Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam


Tony Medina - 2001
    This is our mouth on paper, our hearts on our sleeves, our refusal to shut up and swallow our silence. These poems are tough, honest, astute, perceptive, lyrical, blunt, sad, funny, heartbreaking, and true. They shout, they curse, they whisper, and sing. But most of all, they tell it like it is.” –Tony Medina, from the Introduction

Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division


Deborah Curtis - 1995
    It contains a discography, gig list and a full set of lyrics.

Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World


Ella Frances Sanders - 2014
    Did you know that the Japanese language has a word to express the way sunlight filters through the leaves of trees? Or that there’s a Finnish word for the distance a reindeer can travel before needing to rest? Lost in Translation brings to life more than fifty words that don’t have direct English translations with charming illustrations of their tender, poignant, and humorous definitions. Often these words provide insight into the cultures they come from, such as the Brazilian Portuguese word for running your fingers through a lover’s hair, the Italian word for being moved to tears by a story, or the Swedish word for a third cup of coffee. In this clever and beautifully rendered exploration of the subtleties of communication, you’ll find new ways to express yourself while getting lost in the artistry of imperfect translation.

All On The Board: Inspirational quotes from the TfL underground duo


All on the Board - 2020
    'We were tired of looking at a board that just said "keep right" and thought can't we do something a bit more fun?'.Fast-forward 3 years, they've grown a community of 750,000+ online fans and have a plethora of celebrity supporters. Through their magical words, they've marked momentous occasions, celebrated countless artists, legends and heroes, raised awareness of mental health and hidden illnesses and sprinkled thousands of our daily journeys with positivity, humour and love. Their kind messages remind us all that we're in it together and now, with their beautiful, colourful collection of quotes, stories and drawings you can add joy to your day wherever you are and however you're feeling.CHAPTERS INCLUDE: Positively Positive, Raising Awareness, Love, Always Remembered, Random Pleasures & Simple Treasures, Mental Health, Legends, Real Life Heroes, Occasions & Celebrations, London, In It Together

The Moon Is Always Female: Poems


Marge Piercy - 1980
    Hand Games, poems of the first section, is the daily bread of my past two years or so. They are the artifacts of loving in a personal way, of struggles in a wide and a narrower frame, of planting and harvesting in the earth and on paper, of building new friendships and mourning the death of friends. They speak of zucchini and oaks and cats, of jogging and writing, of nuclear power plants and suicide, of fat and of street hassling. ”The Lunar Cycle forms the second part. I first heard of the lunar calendar in my childhood, when I asked why Passover falls on a different date every year and was answered that it falls on Nisan 14, the fourteenth day of the lunar month of Nisan. The next time I came across the moon-month was in reading Robert Graves in search of the old goddess religions. But the lunar calendar has really only been an intimate part of my life since I moved near the ocean and the bay and had to become conscious of the tides; for one thing, to get the sweet Wellfleet oysters. For more precise understanding I owe a lot to Nancy F. W.Passmore of the Luna Press, who every year produces The Lunar Calendar with thirteen months, their old Celtic names, associations from around the world, time of moon rise and set and all the phases. It tells me at a glance when my period will come and when I can expect to ovulate, and it is the most beautiful calendar I have ever seen, with the months in the form of spirals rather than grids.”Not being constrained by commerce to produce a calendar to sell by January first, Roman time, I begin when my year opens, in the spring; with Nisan, the first month of the Jewish religious year – although I have used the Celtic names, as does The Lunar Calendar, in homage to that labor of love. Rediscovering the lunar calendar has been a part of rediscovering women’s past, but it has also meant for me a series of doorways to some of the non-rational aspects of being a living woman: Thus The Lunar Cycle, explorations of my last two years.”

