Book picks similar to
Secondary Worlds by W.H. Auden


essays
modernity
non-fiction
realistic

Rhime of time


Padmaja Bharti - 2020
    In this book, she has written a few poems, where she has described herself in some complex and in simple words. Most of the poems are about her black and white memories and few are on generic topics. In this book, the reader will see her describing a relationship between mother nature and human nature in a poetic way.

Prayer: 365 Days of Prayer for Christian that Bring Calm & Peace (Christian Prayer Book 1)


Oliver Powell - 2016
    A prayer a day filled with positive messages and your day will be phenomenal!With this magnificent collection of 365 powerful prayers, Oliver Powell helps you complete the three steps of the creative process: Ask, Believe and Receive. You ask your Lord everyday through a positive emotional prayer, and during the whole day, your mind dwells in the belief that your prayer would be accepted. And finally you receive what you have asked for as you make it your habit to be in constant touch with your God for just less than five minutes (in case you a super-busy person). As the Bible says, “…whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” Amen!Each day includes an original prayer, straight from the author’s heart with a clear and lucid language made easy for the soul to grasp and for the heart to vibrate with your tongue as it utters the prayer. SCROLL to the top of the page and select the BUY button for instant download Download your copy today!

Fast Like Daniel: 21 Days That Will Change Your Life


Scott Williams - 2017
    This devotional is your definitive guide to… • Unpacking the Daniel Fast • A Closer Connection with God • The Four Keys to Powerful Prayer • How Fasting and Prayer Produces Breakthrough The book you’re holding walks you through Pastor Scott Williams’ own discovery of the Daniel Fast and the amazing life change, breakthrough, and success that followed. Since then, he’s done it on an annual basis for over a decade and has taught others to do the same. The results have been staggering! All 21 days come power packed daily dose of... • Scripture • Devotionals • Journal Ideas • Prayers • Fasting Tips Start a journey toward more intimacy with God as you learn to Fast Like Daniel.

The Furnace Girl: The Mysterious case of Elfrieda Knaak


Kraig W. Moreland - 2018
    The Furnace Girl is Kraig Moreland's theory of what really happened to Elfrieda Knaak, as told to and beautifully written by Toby Jones, It is a stranger-than-fiction story, told through the eyes of Griff Morgan, a young orphan boy, whose harrowing journey makes him an accidental witness to what still remains one of the most puzzling, unsolved crimes of the early 1900s.   In this fictionalized account of the mystery, Griff and his young sister land at the Lake Bluff Orphanage, where they must learn to navigate their new surroundings and face their fears. The 12-year-old Griff stumbles upon unlawful activity throughout the town, from Elfrieda’s illicit relationship with a married man, (and prime suspect) to characters so dark that he feels his safety slipping away with every day.  The Furnace Girl appeals to crime buffs and those looking for a powerful coming-of-age story that pulls on even the toughest of heartstrings.

Sahir Ludhianvi - The peoples poet


Akshay Manwani - 2013
    So great was his stature as an Urdu poet that he never had to mould his poetry to suit the demands of film songwriting; instead, producers and composers adapted their requirements to his poetry. His songs in films like Pyaasa, Naya Daur and Phir Subah Hogi have attained the status of classics. This exhaustive biography traces the poet’s rich life, from his troubled childhood and his equally troubled love relationships, to his rise as one of the pre-eminent personalities of the Progressive Writers Movement and his journey as lyricist through the golden era of Hindi film music, the 1950s and 1960s.

What If This Were Enough?: Essays


Heather Havrilesky - 2018
    In her work for New York, The Baffler, The New York Times Magazine, and The Atlantic, as well as in her advice column for The Cut, "Ask Polly," she dispenses a singular, cutting wisdom--an ability to inspire, provoke, and put a name to our most insidious cultural delusions.What If This Were Enough? is a mantra and a clarion call. In its chapters--many of them original to the book, others expanded from their initial publication--Havrilesky takes on those cultural forces that shape us. From the enforced cheer of American life to the celebration of survivalism, from the allure of materialism to our misunderstandings of romance and success, Havrilesky deconstructs some of the most poisonous and misleading messages we ingest today, all the while suggesting new ways we might navigate our increasingly bewildering world.Through her incisive and witty inquiries, Havrilesky emphasizes the importance of locating the miraculous within the mundane. In these timely, provocative, and often hilarious chapters, she urges readers to embrace the flawed--to connect with what already is, who we already are, what we already have. She asks us to consider: What if this were enough? Our salvation, Havrilesky asserts, can be found right here, right now, in this imperfect moment.The smile factory --The happiest place on earth --To infinity and beyond --Playing house --Delusion at the gastropub --Adults only --Stuffed --Running on empty --Lost treasure --Land of heroic villains --The popularity contest --Tag and release --Haunted --Bravado --Survival fantasies --True romance --A scourge of gurus --My mother's house --Miracle of the mundane

No Cross No Crown Trust God Through the Battle


Charlena E. Jackson - 2019
    But that’s not what happens. He allows us to be troubled. He allows us to be tried, go through storms and face tribulations. He allows us to suffer because He is with us and knows we will come through alright.“Charlena has an awesome way of helping us understand that if we want a “crown” we must carry our “crosses.” No Cross, No Crown. The things that earn us our crowns are the crosses we bear, even in the heat of the day. What strengthens us to carry our crosses is the knowledge that one day we will exchange them for our crowns."Charlena’s writings help to refocus readers on the spiritual gifts that come from bearing your burdens with the promise of the gifts that come as a result of carrying heavy loads. Charlena has the ability to translate her real-life experiences for others and provide a methodology that takes one from a cross to a crown.”Kenneth Alexander, Pastor, Antioch Baptist Church North, Atlanta, GA

This is a Book


Demetri Martin - 2011
    Demetri's first literary foray features longer-form essays and conceptual pieces (such as Protagonists' Hospital, a melodrama about the clinic doctors who treat only the flesh wounds and minor head scratches of Hollywood action heroes), as well as his trademark charts, doodles, drawings, one-liners, and lists (i.e., the world views of optimists, pessimists and contortionists), Martin's material is varied, but his unique voice and brilliant mind will keep readers in stitches from beginning to end.

