Afraid that Mary Pomfret and Philip Weatherby are destined for the working-class, Jane and John attempt to stall the development of the wedding plans by having endless conversations about, well, nothing. This gives Jane--a shrewd, resourceful widow--the opportunity to embark on a scheme to lure John away from his current love interest. As the plot advances through discussions filled with misdirections and omissions, Green demonstrates that there is nothing like the spoken word to conceal one's true intentions. One of Green's final novels, Nothing is a worthy addition to the varied tradition of English literature that includes Virginia Woolf and Evelyn Waugh.

    Vincent Millay, and Emily Dickinson. The last six hundred years in British and American literature have given us some of the most moving and memorable poems in all literature. Now, discover many of these same works in one gorgeously wrought collection, featuring entries from poets as legendary and beloved as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Ralph Waldo Emerson, D.H. Lawrence, and many more. From Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberywocky” to Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and from Shakespeare’s sonnets to anonymous classics, this is the ultimate gift for poetry lovers of all ages and backgrounds. Arranged chronologically, the 150 poems featured in this stunning collection reflect the immortality of the poetic soul.

    The past year has seen a resurgence of poetry and inspiring quotes--posted on social media, appearing on bestseller lists, shared from friend to friend. Honoring this communal spirit, How Lovely the Ruins is a timeless collection of both classic and contemporary poetry and short prose that can be of help in difficult times--selections that offer wisdom and purpose, and that allow us to step out of our current moment to gain a new perspective on the world around us as well as the world within.The poets and writers featured in this book represent the diversity of our country as well as voices beyond our borders, including Maya Angelou, W. H. Auden, Danez Smith, Rumi, Emily Dickinson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Alice Walker, Adam Zagajewski, Langston Hughes, Wendell Berry, Anna Akhmatova, Yehuda Amichai, and Robert Frost. And the book opens with a stunning foreword by Elizabeth Alexander, whose poem "Praise Song for the Day," delivered at the inauguration of President Barack Obama, ushered in an era of optimism. In works celebrating our capacity for compassion, our patriotism, our right to protest, and our ability to persevere, How Lovely the Ruins is a beacon that illuminates our shared humanity, allowing us connection in a fractured world.Includes poetry, prose, and quotations from: Elizabeth Alexander - Marcus Aurelius - Karen Armstrong - Matthew Arnold - Ellen Bass - Brian Bilston - Gwendolyn Brooks - Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Octavia E. Butler - Regie Cabico - Dinos Christianopoulos - Lucille Clifton - Ta-Nehisi Coates - Leonard Cohen - Wendy Cope - E. E. Cummings - Charles Dickens - Mark Doty - Thomas Edison - Albert Einstein - Ralph Ellison - Kenneth Fearing - Annie Finch - Rebecca Foust - Nikki Giovanni - Stephanie Gray - John Green - Hazel Hall - Thich Nhat Hanh - Joy Harjo - Vaclav Havel - Terrance Hayes - William Ernest Henley - Juan Felipe Herrera - Jane Hirshfield - John Holmes - A. E. Housman - Bohumil Hrabal - Robinson Jeffers - Georgia Douglas Johnson - James Weldon Johnson - Paul Kalanithi - Robert F. Kennedy - Omar Khayyam - Emma Lazarus - Li-Young Lee - Denise Levertov - Ada Limon - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Nelson Mandela - Masahide - Khaled Mattawa - Jamaal May - Claude McKay - Edna St. Vincent Millay - Pablo Neruda - Anais Nin - Olga Orozco - Ovid - Pier Paolo Pasolini - Edgar Allan Poe - Claudia Rankine - Adrienne Rich - Rainer Maria Rilke - Alberto Rios - Edwin Arlington Robinson - Eleanor Roosevelt - Christina Rossetti - Muriel Rukeyser - Sadhguru - Carl Sandburg - Vikram Seth - Charles Simic - Safiya Sinclair - Effie Waller Smith - Maggie Smith - Tracy K. Smith - Leonora Speyer - Gloria Steinem - Clark Strand - Wislawa Szymborska - Rabindranath Tagore - Sara Teasdale - Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Vincent van Gogh - Ocean Vuong - Florence Brooks Whitehouse - Walt Whitman - Ella Wheeler Wilcox - William Carlos Williams - Virginia Woolf - W. B. Yeats - Saadi Youssef - Javier Zamora - Howard Zinn

    In her debut, Lauren Eden’s succinct and beautiful observations of human nature and its gains and losses will lead readers to understand their own journey in love and self discovery - now, and of yesteryear.