A Little History of Literature


John Sutherland - 2013
    John Sutherland is perfectly suited to the task. He has researched, taught, and written on virtually every area of literature, and his infectious passion for books and reading has defined his own life. Now he guides young readers and the grown-ups in their lives on an entertaining journey 'through the wardrobe' to a greater awareness of how literature from across the world can transport us and help us to make sense of what it means to be human. Sutherland introduces great classics in his own irresistible way, enlivening his offerings with humor as well as learning: Beowulf, Shakespeare, Don Quixote, the Romantics, Dickens, Moby Dick, The Waste Land, Woolf, 1984, and dozens of others. He adds to these a less-expected, personal selection of authors and works, including literature usually considered well below 'serious attention' - from the rude jests of Anglo-Saxon runes to The Da Vinci Code. With masterful digressions into various themes - censorship, narrative tricks, self-publishing, taste, creativity, and madness - Sutherland demonstrates the full depth and intrigue of reading. For younger readers, he offers a proper introduction to literature, promising to interest as much as instruct. For more experienced readers, he promises just the same.

The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld


Terry Pratchett - 2007
    It is a world populated by ineffectual wizards and sharp-as-tacks witches, by tired policemen and devious dictators, by reformed thieves and vampires who have sworn to drink no blood. It is a world that is vastly different from our own . . . except when it isn't.Now, in The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld, various nuggets of Pratchett's witty commentary and sagacious observations have been compiled by Pratchett expert Stephen Briggs, a man who, they say, knows even more about Discworld than Terry Pratchett.Within these pages, you'll find musings on:Interior decorating: "It's a fact known throughout the universes that no matter how carefully the colors are chosen, institutional decor ends up as either vomit green, unmentionable brown, nicotine yellow, or surgical appliance pink. By some little-understood process of sympathetic resonance, corridors painted in those colors always smell slightly of boiled cabbage—even if no cabbage is ever cooked in the vicinity." (Equal Rites)Travel: "Any seasoned traveler soon learns to avoid anything wished on them as a 'regional speciality,' because all the term means is that the dish is so unpleasant the people living everywhere else will bite off their own legs rather than eat it. But hosts still press it upon distant guests anyway: 'Go on, have the dog's head stuffed with macerated cabbage and pork noses—it's a regional speciality.'" (The Last Continent)Young men: "And then there was the young male walk. At least women swung only their hips. Young men swung everything, from the shoulders down. You have to try to occupy a lot of space. It makes you look bigger, like a tomcat fluffing his tail. The boys tried to walk big in self-defense against all those other big boys out there. I'm bad, I'm fierce, I'm cool, I'd like a pint of shandy and me mam wants me home by nine." (Monstrous Regiment)Class: "'Old money' meant that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds that had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that; a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of." (Making Money). . . and more culled from all the Discworld novels.

Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs


Jay Farrar - 2013
    Recollections of Farrar's father are prominent throughout the stories. Ultimately, it is music and musicians that are given the most space and the final word since music has been the creative impetus and driving force for the past 35 years of his life.In writing these stories, he found a natural inclination to focus on very specific experiences; a method analogous to the songwriting process. The highlights and pivotal experiences from that musical journey are all represented as the binding thread in these stories, illustrated throughout with photography from his life. If life is a movie, then these stories are the still frames.

One Direction: Where We Are: Our Band, Our Story: 100% Official


One Direction - 2013
    It has been a phenomenal year—and this is a phenomenal story.This Christmas, there will be no other book that true One Direction fans will want!

Resistance: A Songwriter's Story of Hope, Change, and Courage


Tori Amos - 2020
    From her unnerving depiction of sexual assault in "Me and a Gun" to her post-9/11 album Scarlet's Walk to her latest album Native Invader, her work has never shied away from intermingling the personal with the political.Amos began playing piano as a teenager for the politically powerful at hotel bars in Washington, D.C., during the formative years of the post-Goldwater and then Koch-led Libertarian and Reaganite movements. The story continues to her time as a hungry artist in L.A. to the subsequent three decades of her formidable music career. Amos explains how she managed to create meaningful, politically resonant work against patriarchal power structures-and how her proud declarations of feminism and her fight for the marginalized always proved to be her guiding light. She teaches readers to engage with intention in this tumultuous global climate and speaks directly to supporters of #MeToo and #TimesUp, as well as young people fighting for their rights and visibility in the world.Filled with compassionate guidance and actionable advice-and using some of the most powerful, political songs in Amos's canon-this book is for readers determined to steer the world back in the right direction.

