This is a communal effort by the Pushcart Press staff, contributing editors, and hundreds of small presses. For this edition distinguished poets Julie Sheehan and Tom Sleigh served as poetry editors. The result is an introduction to a literary world that few readers have access to, where much of today's important new writing is published, far from the commercial influence of the conglomerates. In reviewing last year's edition, Donna Seaman of Booklist commented: "A brimming, vibrant anthology-the perfect introduction to new writers and adventurous new work by established writers . . . extraordinary in its range of voices and subjects. Here is literature to have and to hold." The Pushcart Prize has been chosen for the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement recognition by the National Book Critics Circle and the Writers for Writers award from Poets Writers / Barnes Noble.

    Because students perceive writers such as these as serious and important, they take the writing course more seriously: they learn to read more attentively, think more critically, and write more effectively. But more important, this may be a student's only opportunity to encounter these thinkers. No other composition reader offers a comparable collection of important readings along with the supportive apparatus students need to understand, analyze, and respond to them.

    Frank Baum has been captivating the hearts of the young, and not so young, for over a hundred years.This delightful compilation includes all fifteen books written by L. Frank Baum:The Wonderful Wizard of OzThe Marvelous Land of OzOzma of OzDorothy and the Wizard in OzThe Road to OzThe Emerald City of OzThe Patchwork Girl Of OzLittle Wizard Stories of OzTik-Tok of OzThe Scarecrow Of OzRinkitink In OzThe Lost Princess Of OzThe Tin Woodman Of OzThe Magic of OzGlinda Of OzPerhaps there is no better, or fitting, introduction one could give to this compilation than the author's note that Baum himself writes in his very first book, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." Here he reveals the true intention of his work. Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations. Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library; for the time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident. Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.

    In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute. Inspired by the intersection of these two seemingly unrelated concepts, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler wrote sixty-two stories, each exactly 240 words in length, capturing the flow of thoughts and feelings that go through a person's mind after their head has been severed. The characters are both real and imaginedMedusa (beheaded by Perseus, 2000 BC), Anne Boleyn (beheaded at the behest of Henry VIII, 1536), a chicken (beheaded for Sunday dinner, Alabama, 1958), and the author (decapitated, on the job, 2008). Told with the intensity of a poet and the wit of a great storyteller, these final thoughts illuminate and crystallize more about the characters' own lives and the worlds they inhabit than many writers manage to convey in full-length biographies or novels. The stories, which have appeared in literary magazines across the country, are a delightful and intriguing creative feat from one of today's most inventive writers.

    Again and again, protected by the rope, he fell. He decided then that it would not be in climbing but in falling that he would embrace his fear--bathe in it, as he says, and move beyond it.A captivating exploration of the daredevil world of rock climbing, as well as a thoughtful meditation on the role of risk and fear in the author's own life.In the tradition of the wildly popular man-versus-nature genre that has launched several bestsellers, Andrew Todhunter follows the lives of world-class climber Dan Osman and his coterie of friends as he explores the extremes of risk on the unyielding surface of the rock.Climbing sheer rock faces of hundreds or thousands of feet is more a religion than a sport, demanding dedication, patience, mental and physical strength, grace, and a kind of obsession with detail that is crucial just to survive. Its artists are modern-day ascetics who often sacrifice nine-to-five jobs, material goods, and the safety of everyday life to pit themselves and their moral resoluteness against an utterly unforgiving opponent.In the course of the two years chronicled in Fall of the Phantom Lord, the author also undertakes a journey of his own as he begins to weigh the relative value of extreme sports and the risk of sudden death. By the end of the book, as he ponders joining Osman on a dangerous fall from a high bridge to feel what Osman experiences, Todhunter comes to a new understanding of risk taking and the role it has in his life, and in the lives of these climbers.Beautifully written, Fall of the Phantom Lord offers a fascinating look at a world few people know. It will surely take its place alongside Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm as a classic of adventure literature.

    

    M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, and Salman Rushdie, the new Major Authors edition is a library between two covers -- an indispensable addition to the family bookshelf.

