential reading for anyone who loves great music and accomplished writing. Scribes of every imaginable sort—novelists, poets, journalists, musicians— are gathered to create a multi-voiced snapshot of the year in music writing that, like the music it illuminates, is every bit as thrilling as it is riveting.

    

    Pearson Moore goes to the heart of LOST, uncovering and explaining the fascinating core concepts: Faith versus Science, the Numbers, the nature of good and evil, and the struggle between free will and destiny. He will lead you to ideas and conclusions you never imagined, opening the world of LOST in fresh and exciting ways.Whether you understood LOST or were completely baffled, whether you loved it or hated it, Moore will show you concepts and ways of thinking about LOST you will find nowhere else.Moore's innovative thoughts and vibrant prose will keep you engaged as he explores the Island and its characters. He approaches LOST from four "nonlinear" points of view: Disorientation, Metadrama, Literary Analysis, and Chaos Theory. This is in-depth analysis that never lets go, keeping you immersed in the LOST world from cover to cover.There's no filler here. No interviews with stars about the cars they drive or the planes they fly. No weird theories. Just solid, thoroughly-researched, rapid-fire analysis from one of the most cited LOST authorities on the Internet. You may feel exhausted after a chapter. You may be shocked. You may become upset. But you will never be bored.This in-depth exploration spans nineteen chapters across roughly 350 pages. The first chapter sets up the problem, focussing on the complexities of LOST and identifying the means Moore will use to make the concepts accessible. The second chapter defines the thesis of LOST, which acts as a guide to understanding the major themes. Chapters Three through Nine cover major "linear" topics.The heart of the book begins with Chapter Ten. It is here that Moore unleashes the four "nonlinear" tactical devices to reveal the hidden meanings of LOST. He discusses the need for disorientation, and how this is essential to understanding LOST. He proposes the idea that LOST is metadrama, and he explains how understanding LOST in this way is useful to unraveling its secrets. He makes fresh use of literary theory, in ways never before applied to LOST. Finally, Moore brings an astounding, completely new perspective on television analysis with his concept of the Strange Attractor, an idea borrowed from chaos theory. It is here that Moore's analysis shines, allowing a depth of understanding never before achieved.For less than the cost of a cup of coffee, you can explore the stimulating world of LOST with an animated, engaging, thought-provoking guide. The Island awaits. Prepare to get LOST.

    He died in 1965 virtually unrecognized, yet in the following years his work and thought have attracted and intrigued an international audience. Now this comprehensive biography gives a pivotal poet his due. Based on interviews with scores of Spicer's contemporaries, Poet Be Like God details the most intimate aspects of Spicer's life-his family, his friends, his lovers-illuminating not only the man but also many of his poems. Such illumination extends also to the works of others whom Spicer came to know, including the writers Frank O'Hara, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, Helen Adam, Robin Blaser, Charles Olson, Philip K. Dick, Richard Brautigan, and Marianne Moore and the painters Jess, Fran Herndon, and Jay DeFeo. The resulting narrative, an engaging chronicle of the San Francisco Renaissance and the emergence of the North Beach gay scene during the 50s and 60s, will be indispensable reading for students of American literature and gay studies.

    Beginning with its first publication as a cautionary tale on the perils of seduction, written in reaction to the licentiousness of the court of Louis XIV, Orenstein traces the many lives the tale has lived since then, from its appearance in modern advertisements for cosmetics and automobiles, the inspiration it brought to poets such as Anne Sexton, and its starring role in pornographic films. In Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked, Red appears as seductress, hapless victim, riot grrrrl, femme fatale, and even she-wolf, as Orenstein shows how through centuries of different guises, the story has served as a barometer of social and sexual mores pertaining to women. Full of fascinating history, generous wit, and intelligent analysis, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked proves that the story of one young girl's trip through the woods continues to be one of our most compelling modern myths.

    Best known for his command of the psychological fantasy story, De Quincey produced stories of the curious and obscure, but always with the traditional Romantic emphasis on feeling. His masterwork, "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" (1821), stemmed from his own laudanum addiction, and was followed by "Suspiria de Profundis", a collection of essays which continued to capture the same dark brilliance as in "Confessions". The collection was originally published in fragmentary form, and remained unfinished upon De Quincey's death in 1859. This edition includes "The Affliction of Childhood," a reflection on the death of the author's two sisters in childhood, "Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow," one of his best-known works about the Roman goddess of childbirth, and "The English Mail-Coach," on the "grandeur and power" of the English mail-coach system.