The Top 500 Poems


William HarmonAlexander Pope - 1992
    These works speak across centuries, beginning with Chaucer's resourceful inventions and moving through Shakespeare's masterpieces, John Donne's complex originality, and Alexander Pope's mordant satires. The anthology also features perennial favorites such as William Blake, William Wordsworth, and John Keats; Emily Dickinson's prisms of profundity; the ironies of Wallace Stevens and T.S. Eliot; and the passion of Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg. These 500 poems are verses that readers either know already or will want to know, encapsulating the visceral power of truly great literature. William Harmon provides illuminating commentary to each work and a rich introduction that ties the entire collection together.

Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934): When Sin Ruled the Movies


Mark A. Vieira - 2019
    You will see decisions artfully wrought, so as to fool some of the people long enough to get films into theaters. You will read what theater managers thought of such craftiness, and hear from fans as they applauded creativity or condemned crassness. You will see how these films caused a grass-roots movement to gain control of Hollywood-and why they were "forbidden" for fifty years.The book spotlights the twenty-two films that led to the strict new Code of 1934, including Red-Headed Woman, Call Her Savage, and She Done Him Wrong. You'll see Paul Muni shoot a path to power in the original Scarface; Barbara Stanwyck climb the corporate ladder on her own terms in Baby Face; and misfits seek revenge in Freaks.More than 200 newly restored (and some never-before-published) photographs illustrate pivotal moments in the careers of Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, and Greta Garbo; and the pre-Code stardom of Claudette Colbert, Cary Grant, Marlene Dietrich, James Cagney, and Mae West. This is the definitive portrait of an unforgettable era in filmmaking.

The People's Songs: The Story of Modern Britain in 50 Records


Stuart Maconie - 2013
    Covering the last seven decades, Stuart Maconie looks at the songs that have been the soundtracks for changing times, and have—just sometimes—changed the way listeners feel. Beginning with Vera Lynn’s "We’ll Meet Again," a song that reassured a nation parted from their loved ones by the turmoil of war, and culminating with the manic energy of "Bonkers," Dizzee Rascal’s anthem for the push and rush of the 21st century inner city, The People’s Songs takes a tour of the UK's pop music, and asks what it means to a Briton.The story of modern Britain is told chronologically over 50 chapters, through the records that listened to and loved during the dramatic and kaleidoscopic period from World War II to the present day. This is not a rock critique about the 50 greatest tracks ever recorded. Rather, it is a celebration of songs that tell us something about how Britons have felt about things in their lives down the eras—work, war, class, leisure, race, family, drugs, sex, patriotism, and more. In times of prosperity or poverty, this is the music that inspired haircuts and dance crazes, but also protest and social change. The companion to Stuart Maconie’s landmark Radio 2 series, The People’s Songs shows the power of "cheap" pop music,­ one of Britain’s greatest exports. These are the songs people have worked to and partied to, and grown up and grown old to—from "A Whiter Shade of Pale" to "Rehab," "She Loves You" to "Star Man," and "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" to "Radio Ga Ga."

The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics


Marcus du Sautoy - 2003
    The subject was the mystery of prime numbers. At the heart of the presentation was an idea that Riemann had not yet proved but one that baffles mathematicians to this day.Solving the Riemann Hypothesis could change the way we do business, since prime numbers are the lynchpin for security in banking and e-commerce. It would also have a profound impact on the cutting-edge of science, affecting quantum mechanics, chaos theory, and the future of computing. Leaders in math and science are trying to crack the elusive code, and a prize of $1 million has been offered to the winner. In this engaging book, Marcus du Sautoy reveals the extraordinary history behind the holy grail of mathematics and the ongoing quest to capture it.

The Mighty Book of Boosh


Noel Fielding - 2008
    Boosh art director Dave Brown—aka Bollo the gorilla—has designed countless graphics based on Boosh jokes, including a poster for the Howard vs. kangaroo boxing match and a vintage Penguin-looking book cover for Howard Moon's Trumpet Full of Memories. Other artists have illustrated such essentials of the Boosh-iverse as the a cappella songs known as crimps and the eclectic hairstyles. Every Boosh fan will love Old Gregg's Baileys-fueled watercolors, Vince's Excuses for Being Late, and Bob Fossil's Guide to Dance.