    In his autobiography, he wrote: I have had a life which, for variety and romance, could, I think, hardly be exceeded. He was not wrong. But Conan Doyle was also a Victorian with a twist, a man of tensions and contradictions. He was fascinated by travel, exploration, invention, and indeed all things modern and technological; yet at the same time very traditional, voicing support for values such as chivalry, duty, constancy, and honour. By the time of his death he was a celebrity, achieving worldwide fame for his creation of the rationalist, scientific super-detective Sherlock Holmes; but his later decades were taken up with advocacy of the new religion of Spiritualism, in which he became a devoted believer.

    They have the power--the power of the word--to create a world of thoughts and emotions other can share. We only have to learn to listen." In a series of fascinating conversations with thirty-four American poets, "The Language Of Life" celebrates language in its "most exalted, wrenching, delighted, and concentrated form," and its unique power to re-create the human experience: falling in love, facing death, leaving home, playing basketball, losing faith, finding God. Listening to Linda McCarriston's award-winning poems about a child trapped in a violent home, or to Jimmy Santiago Baca explaining how words changed his life in prison, or to David Mura describing his Japanese American grandfather's experience in relocation camps, or to Sekou Sundiata stitching the magic of his childhood church in Harlem to the African tradition of storytelling, or to Gary Snyder invoking the natural wonder of mountains and rivers, or to Adrienne Rich calling for honesty in human relations, all testify to the necessity and clarity of the poet's voice, and all give hope that from such a wide variety of racial, ethnic, and religious threads we might yet weave a new American fabric."'Listen, ' said the storytellers of old, 'listen and you shall "hear," '" explains Bill Moyers. "The Language Of Life" is a joyous, life-affirming invitation to listen, learn, and experience the exhilarating power of the spoken word."From the Trade Paperback edition.

    When Matt Mikalatos realizes that his longtime buddy in the robe and sandals isn’t the real Jesus at all, but an imaginary one, he embarks on a mission to find the real thing. On his wild ride through time, space, and Portland, Oregon, he encounters hundreds of other Imaginary Jesuses determined to stand in his way (like Legalistic Jesus, Perpetually Angry Jesus, and Magic 8 Ball Jesus). But Matt won’t stop until he finds the real Jesus—and finally gets an answer to the question that’s haunted him for years. Be warned: Imaginary Jesus may bring you face-to-face with an imposter in your own life.

    This Library of America volume presents his essential writings, covering the full span of a restless life dedicated to the struggle for racial justice.The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States 1638–1870 (1896), his first book, renders a dispassionate account of how, despite ethical and political opposition, Americans tolerated the traffic in human beings until a bloody civil war taught them the disastrous consequences of moral cowardice.The Souls of Black Folk (1903), a collection of beautifully written essays, narrates the cruelties of racism and celebrates the strength and pride of black America. By turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical, Du Bois pays tribute to black music and religion, explores the remarkable history of the Reconstruction Freedman’s Bureau, assesses the career of Booker T. Washington, and remembers the death of his infant son.Dusk of Dawn (1940) was described by Du Bois as an attempt to elucidate the “race problem” in terms of his own experience. It describes his boyhood in western Massachusetts, his years at Fisk and Harvard universities, his study and travel abroad, his role in founding the NAACP and his long association with it, and his emerging Pan-African consciousness. He called this autobiography his response to an “environing world” that “guided, embittered, illuminated and enshrouded my life.”Du Bois’s influential essays and speeches span the period from 1890 to 1958. They record his evolving positions on the issues that dominated his long, active life: education in a segregated society; black history, art, literature, and culture; the controversial career of Marcus Garvey; the fate of black soldiers in the First World War; the appeal of communism to frustrated black Americans; his trial and acquittal during the McCarthy era; and the elusive promise of an African homeland.The editorials and articles from The Crisis (1910–1934) belong to the period of Du Bois’s greatest influence. During his editorship of the NAACP magazine that he founded, Du Bois wrote pieces on virtually every aspect of American political, cultural, and economic life. Witty and sardonic, angry and satiric, proud and mournful, these writings show Du Bois at his freshest and most trenchant.

