A compendium of in-depth reports from all over the world, including Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, Japan, Pakistan, Israel, Africa Turkey and China.

    In this exhilarating followup, Nafisi has written the book her fans have been waiting for: an impassioned, beguiling and utterly original tribute to the vital importance of fiction in a democratic society. What Reading Lolita in Tehran was for Iran, The Republic of Imagination is for America. Taking her cue from a challenge thrown to her in Seattle, where a skeptical reader told her that Americans don’t care about books the way they did back in Iran, she challenges those who say fiction has nothing to teach us. Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite American novels—from Huckleberry Finn to The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter—she invites us to join her as citizens of her "Republic of Imagination," a country where the villains are conformity and orthodoxy, and the only passport to entry is a free mind and a willingness to dream.

    One of our foremost novelists, National Book Award and PEN/Malamud Award winner Oates demonstrates an unparalleled understanding and appreciation of great works of literature with In Rough Country, and offers unique and breathtaking insights into the writer’s art.

    With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise from her long, celebrated career as a disguised poet. She walks readers through exactly how a poem is built, from meter and rhyme, to form and diction, to sound and sense, drawing on poems by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others. This handbook is an invaluable glimpse into Oliver’s prolific mind??—??a must-have for all poetry-lovers.

    Johnny Wray's gripping and often hilarious account of his adventures around the South Pacific has inspired readers and changed lives since its first publication 75 years ago. Fired from his day job during the Great Depression, Johnny begged, borrowed and stole the materials to build his famous yacht Ngataki. With some mates for company and a sextant to steer by, he set sail for the palm-fringed atolls and islands of his dreams - to discover they really did exist. But South Sea Vagabonds is much more than just a ripping yarn; it is a heartfelt hymn to the possibility of living a free life and truly being the master of one's own destiny.

    This book is pretty much what that title conveys, a tour through all fifty-one of H.P. Lovecraft's mature works of prose fiction. We're skipping the poetry, the collaborations and ghost-writing and revisions (except for Through the Gates of the Silver Key), the travel writing, the artistic and literary criticism and all the other things Lovecraft wrote instead of horror stories. It is my contention that the tale's the thing, and al- though some of Lovecraft's other works are interesting or fun or valuable, they're not what any of us really signed up for. Like most tours, we'll stay a little longer at the good spots, and try our best to hustle past the weedy, overgrown patches. Hopefully I can point out one or two scenic overlooks along the way, letting you perhaps see some familiar landscape from an angle you hadn't noticed before. .

    Transferred to an experimental low-security "honor camp" in the redwood forest, he spent six months clearing brush and immersing himself in the life of the jail community, attempting to "bring light and color" to it. "This is crazier here than the nuthouse ever was," Kesey noted, and proceeded to record the scene in numerous notebooks, illustrated with intense and brilliantly colored artwork.Upon returning to Oregon, Kesey turned the raw notebook material into an illustrated collage that stretched across dozens of 18" x 23" boards. Upon realizing that publication of the elaborate, handwritten book was more than his publisher was willing to attempt, he put it aside. Almost thirty years later he returned to the project and brought it to completion during the final years of his life. Fans of Ken Kesey's singular American voice will rejoice to hear it again in this unique and long-overdue volume. Those unfamiliar with Kesey's artwork are in for a revelation.

    It demonstrates how recent writers have changed the aesthetic constructs and social content of fairy tales to reflect cultural change since the 1960s in area of gender roles, socialization and education. It includes selected works from such writers as Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood and Jay Williams, and critical essays from Marcia Lieberman and Sandra Gilbert.

    In May 2004, Flynn reached the summit of Mt. Everest--but not without tears, laughter, failures, near-death experiences and great friendships. If you'sve ever wondered what it would be like for a mere mortal to attempt Mt. Everest, this book is as close as it gets.

    But we are not referring to just any knowledge. Gnosis is knowledge which produces a great transformation in those who receive it. Knowledge capable of nothing less than waking up man and helping him to escape from the prison in which he finds himself. That is why Gnosis has been so persecuted throughout the course of history, because it is knowledge considered dangerous for the religious and political authorities who govern mankind from the shadows.Every time this religion, absolutely different from the rest, appears before man, the other religions unite to try to destroy or hide it again.Primordial Gnosis is the original Gnosis, true Gnosis, eternal Gnosis, Gnostic knowledge in its pure form. Due to multiple persecutions, Primordial Gnosis has been fragmented, distorted and hidden.By recovering and uniting the scattered fragments, Primordial Gnosis can be reconstructed and brought to the world once again. This book is a complete synthesis of the forbidden theology of Primordial Gnosis.

    Originally published in hardcover by Philomel and then brought out a few years later in a trade paperback, this book of essays has become well identified with me. And the phrase, "Touch magic, pass it on" shows up in the oddest places. After five years out of print, the book in an expanded and revised edition has been reissued by the folklore publisher, August House. The new section is called "Touchstones" and has six new essays: "Fabling to the Near Night," "Killing the Other," "Throwing Shadows," "Literature As a Social Disease," the eponymous "Touchstones," "An Experiential Act," and an updated and revised Preface. - Jane Yolen

    For, in this stylish, erudite and frequently hilarious book, de Botton dips deeply into Proust’s life and work—his fiction, letter, and conversations—and distills from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful.Here, tendered in prose almost as luminous as it’s subject’s, is advice on cultivating friendships, suffering successfully, recognizing love and understanding why you should never sleep with someone on the first date. And here, too, is a generously perceptive literary biography that suggests that the master is as relevant today as he was in fin de siècle Paris. At once slyly ironic and genuinely wise, How Proust Can Change Your Life is an unqualified delight.

    Re-publication of the essays by the author whose criticism of Taiwan¡'s political culture became the seed of an essay wild fire for motivating the people of Taiwan.

    Each work of literature featured here is a seminal work key to understanding and appreciating the written word.The featured works have been handpicked by a team of international critics and literary luminaries, including Derek Attridge (world expert on James Joyce), Cedric Watts (renowned authority on Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene), Laura Marcus (noted Virginia Woolf expert), and David Mariott (poet and expert on African-American literature), among some twenty others.Addictive, browsable, knowledgeable--1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die will be a boon companion for anyone who loves good writing and an inspiration for anyone who is just beginning to discover a love of books. Each entry is accompanied by an authoritative yet opinionated critical essay describing the importance and influence of the work in question. Also included are publishing history and career details about the authors, as well as reproductions of period dust jackets and book designs.

    There, any romantic visions they'd had of restoring a villa or stamping their entwined feet in vats of Chianti grapes disappeared faster than the chief witness in a Cosa Nostra trial. Shamus and Gill's tiny apartment in Catania was located in a grim neighborhood opposite a triple-X cinema and a shop selling coffins, nearby Mount Etna erupted soon after their arrival, a mystery ailment left Shamus in a neck brace, they crashed a Vespa, and they had regular dealings with at least one Mafioso. This, then, is an Italian sea change with grit. But it's also a story of optimism, endurance, and acceptance; an exploration of the minutiae of Sicilian culture, history, food, and religion; and an example of how to find beauty—and humor—in the most unexpected of places.