The Givenness of Things: Essays


Marilynne Robinson - 2015
    As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope. In The Givenness of Things, the incomparable Marilynne Robinson delivers an impassioned critique of our contemporary society while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations.Robinson has plumbed the depths of the human spirit in her novels, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Lila and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead, and in her new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern predicament and the mysteries of faith. These seventeen essays examine the ideas that have inspired and provoked one of our finest writers throughout her life. Whether she is investigating how the work of the great thinkers of the past, Calvin, Locke, Bonhoeffer--and Shakespeare--can infuse our lives, or calling attention to the rise of the self-declared elite in American religious and political life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on display. Exquisite and bold, The Givenness of Things is a necessary call for us to find wisdom and guidance in our cultural heritage, and to offer grace to one another.Humanism --Reformation --Grace --Servanthood --Givenness --Awakening --Decline --Fear --Proofs --Memory --Value --Metaphysics --Theology --Experience --Adam --Limitation --Realism

Toni Morrison: Beloved


Carl Plasa - 1999
    Chapters focus on the supernatural elements of the work, as well as the author´s treatment of the physical self.

Rumi's Little Book of Love: 150 Poems That Speak to the Heart


Rumi - 2009
    His language, that of love in its purest form, speaks to us today as it did seven hundred years ago, surpassing time and bridging cultures.These poems, most of them translated into English for the first time from the original Persian, were carefully selected from two thousand of Rumi's quatrains. Arranged thematically, they take us on a journey of the soul. Persian calligraphy enhances the beauty of the poems.Discover the depths of a mystic's soul. Fly with him on his beloved's wings. Fall with him into the despair and fear of losing his beloved forever. Discover the beauty and love contained in this wonderful little book of poetry.

Artful


Ali Smith - 2012
    Anne’s College, Oxford. Her lectures took the shape of this set of discursive stories. Refusing to be tied down to either fiction or the essay form, Artful is narrated by a character who is haunted—literally—by a former lover, the writer of a series of lectures about art and literature.A hypnotic dialogue unfolds, a duet between and a meditation on art and storytelling, a book about love, grief, memory, and revitalization. Smith’s heady powers as a fiction writer harmonize with her keen perceptions as a reader and critic to form a living thing that reminds us that life and art are never separate.Artful is a book about the things art can do, the things art is full of, and the quicksilver nature of all artfulness. It glances off artists and writers from Michelangelo through Dickens, then all the way past postmodernity, exploring every form, from ancient cave painting to 1960s cinema musicals. This kaleidoscope opens up new, inventive, elastic insights—on the relation of aesthetic form to the human mind, the ways we build our minds from stories, the bridges art builds between us. Artful is a celebration of literature’s worth in and to the world and a meaningful contribution to that worth in itself. There has never been a book quite like it.

Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live


Peter Orner - 2016
    Orner reads—and writes—everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is “a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir.” Among the many writers Orner addresses are Isaac Babel and Zora Neale Hurston, both of whom told their truths and were silenced; Franz Kafka, who professed loneliness but craved connection; Robert Walser, who spent the last twenty-three years of his life in a Swiss insane asylum, “working” at being crazy; and Juan Rulfo, who practiced the difficult art of silence. Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Yasunari Kawabata, Saul Bellow, Mavis Gallant, John Edgar Wideman, William Trevor, and Václav Havel make appearances, as well as the poet Herbert Morris—about whom almost nothing is known.An elegy for an eccentric late father, and the end of a marriage, Am I Alone Here? is also a celebration of the possibility of renewal. At once personal and panoramic, this book will inspire readers to return to the essential stories of their own lives.

Picasso


Gertrude Stein - 1938
    In this intimate and revealing memoir, Stein tells us much about the great man (and herself) and offers many insights into the life and art of the 20th century's greatest painter.Mixing biological fact with artistic and aesthetic comments, she limns a unique portrait of Picasso as a founder of Cubism, an intimate of Appollinaire, Max Jacob, Braque, Derain, and others, and a genius driven by a ceaseless quest to convey his vision of the 20th century. We learn, for example, of the importance of his native Spain in shaping Picasso's approach to art; of the influence of calligraphy and African sculpture; of his profound struggle to remain true to his own vision; of the overriding need to empty himself of the forms and ideas that welled up within him.Stein's close relationship with Picasso furnishes her with a unique vantage point in composing this perceptive and provocative reminiscence. It will delight any admirer of Picasso or Gertrude Stein; it is indispensable to an understanding of modern art.

Imagination in Place


Wendell Berry - 2010
    And for Berry, what is “local, fully imagined, becomes universal,” and the “local” is to know one’s place and allow the imagination to inspire and instill “a practical respect for what is there besides ourselves.” In Imagination in Place, we travel to the local cultures of several writers important to Berry’s life and work, from Wallace Stegner’s great West and Ernest Gaines’ Louisiana plantation life to Donald Hall’s New England, and on to the Western frontier as seen through the Far East lens of Gary Snyder. Berry laments today’s dispossessed and displaced, those writers and people with no home and no citizenship, but he argues that there is hope for the establishment of new local cultures in both the practical and literary sense.Rich with Berry’s personal experience of life as a Kentucky agrarian, the collection includes portraits of a few of America’s most imaginative writers, including James Still, Hayden Carruth, Jane Kenyon, John Haines, and several others.