    Now, Carl Hoffman uncovers startling new evidence that finally tells the full, astonishing story.Despite exhaustive searches, no trace of Rockefeller was ever found. Soon after his disappearance, rumors surfaced that he'd been killed and ceremonially eaten by the local Asmat—a native tribe of warriors whose complex culture was built around sacred, reciprocal violence, head hunting, and ritual cannibalism. The Dutch government and the Rockefeller family denied the story, and Michael's death was officially ruled a drowning. Yet doubts lingered. Sensational rumors and stories circulated, fueling speculation and intrigue for decades. The real story has long waited to be told—until now.Retracing Rockefeller's steps, award-winning journalist Carl Hoffman traveled to the jungles of New Guinea, immersing himself in a world of headhunters and cannibals, secret spirits and customs, and getting to know generations of Asmat. Through exhaustive archival research, he uncovered never-before-seen original documents and located witnesses willing to speak publically after fifty years.In Savage Harvest he finally solves this decades-old mystery and illuminates a culture transformed by years of colonial rule, whose people continue to be shaped by ancient customs and lore. Combining history, art, colonialism, adventure, and ethnography, Savage Harvest is a mesmerizing whodunit, and a fascinating portrait of the clash between two civilizations that resulted in the death of one of America's richest and most powerful scions.

    A scholar, wit, lawyer and statesman, he wrote widely on politics, philosophy and science - declaring early in his career that 'I have taken all knowledge as my province'. In this, his most famous work, he considers a diverse range of subjects, such as death and marriage, ambition and atheism, in prose that is vibrant and rich in Renaissance learning. Bacon believed that rhetoric - the force of eloquence and persuasion - could lead the mind to the pure light of reason, and his own rhetorical genius is nowhere better expressed than in these vivid essays.

    Born in the village of Skhvitori (Imereti region of western Georgia) on June 9, 1840, to a prominent Georgian aristocratic family; his father was Prince Rostom Tsereteli. Following an old family tradition, Akaki Tsereteli spent his childhood years living with a peasant’s family in the village of Savane. He was brought up by peasant nannies, all of which made him feel empathy for the peasants’ life in Georgia. He graduated from the Kutaisi Gymnasium in 1852 and the University of Saint Petersburg Faculty of Oriental Languages in 1863. The young adult generation of Georgians during the 1860s, led by Chavchavdze and Tsereteli, protested against the Tsarist regime and campaigned for cultural revival and self-determination of the Georgians. He is an author of hundreds of patriotic, historical, lyrical and satiric poems, also humoristic stories and autobiographic novel. Akaki Tsereteli was also active in educational, journalistic and theatrical activities.

    Dalloway (1925) To the Lighthouse (1927) The Waves (1931) The Years (1937) Between the Acts (1941) THE 'BIOGRAPHIES' Orlando: a biography (1928) Flush: a biography (1933) Roger Fry: a biography (1940) THE STORIES Two Stories (1917) Kew Gardens (1919) Monday or Tuesday (1921) A Haunted House, and other short stories (1944) Nurse Lugton's Golden Thimble (1966) Mrs Dalloway's Party (1973) The Complete Shorter Fiction (1985) THE ESSAYS Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown (1924) The Common Reader I (1925) A Room of One's Own (1929) On Being Ill (1930) The London Scene (1931) A Letter to a Young Poet (1932) The Common Reader II (1932) Walter Sickert: a conversation (1934) Three Guineas (1938) Reviewing (1939) The Death of the Moth, and other essays (1942) The Moment, and other essays (1947) The Captain's Death Bed, and other essays (1950) Granite and Rainbow (1958) Books and Portraits (1978) Women And Writing (1979) 383 Essays from newspapers and magazines AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITING A Writer's Diary (1953) Moments of Being (1976) The Diary Vols. 1–5 (1977-84) The Letters Vols. 1–6 (1975-80) The Letters of V.W. and Lytton Strachey (1956)  A Passionate Apprentice. The Early Journals 1887-1909 (1990)  THE PLAY Freshwater: A Comedy (both versions) (1976)