500 Essential Cult Books: The Ultimate Guide


Gina McKinnon - 2010
    It brings together the works of famous as well as less-known authors, all of whom boast passionate followings. Every genre you could imagine is covered, including literature, memoirs, thrillers, science fiction, self-help, fantasy, graphic novels, fairy tales, and more. Each entry features a photo of the book cover, a plot synopsis, a review, and suggestions for further reading.Fun to pore over ... A great reference source ... Sure to provoke conversation and debates among devoted readers ... Here's a page-turner you won't ever want to close the book on.

The Geography of the Imagination: Forty Essays


Guy Davenport - 1981
    In the 40 essays that constitute this collection, Guy Davenport, one of America's major literary critics, elucidates a range of literary history, encompassing literature, art, philosophy and music, from the ancients to the grand old men of modernism.

How to Draw Manga: Mastering Manga Drawings (How to Draw Manga Girls, Eyes, Scenes for Beginners) (How to Draw Manga, Mastering Manga Drawings)


Andrew Harnes - 2015
    Whether you like to simply draw one character, or even make a comic book out of it, this will definitely make drawing easier for you. Here’s what you’ll learn in this book: Materials When You’re Starting Out The Fundamental Elements of Art Practice Warm-ups before You Start Techniques on How to Draw Facial Features Drawing the Face in Different Angles How to Draw Different Hair Styles Using the Anatomy Model to Draw the Body–Hands, Trunk and Legs Drawing your Characters in Action Designing your Character Clothes, Accessories and Shoes This book is very easy to follow and illustrates different images that will serve as your guide in making the very basic shapes to finally drawing images that you desire. With a whole lot of practice and the right tools on hand, you would be good to go! When it comes to drawing, patience and hard work is needed. In the book: How to Draw a Manga Character everything is brought down to its simplest form so that learning is more convenient and enjoyable! So grab your own copy NOW and don’t forget to scroll up! Look for the “BUY” Button to download. Have fun!

The Good Sister


James Patterson
    

Enemies of Promise


Cyril Connolly - 1938
    Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.--Cyril Connolly Cyril Connolly (1903-1974) was one of the most influential book reviewers and critics in England, contributing regularly to The New Statesman, The Observer, and The Sunday Times, His many books and essays have been published to great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. First published in 1938 and long unavailable, Enemies of Promise is considered his major work. An inquiry into the problem of how to write a masterpiece, Connolly identifies the forces that work against the fulfillment of artistic promise--among them, politics, domesticity, advertising, and journalism. His concluding recollection of his education at Eton examines the factors which interfered with his own promise. Seventy years after it was written, Enemies of Promise remains powerful and true. It is a brilliant work by one of the most important critics of the period.

Goon


T. Styles - 2014
    Things appear to look up for Roman when Billy Bob Adams, a career criminal, finds him and whisks him to Baltimore, Maryland. With modern day slavery as his motive, Billy Bob teaches Roman every villainous trick he knows...including murder. From the moment Yoko was born she was unwanted. Born with a visible handicap people judged her upon first sight. Before long they turn the sweet child into a bitter young adult who does anything she can for attention. Even if it means taking responsibility for crimes she didn't commit. When Roman and Yoko meet they become an escape for one another. Since an idle mind is the devil's workshop they put their skills together and become living nightmares for unsuspecting drug dealers. Many years later, Roman vows to trade his turbulent childhood and crimes for a family of his own. Which means leaving Yoko and her volatile love of blood behind. When Roman must rely on his murder game to provide for his family, he excels and becomes the primary assassin for a multi-million dollar drug operation. But what happens when Yoko returns with a request that Roman doesn't want to honor? Explosive drama. Goon is an action packed thriller with unpredictable twists and excitement! Enjoy!

What is Literature?


Jean-Paul Sartre - 1948
    His writings had a potency that was irresistible to the intellectual scene that swept post-war Europe, and have left a vital inheritance to contemporary thought. The central tenet of the Existentialist movement which he helped to found, whereby God is replaced by an ethical self, proved hugely attractive to a generation that had seen the horrors of Nazism, and provoked a revolution in post-war thought and literature. In What is Literature? Sartre the novelist and Sartre the philosopher combine to address the phenomenon of literature, exploring why we read, and why we write.

Writers: Their Lives and Works


James Naughtie - 2018
    Each featured novelist, playwright, or poet is introduced by a stunning portrait, followed by photography and illustrations of locations and artifacts important in their lives - along with pages from original manuscripts, first editions, and their correspondence.Trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired each individual and affected their writing, revealing insights into the larger-than-life characters, plots, and evocative settings that they created. You will also uncover details each writer's most famous pieces and understand the times and cultures they lived in - see how the world influenced them and how their works influenced the world.Writers introduces key ideas, themes, and literary techniques of each figure, revealing the imaginations and personalities behind some of the world's greatest novels, short stories, poems, and plays. A diverse variety of authors are covered, from the Middle Ages to present day, providing a compelling glimpse into the lives of the people behind the page.

Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction


Nick Montfort - 2003
    Twisty Little Passages (the title refers to a maze in Adventure, the first interactive fiction) is the first book-length consideration of this form, examining it from gaming and literary perspectives. Nick Montfort, an interactive fiction author himself, offers both aficionados and first-time users a way to approach interactive fiction that will lead to a more pleasurable and meaningful experience of it.Twisty Little Passages looks at interactive fiction beginning with its most important literary ancestor, the riddle. Montfort then discusses Adventure and its precursors (including the I Ching and Dungeons and Dragons), and follows this with an examination of mainframe text games developed in response, focusing on the most influential work of that era, Zork. He then considers the introduction of commercial interactive fiction for home computers, particularly that produced by Infocom. Commercial works inspired an independent reaction, and Montfort describes the emergence of independent creators and the development of an online interactive fiction community in the 1990s. Finally, he considers the influence of interactive fiction on other literary and gaming forms. With Twisty Little Passages, Nick Montfort places interactive fiction in its computational and literary contexts, opening up this still-developing form to new consideration.

My Poets


Maureen N. McLane - 2012
    In this stunningly original book Maureen N. McLane channels the spirits and voices that make up the music in one poet’s mind. Weaving criticism and memoir, My Poets explores a life reading and a life read. McLane invokes in My Poets not necessarily the best poets, nor the most important poets (whoever these might be), but those writers who, in possessing her, made her. “I am marking here what most marked me,” she writes.  Ranging from Chaucer to H. D. to William Carlos Williams to Louise Glück to Shelley (among others), McLane tracks the “growth of a poet’s mind,” as Wordsworth put it in The Prelude. In a poetical prose both probing and incantatory, McLane has written a radical book of experimental criticism. Susan Sontag called for an “erotics of interpretation”: this is it. Part Bildung, part dithyramb, part exegesis, My Poets extends an implicit invitation to you, dear reader, to consider who your “my poets,” or “my novelists,” or “my filmmakers,” or “my pop stars,” might be.

The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing


Norman Mailer - 2003
    “There is no routine of an office to keep you going, only the blank page each morning, and you never know where your words are coming from, those divine words.” In The Spooky Art, Mailer discusses with signature candor the rewards and trials of the writing life, and recommends the tools to navigate it. Addressing the reader in a conversational tone, he draws on the best of more than fifty years of his own criticism, advice, and detailed observations about the writer’s craft.   Praise for The Spooky Art   “The Spooky Art shows Mailer’s brave willingness to take on demanding forms and daunting issues. . . . He has been a thoughtful and stylish witness to the best and worst of the American century.”—The Boston Globe   “At his best—as artists should be judged—Mailer is indispensable, an American treasure. There is enough of his best in this book for it to be welcomed with gratitude.”—The Washington Post  “[The Spooky Art] should nourish and inform—as well as entertain—almost any serious reader of the novel.”—Baltimore Sun“The richest book ever written about the writer’s subconscious.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer   “Striking . . . entrancingly frank.”—Entertainment Weekly   Praise for Norman Mailer   “[Norman Mailer] loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation.”—The New York Times   “A writer of the greatest and most reckless talent.”—The New Yorker   “A devastatingly alive and original creative mind.”—Life   “Mailer is fierce, courageous, and reckless and nearly everything he writes has sections of headlong brilliance.”—The New York Review of Books   “The largest mind and imagination [in modern] American literature . . . Unlike just about every American writer since Henry James, Mailer has managed to grow and become richer in wisdom with each new book.”—Chicago Tribune   “Mailer is a master of his craft. His language carries you through the story like a leaf on a stream.”—The Cincinnati PostFrom the Hardcover edition.

1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die: The Ultimate Guide to Comic Books, Graphic Novels, and Manga


Paul Gravett - 2011
    In short: comics are emphatically no longer just for kids. This diverse, constantly evolving medium is truly coming into its own in the 21st century, from Hollywood's blockbuster adaptations of super-powered caped crusaders to the global spread of Japan's manga and its spinoffs, and from award-winning graphic novels such as Maus and Persepolis to new forms such as online webcomix. This volume is the perfect introduction to a dynamic and globally popular medium, embracing every graphic genre worldwide to assess the very best works of sequential art, graphic literature, comics, and comic strips, past and present.An international survey, this engaging volume is organized according to the year of first publication in the country of origin. An opening section acknowledges pioneering pre-1900 masterpieces, followed by sections divided by decade, creating a fascinating year-by-year chronicle of the graphic medium worldwide. The material includes the very earliest one-off albums to the latest in online comics and features some series and characters that have run for decades. Packed with fantastic reproductions of classic front covers and groundbreaking panels, this book is visually stunning as well as a trove of information--perfect for the passionate collector and casual fan alike.

