This free Kindle book features interviews, essays, excerpts, and other fun extras about the year’s top 20 titles: Donna Tartt talks about her eating habits while writing The Goldfinch; Khaled Hosseini’s publicist discusses what it’s like to be on a national tour with him; David Finkel discusses the emotional impact following the 2-16 infantry battalion in Thank You for Your Service; and much more.

    A leading spokesman for the English Aesthetic movement, Wilde promoted "art for art’s sake" against critics who argued that art must serve a moral purpose. On every page of this collection the gifted literary stylist admirably demonstrates not only that the characteristics of art are "distinction, charm, beauty, and imaginative power," but also that criticism itself can be raised to an art form possessing these very qualities.In the opening essay, Wilde laments the "decay of Lying as an art, a science, and a social pleasure." He takes to task modern literary realists like Henry James and Emile Zola for their "monstrous worship of facts" and stifling of the imagination. What makes art wonderful, he says, is that it is "absolutely indifferent to fact, [art] invents, imagines, dreams, and keeps between herself and reality the impenetrable barrier of beautiful style, of decorative or ideal treatment."The next essay, "Pen, Pencil, and Poison," is a fascinating literary appreciation of the life of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, a talented painter, art critic, antiquarian, friend of Charles Lamb, and — murderer.The heart of the collection is the long two-part essay titled "The Critic as Artist." In one memorable passage after another, Wilde goes to great lengths to show that the critic is every bit as much an artist as the artist himself, in some cases more so. A good critic is like a virtuoso interpreter: "When Rubinstein plays … he gives us not merely Beethoven, but also himself, and so gives us Beethoven absolutely…made vivid and wonderful to us by a new and intense personality. When a great actor plays Shakespeare we have the same experience."Finally, in "The Truth of Masks," Wilde returns to the theme of art as artifice and creative deception. This essay focuses on the use of masks, disguises, and costume in Shakespeare.For newcomers to Wilde and those who already know his famous plays and fiction, this superb collection of his criticism offers many delights.The introduction is by Percival Pollard New York, July, 1905.

    Follow along in a three-part deconstruction of today's full-throttle existence to build the kind of life that Jesus modeled.

    . . colorful descriptions make this a fun read." -Los Angeles Times "One of the best sports books of the year." -Booklist Ken Baker wanted nothing more than to play ice hockey with the pros-until a brain tumor cut his dreams short while in college. After surgery and several years of rehab, Baker, who in high school was a top prospect for the U.S. Olympic team, put his successful journalism career on hold to attempt the seemingly impossible: a comeback. He moved away from his family to become the third-string goalie for the Bakersfield Condors, an AA-level minor-league team in the dusty oil town of Bakersfield, California. At the age of thirty-one, Baker became the oldest rookie in all of pro-hockey, facing 100-m.p.h. slap shots and long bus rides, hostile fans and cheap motel rooms, body bruises, and battle-worn teammates. From his visit to an NHL training camp to his first nerve-rattled minutes as a pro, Baker joins the rookies who still dream of making it to the Show, the veterans long past their prime, and the obsessive fans who keep them going. When the season is over, Baker's pro-hockey adventure ends up teaching him nearly everything he will ever need to know about life.

    A VINTAGE ORIGINAL.What do we see when we read? Did Tolstoy really describe Anna Karenina? Did Melville ever really tell us what, exactly, Ishmael looked like? The collection of fragmented images on a page - a graceful ear there, a stray curl, a hat positioned just so - and other clues and signifiers helps us to create an image of a character. But in fact our sense that we know a character intimately has little to do with our ability to concretely picture our beloved - or reviled - literary figures.In this remarkable work of nonfiction, Knopf's Associate Art Director Peter Mendelsund combines his profession, as an award-winning designer; his first career, as a classically trained pianist; and his first love, literature - he thinks of himself first, and foremost, as a reader - into what is sure to be one of the most provocative and unusual investigations into how we understand the act of reading.

    But the concept falls under such an absurdly large umbrella and can manifest in so many different ways. Art can be self indulgent, goofy, serious, altruistic, evil, or expressive, or any number of other things. But how can it truly make lasting, positive change? In Why Art?, acclaimed graphic novelist Eleanor Davis (How To Be Happy) unpacks some of these concepts in ways both critical and positive, in an attempt to illuminate the highest possible potential an artwork might hope to achieve. A work of art unto itself, Davis leavens her exploration with a sense of humor and a thirst for challenging preconceptions of art worth of Magritte, instantly drawing the reader in as a willing accomplice in her quest.

    In helping Memorial Medical Center build a culture of ownership, Carol Jean Hawtrey with the help of Florence Nightingale create a roadmap that every hospital can follow to create a more positive and productive workplace and a build a sustainable source of competitive advantage. In the form of a business parable, the story shows readers why the invisible architecture of core values, corporate culture, and emotional climate is more important than bricks and mortar for creating patient, physician and employee loyalty, and describes eight essential characteristics of a culture of ownership. Dozens of practical strategies for fostering a more positive and productive organization are woven into the story.

