Arcana: Musicians on Music


John ZornMike Patton - 1999
    Music. Through manifestos, scores, interviews, notes and critical papers, contributors to this in-depth anthology address composing, playing, improvising, teaching, and thinking in and through music. Rather than attempting to distill or define musician's work, ARCANA illuminates it with personal vision and experience.

The Writings of Jonathan Swift: Authoritative Texts, Backgrounds, Criticism


Robert A. Greenberg - 1889
    Brown, Samuel Holt Monk, Allan Bloom, Nigel Dennis, Edward W. Rosenheim, Jr., A. E. Dyson, William Frost, C. J. Rawson, Kathleen Williams, Martin Price, Robert M. Adams, and Jay Arnold Levine An Annotated Bibliography guides the reader to important works for further study.

The Back Chamber


Donald Hall - 2011
    While Hall’s devoted readers will recognize many of his long-standing preoccupations—baseball, the family farm, love, sex, and friendship—what will strike them as new is the fierce, pitiless poignancy he reveals as his own life’s end comes into view. The Back Chamber is far from being death-haunted but rather is lively, irreverent, sexy, hilarious, ironic, and sly—full of the life-affirming energy that has made Donald Hall one of America’s most popular and enduring poets.

Tender Buttons


Gertrude Stein - 1914
    Stein's strong influence on 20th-century literature is evident in this 1915 work of highly original prose rendered in thought-provoking experimental techniques.

"You Have Lipstick on Your Teeth" and Other Things You'll Only Hear from Your Friends In The Powder Room


Leslie MarinelliStephanie Giese - 2013
    Now we’re taking it to the next level with an anthology of original short stories from some of the wittiest women writers we know—stories they would only tell their closest friends, most likely from within the haven of a ladies’ room. Inside you’ll find 39 (mostly) true tales by women, for women, about being women—bodily changes, relationships, careers, motherhood, aging, illness, and more—written with the humor and grit that proudly sets In The Powder Room apart.But be forewarned: we’re holding nothing back. We’re revealing our deep dark secrets—because it’s through our most vulnerable and honest moments that we forge the strongest connections and discover we aren’t so alone after all. You have a gimpy boob? Me too. You think glitter is the herpes of the craft world? Me too! You got your fishnet-clad leg stuck to your head on stage in front of thousands of people? Wait…what? OMG. Tell me everything! We are your friends, sisters, mothers, and daughters. Regardless of what life has dished up for you, chances are, we’ve been there and we can relate. We’ll help you laugh it off, or hold your hand until you’re ready to laugh again. And we promise: we’ll always tell you when you have lipstick on your teeth.

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 2010


Joseph Gordon-Levitt - 2010
    Featuring 31 favorite tiny stories and illustrations by 45 writers and artists from the 2,312 contributions to wirrow's endlessly popular Tiny Stories collaboration; plus a special introductory interview by RegularJOE & wirrow. Designed for hitRECord by Marke, wirrow, & 45 hitRECorders.

Weight Loss for the Mind


Stuart Wilde - 1994
    Wilde teaches readers how to deal with opinions, feelings, contradiction, expectancy, and finally how to elevate their spirits to feel freer and lighter.

Plainwater: Essays and Poetry


Anne Carson - 1995
    Carson envisions a present-day interview with a seventh-century BC poet, and offers miniature lectures on topics as varied as orchids and Ovid. She imagines the muse of a fifteenth-century painter attending a phenomenology conference in Italy. She constructs verbal photographs of a series of mysterious towns, and takes us on a pilgrimage in pursuit of the elusive and intimate anthropology of water. Blending the rhythm and vivid metaphor of poetry with the discursive nature of the essay, the writings in Plainwater dazzle us with their invention and enlighten us with their erudition.

One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories


B.J. Novak - 2014
    Novak's One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is an endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut collection that signals the arrival of a welcome new voice in American fiction.Across a dazzling range of subjects, themes, tones, and narrative voices, Novak's assured prose and expansive imagination introduce readers to people, places, and premises that are hilarious, insightful, provocative, and moving-often at the same time.In One More Thing, a boy wins a $100,000 prize in a box of Frosted Flakes - only to discover that claiming the winnings may unravel his family. A woman sets out to seduce motivational speaker Tony Robbins - turning for help to the famed motivator himself. A school principal unveils a bold plan to permanently abolish arithmetic. An acclaimed ambulance driver seeks the courage to follow his heart and throw it all away to be a singer-songwriter. Author John Grisham contemplates a monumental typo. A new arrival in heaven, overwhelmed by infinite options, procrastinates over his long-ago promise to visit his grandmother. We meet a vengeance-minded hare, obsessed with scoring a rematch against the tortoise who ruined his life; and post-college friends who debate how to stage an intervention in the era of Facebook. We learn why wearing a red t-shirt every day is the key to finding love; how February got its name; and why the stock market is sometimes just... down.Finding inspiration in questions from the nature of perfection to the icing on carrot cake, from the deeply familiar to the intoxicatingly imaginative, One More Thing finds its heart in the most human of phenomena: love, fear, family, ambition, and the inner stirring for the one elusive element that might make a person complete. The stories in this collection are like nothing else, but they have one thing in common: they share the playful humor, deep heart, inquisitive mind, and altogether electrifying spirit of a writer with a fierce devotion to the entertainment of the reader.