Tear in Time


Christopher David Petersen - 2011
    RECOMMENDED READING ORDER:TEAR IN TIME (book 1): After a traumatic loss on the operating table, Dr.David Warner enters an elevator and descends into the American Civil War (1862). That one death changes the world forever.PRISONER IN TIME (book 2): Dr. Warner must travel back in time once again, this time to save a patient and his troubled brother.Tear in Time Synopsis:Dr. David Warner descends in a hospital elevator, and is transported in time to the Civil War, 1862.In order to survive, he must gain the trust of Dr. Jebadiah Morgan, an old Civil War surgeon, who is as skeptical of David as he is intrigued. Demonstrating advanced surgical skills in difficult primitive conditions, he wins Dr. Morgan's confidence and they soon become close friends.David's experience with such a brutal war is shocking and fearful. While in a desperate search to return home, David is thrust into the infamous Battle of Antietam. Overrun and greatly outnumbered, David reluctantly assumes command of his battalion and turns the tide of their capture.Having narrowly avoided death at Antietam, David is forced into command once more: the Battle of Gettysburg. Alongside General George Armstrong Custer, the two develop and execute an ingenious plan to change the outcome of the battle and ultimately, the war.As David nears the end of his journey, he is gravely wounded. With time running out, his survival depends on the future.For those interested in updates on book releases, please sign up for my news letter: ow.ly/gqFbo

The Secret History of Jane Eyre: How Charlotte Brontë Wrote Her Masterpiece


John Pfordresher - 2017
    Nor do many know that she wrote it during a devastating and anxious period in her life. Thwarted in her passionate, secret, and forbidden love for a married man, she found herself living in a home suddenly imperiled by the fact that her father, a minister, the sole support of the family, was on the brink of blindness. After his hasty operation, as she nursed him in an isolated apartment kept dark to help him heal his eyes, Brontë began writing Jane Eyre, an invigorating romance that, despite her own fears and sorrows, gives voice to a powerfully rebellious and ultimately optimistic woman’s spirit.The Secret History of Jane Eyre expands our understanding of both Jane Eyre and the inner life of its notoriously private author. Pfordresher connects the people Brontë knew and the events she lived to the characters and story in the novel, and he explores how her fecund imagination used her inner life to shape one of the world’s most popular novels.By aligning his insights into Brontë’s life with the timeless characters, harrowing plot, and forbidden romance of Jane Eyre, Pfordresher reveals the remarkable parallels between one of literature’s most beloved heroines and her passionate creator, and arrives at a new understanding of Brontë’s brilliant, immersive genius.

Tony Northrup's Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Video Book: Training for Photographers


Tony Northrup - 2014
    VIDEO TRAINING. 12+ HOURS of searchable video training (requires Internet access). If you learn better from videos, watch the videos and use the ebook only for quick reference. If you learn better from books, read the ebook and refer to the videos to see the author demonstrate real world editing techniques. This much video training usually costs over $100 or requires a monthly subscription. 2. 150+ PRESETS. Jump-start your creativity by using the included presets to give your pictures a unique look. Others charge over $200 for this many presets! 3. 50+ RAW PICTURE FILES. Work alongside many of the book's examples, or just learn by experimenting with professional photos. 4. TEACHER & PEER SUPPORT. After buying the book, you get access to the private group on Facebook where you can ask the questions and post pictures for feedback from Tony, Chelsea, and other readers. It’s like being able to raise your hand in class and ask a question! Instructions are in the introduction. With this video book, you ll learn how to instantly find any picture in your library, fix common photography problems, clean up your images, add pop to boring pictures, retouch portraits, make gorgeous prints, create photo books, and even edit your home videos. Tony goes beyond teaching you how to use Lightroom. Tony shows you why and when to use each feature to create stunning, natural photos. When Lightroom is not the best tool, Tony suggests better alternatives. Tony covers every aspect of Lightroom in-depth, but structures his teaching so that both beginner and advanced photographers can learn as efficiently as possible. If you just want a quick start, you can watch the first video or read the first chapter and you'll be organizing and editing your pictures in less than an hour. If you want to know more about a specific feature, switch to that video or jump to that chapter in the ebook. If you want to know everything about Lightroom, watch the videos and read the book from start to finish.