    Embassy offers an up-close and personal look into the lives of the diplomats and specialists who make up the U.S. Foreign Service, taking readers inside embassies and consulates in more than fifty countries, providing detailed descriptions of Foreign Service jobs and first-hand accounts of diplomacy in action. Gain a sense of the key role played by each member of an embassy team from Paris to Kabul, from Bogota to Beijing, and places in between. Travel into the rainforests of Thailand with an environmental affairs officer, face rampaging militias with a political officer in East Timor, and join an ambassador on a midnight trip into a Macedonian refugee camp to quell a riot. The book includes profiles of diplomats and specialists around the world serving in Foreign Service positions -- from the ambassador to the security officer, the consular officer to the IT specialist. Also included is a selection of day-in-the-life accounts from seventeen different countries, each describing an actual day on the job. The story section includes twenty-six tales from the field that give a sense of the extraordinary: the coups, the evacuations, the civil wars, the hardships and rewards of representing America to the world.Inside a U.S. Embassy was published by the American Foreign Service Association in 2003, and updated and revised in 2005. Over 70,000 copies have sold.

    Koalas look cuddly, but they're actually irritable, solitary beasts who do not want belly rubs. What kind of mocking god created creatures with poofy ears and big black noses that don't want belly rubs? BOpossums: North America gets one lousy marsupial, and let's just say it's not going to win any beauty contests. Or even not-ugly contests. C−Wombats: "Wombat" is a great name. It's got a "wom" and a "bat," and an "omba." They're kind of nondescript animals, cute in a generic pudgy mammal way, but their name spelled backward is "tabmow," and that makes all the difference. AThe Book of Ratings is hysterically arbitrary and undeniably infectious.

    In the process of ensuring that his family’s saga would be published as the authentic, true account it was, Villaseñor forged a sacred bond with his father and his indigenous ancestors, who were guiding him from the Other Side. The book eventually became a national bestseller and an enduring favorite of millions of readers. Yet the story doesn’t end there. Villaseñor’s connection with the Spirit World continued to deepen, awakening him to the ongoing miracles inherent in everyday living. He discovered that his life had suddenly taken on a magical quality, with events occurring that transcended the boundaries of what is normally considered “reality.” A series of mystical encounters with Spirit convinced Villaseñor that not only is there no firm line between life and death—but that the time has come in our collective “human-story” to usher in a new era of abundance, peace, and harmony on our beloved Mother Earth and among all of humanity!     Similar to Carlos Castaneda’s body of work, this exciting, raw, and honest book courageously delves into altered states of consciousness that exist alongside ordinary reality . . . ultimately revealing the Spiritual Wisdom that is available to each and every one of us.   Beyond Rain of Gold will truly transform the way you see the world— on both a personal and planetary level!

    The guide presents the major debates that surround these works as they develop, from Martin Esslin's early appropriation of the plays as examples of the Theatre of the Absurd, to recent poststructuralist and postcolonial readings by critics such as Steven Connor, Mary Bryden and Declan Kiberd. Throughout, Boxall clarifies and contextualizes critical responses to the plays, and considers the difficult relationship between Beckett and his critics.

    Continuing the popular teachings begun in the first two Emmanuel books, a beautifully illustrated volume offers Emmanuel's answers to difficult questions, his gentle but often surprising advice, his views on immortality, and his awareness of human struggles.

    As Canadian poet Christian Bök has realized, it all comes down to the durability of your materials."—The GuardianInternationally best-selling poet Christian Bök has spent more than ten years writing what promises to be the first example of "living poetry." After successfully demonstrating his concept in a colony of E. coli, Bök is on the verge of enciphering a beautiful, anomalous poem into the genome of an unkillable bacterium (Deinococcus radiodurans), which can, in turn, "read" his text, responding to it by manufacturing a viable, benign protein, whose sequence of amino acids enciphers yet another poem. The engineered organism might conceivably serve as a post-apocalyptic archive, capable of outlasting our civilization.Book I of The Xenotext constitutes a kind of "demonic grimoire," providing a scientific framework for the project with a series of poems, texts, and illustrations. A Virgilian welcome to the Inferno, Book I is the "orphic" volume in a diptych, addressing the pastoral heritage of poets, who have sought to supplant nature in both beauty and terror. The book sets the conceptual groundwork for the second volume, which will document the experiment itself. The Xenotext is experimental poetry in the truest sense of the term.Christian Bök is the author of Crystallography (1994) and Eunoia (2001), which won the Griffin Poetry Prize. He teaches at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

    The alternative music scene had all but died, and pre-packaged pop stars had filled the vacuum. But in a basement apartment in the heart of downtown Toronto, two musicians were forming a creative partnership that would revive the mass appeal of indie music and forever change how we think of a band.In this biography of the ever-evolving indie-rock collective, Broken Social Scene, music columnist Stuart Berman tracks the group's inception by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning; groundbreaking performances at Ted's Wrecking Yard that raised the band's local status to mythical proportions; Broken Social Scene's meteoric rise upon the release of breakout album You Forgot It In People; the creation of Arts & Crafts records with music-biz maverick Jeffrey Remedios; and life on the road with revolving bandmates, including members of Stars, Metric, The Dears, and international pop sensation Feist.Stuart Berman has drawn from hours of interviews with members and affiliates of Broken Social Scene, and exclusive, never-before-seen photographs, gig posters, and artwork to create a spectacular oral and visual history of this ever-evolving indie-rock collective.

    First there were the rats in the pantry, then the floods, then the fires, then the visiting cougar. Life in Bull Canyon was daunting and dangerous. Often Lin wondered just what in the world they were doing so far from their customary home on the open seas. Bull Canyon joins the canon of great tales of homesteading, told in the warm, funny, and insightful voice of a true storyteller.