    The "Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood (York Notes Advanced - NOT THE NOVEL)

    

    This volume contains writing from 1995 to 1998 on a variety of subjects, including the eating of sheep faces, Sin City, the ugliness of comics, the parallel world where comics legend Stan Lee dies in a horrific plumbing accident, how to write for comics, and why Michael Moorcock scares the hell out of him!

    In this penetrating book, Joan Gould brings to the surface the hidden meanings in fairy tales and myths, and illuminates what they can tell you about the stages in your own life. As Gould explores the transformations that women go through from youth to old age–leaving home and mother, the first experience of sexuality, the surprising ambivalence of marriage, the spiritual work required by menopause and aging–her keen observations will enrich your awareness of your inner life.Full of archetypal figures known to us all, Spinning Straw into Gold also includes stories from the lives of ordinary women that clarify the insights to be gained from the beloved tales that have been handed down from one generation to the next.

    In this volume of selected prose, Roethke articulates his commitments to imaginative possibilities, offers tender advice to young writers, and zings darts at stuffed shirts, lightweights and fools."Art is our defense against hysteria and death."With the assistance of Roethke's widow, this volume has been edited to include the finest selections from out of print collections of prose and journal entries. Focused on the making and teaching of poetry,On Poetry and Craft will be prized in the classroom-and outrageous Roethke quotes will once again pepper our conversations."You must believe a poem is a holy thing, a good poem, that is."Theodore Roethke was of an illustrious generation of poets which included Sexton, Plath, Lowell, Berryman, and like them he received nearly every major award in poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize and twice the National Book Award. In spite of his fame, he remained a legendary teacher, known for the care and attention he gave to his students, poets such as James Wright, Carolyn Kizer, Tess Gallagher, and Richard Hugo. Roethke died on August 1, 1963, while swimming in a friend's pool."But before I'm reduced to an absolute pulp by my own ambivalence, I must say goodbye. The old lion perisheth. Nymphs, I wish you the swoops of many fish. May your search for the abiding be forever furious."On Poetry and CraftI am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words.The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle; unwritten, it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods.We can't escape what we are, and I'm afraid many of my notions about verse (I haven't too many) have been conditioned by the fact that for nearly 25 years I've been trying to teach the young something about the nature of verse by writing it--and that with very little formal knowledge of the subject or previous instruction. So it's going to be lik

    But she has, and here is the record of that change in the decade since the publication of her last nonfiction collection, The Language of the Night. And what a mind — strong, supple, disciplined, playful, ranging over the whole field of its concerns, from modern literature to menopause, from utopian thought to rodeos, with an eloquence, wit, and precision that makes for exhilarating reading.

    Yet we still have great difficulty understanding how it originated, evolved, and spread--or why so many people cannot resist its appeal, no matter how it changes or what form it takes. In this book, renowned fairy-tale expert Jack Zipes presents a provocative new theory about why fairy tales were created and retold--and why they became such an indelible and infinitely adaptable part of cultures around the world.Drawing on cognitive science, evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology, literary theory, and other fields, Zipes presents a nuanced argument about how fairy tales originated in ancient oral cultures, how they evolved through the rise of literary culture and print, and how, in our own time, they continue to change through their adaptation in an ever-growing variety of media. In making his case, Zipes considers a wide range of fascinating examples, including fairy tales told, collected, and written by women in the nineteenth century; Catherine Breillat's film adaptation of Perrault's Bluebeard; and contemporary fairy-tale drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photographs that critique canonical print versions.While we may never be able to fully explain fairy tales, The Irresistible Fairy Tale provides a powerful theory of how and why they evolved--and why we still use them to make meaning of our lives.

    Tolkien's On Fairy-stories is his most-studied and most-quoted essay, an exemplary personal statement of his own views on the role of imagination in literature, and an intellectual tour de force vital for understanding Tolkien's achievement in writing The Lord of the Rings .Contained within is an introduction to Tolkien's original 1939 lecture and the history of the writing of On Fairy-stories, with previously unseen material. Here, at last, Flieger and Anderson reveal the extraordinary genesis of this seminal work and discuss how the conclusions that Tolkien reached during the composition of the essay would shape his writing for the rest of his life.

    Why are storytellers so often women, and how does that affect the status of fairy tales? Are they a source of wisdom or a misleading temptation to indulge in romancing?