Television Without Pity: 752 Things We Love to Hate (and Hate to Love) about TV


Tara Ariano - 2006
     Topics include: America s Next Top Model Bad Sitcoms Starring Good Comedians Celebrity Poker Showdown Cliched Portrayals of Senior Citizens Denise Huxtable Intrusive Neighbors Iron Chef Lifetime movies MasterCard Priceless Campaign MTV Musical Montages The People s Court Sha la la la! Sitcom Reunion Movies Saved by the Bell Talking CGI Animals and Babies in Commercials TV Weddings Urkel and so much more!"

Just Peace: A Message of Hope


Mattie J.T. Stepanek - 2006
    What began as a casual discourse, not too different from others I have had with inquisitive young people who have reached out to me, became a treasured and enlightening friendship that changed my life forever. With the purity of heart that only a child can possess, and the indomitable spirit of one who has survived more physical suffering than most adults will ever know, Mattie convinced me that his quest was not inconceivable. Inspired by his enthusiasm and without reservation, I committed to a partnership with him. . . . These words of wisdom and inspiration came from the most remarkable person I have ever known." --Jimmy Carter Sometimes the most important messages come from the most unlikely places. Mattie J.T. Stepanek, a 13-year-old boy, made a difference before he died with his Heartsongs poetry. He continues to impact the world through Just Peace. This poet, best-selling author, peace activist, and prominent voice for the Muscular Dystrophy Association fervently believed in and promoted world peace not just as a concept, but as a reality.Mattie was working on this manuscript with Jimmy Carter when he died in June 2004. His mother, Jeni, who edited the material and wrote a preface for the book has published it at her son's request. Just Peace explores Mattie's concept of the world and all people as a unique mosaic of gifts. War and injustice shatter the mosaic, which can only be made whole again by planning and actively pursuing peace. The young visionary's essays, poetry, and photographs appear throughout the book. Jimmy Carter has written a special foreword for the book.Just as important to the book and enlightening to the reader are Mattie's many correspondences. Central to these are his personal e-mails to and from former president Jimmy Carter, Mattie's peace "hero" and role model. The Nobel Peace Prize winner met Mattie, considered him an angel, messenger, and hero in his own right, and was genuinely affected by Mattie's passion and drive. Just Peace is an intimate portrait of a president, a young man of hope, and peace itself.

The Unreality of Memory: And Other Essays


Elisa Gabbert - 2020
    . . leave it to a poet to tackle the unthinkable so wisely and so wittily."* A literary guide to life in the pre-apocalypse, The Unreality of Memory collects profound and prophetic essays on the Internet age’s media-saturated disaster coverage and our addiction to viewing and discussing the world’s ills.We stare at our phones. We keep multiple tabs open. Our chats and conversations are full of the phrase “Did you see?” The feeling that we’re living in the worst of times seems to be intensifying, alongside a desire to know precisely how bad things have gotten—and each new catastrophe distracts us from the last.The Unreality of Memory collects provocative, searching essays on disaster culture, climate anxiety, and our mounting collective sense of doom. In this new collection, acclaimed poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert explores our obsessions with disasters past and future, from the sinking of the Titanic to Chernobyl, from witch hunts to the plague. These deeply researched, prophetic meditations question how the world will end—if indeed it will—and why we can’t stop fantasizing about it.Can we avoid repeating history? Can we understand our moment from inside the moment? With The Unreality of Memory, Gabbert offers a hauntingly perceptive analysis of our new ways of being and a means of reconciling ourselves to this unreal new world."A work of sheer brilliance, beauty and bravery.” *—Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less

The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition


M.H. Abrams - 1954
    Abrams has given us a remarkable study, admirably conceived and executed, a book of quite exceptional and no doubt lasting significance for a number of fields - for the history of ideas and comparative literature as well as for English literary history, criticism and aesthetics.

On Being Blue


William H. Gass - 1975
    In a philosophical approach to color, William Gass explores man's perception of the color blue as well as its common erotic, symbolic, and emotional associations.

Sorrow Arrow


Emily Kendal Frey - 2014
    Wily, witty and weird, often haunting, sometimes heartbreaking, [Frey's] poems…dive deep, for all their individual brevity.