—from "Arriving Again and Again Without Noticing"In one poem in this emotional and spiritual collection, Linda Gregg asks, "It is clear why love / took me to the shore of death, / but why did it bring me back?" In the Middle Distance, Gregg's sixth book, explores up to and beyond the crossroads of devastation and desire. There, she finds not only survival but also salvation—hard-won, resilient, and meaningful.This collection brings Gregg's passion and intensity together with a new wisdom and vitality that is unmistakably original.

    Yet despite the distinctive differences from poem to poem, Bernstein's characteristic explorations of how language both limits and liberates thought are present throughout. Modulating the comic and the dark structural invention with buoyant soundplay, these challenging works give way to poems of lyric excess and striking emotional range. This is poetry for poetry's sake, as formally radical as it is socially engaged, providing equal measures of aesthetic pleasure, hilarity, and philosophical reflection. Long considered one of America's most inventive and influential contemporary poets, Bernstein reveals himself to be both trickster and charmer.

    Moved by the presence and withdrawal of light, these internal clocks influence rhythms of sleeping and waking: the opening and closing of flowers, the speed at which the heart pumps blood, the migratory cycles of birds. With love poems and wintry prayers, Joanna Klink offers us patterns of glowing alertness and shared life, patterns that speak to the flickering circuit between inner and outer landscapes, that bind each beating heart to the pull of the tides.

    There, a bore is "a person who talks when you wish him to listen," and happiness is "an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another." This is the most comprehensive, authoritative edition ever of Ambrose Bierce’s satiric masterpiece. It renders obsolete all other versions that have appeared in the book’s ninety-year history.A virtual onslaught of acerbic, confrontational wordplay, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary offers some 1,600 wickedly clever definitions to the vocabulary of everyday life. Little is sacred and few are safe, for Bierce targets just about any pursuit, from matrimony to immortality, that allows our willful failings and excesses to shine forth.This new edition is based on David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi’s exhaustive investigation into the book’s writing and publishing history. All of Bierce’s known satiric definitions are here, including previously uncollected, unpublished, and alternative entries. Definitions dropped from previous editions have been restored while nearly two hundred wrongly attributed to Bierce have been excised. For dedicated Bierce readers, an introduction and notes are also included.Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary is a classic that stands alongside the best work of satirists such as Twain, Mencken, and Thurber. This unabridged edition will be celebrated by humor fans and word lovers everywhere.

    Short Haul Engine is one great twist of fate and fury after another. The writing is clear, striking and open to all sorts of possibilities. Even at their most playful, these poems dive much deeper than initially expected. There's a remarkably dark sense of humour at work here, but tempered with a haunting vulnerability that makes even the sharpest lines tremble.from "Signs Taken for Wonders" ... Too delicate for these dog-days, small, clover-blonde, my sister sews indoors. I ask her to fashion me into something nice, ivory silk. I am a big girl, sunburnt skin like raw meat, sweating two pews in front of the Blessed Virgin....

    Better still, imagine if it could express its innermost feelings in poetic form. This hilarious, insightful book confirms what we've all long suspected - that inside every dog is the soul of a poet. From retrieving sticks to rivalry with cats; from cold winter walks to endlessly chasing tennis balls, no stone of a dog's life is left unturned.With a delightful photo alongside every haiku, this is the perfect gift for any dog lover.

    At the heart of the novel is dutiful Asta, the middle daughter who lives in the shadow of her siblings—fiery Signy, headstrong Leifur and sweet, naive Freyja. When Freyja goes missing, Asta embarks on a quest to bring her sister home. She tells the family’s story some seventy years later, while on her deathbed, finally discovering the truth of what happened on those fateful days that set the course for her life and the lives of everyone she loved.Loosely inspired by area events, this is an emotional, slow-burning story of family love and sacrifice, of secrets revealed and promises broken—told in the spirit of the Icelandic Sagas.

    Jay is a successful businessman, husband, and father. His sudden death leaves his wife, Maya, hollow and angry, and their seven-year-old son, Calder, spins destructively out of control. With help from a spirited afterlife therapist, Jay revisits his past, discovering hard truths about himself and the world he left behind. He attempts to comfort Maya and Calder in their grief while discovering his true “spirit” self. Then, when Maya hires a psychic to communicate with him, Jay learns her darkest secret and in his shock, inadvertently sends her on a path of ill-fated romance. Confronted with the decision to either follow his mortal instincts or help his wife find love, Jay must learn to transcend everything he ever was.

    Mashkawaji (they/them) lies frozen in the ice, remembering a long-ago time of hopeless connection and now finding freedom and solace in isolated suspension. They introduce us to the seven main characters: Akiwenzii, the old man who represents the narrator’s will; Ninaatig, the maple tree who represents their lungs; Mindimooyenh, the old woman who represents their conscience; Sabe, the giant who represents their marrow; Adik, the caribou who represents their nervous system; Asin, the human who represents their eyes and ears; and Lucy, the human who represents their brain. Each attempts to commune with the unnatural urban-settler world, a world of SpongeBob Band-Aids, Ziploc baggies, Fjällräven Kånken backpacks, and coffee mugs emblazoned with institutional logos. And each searches out the natural world, only to discover those pockets that still exist are owned, contained, counted, and consumed. Cut off from nature, the characters are cut off from their natural selves.Noopiming is Anishinaabemowin for “in the bush,” and the title is a response to English Canadian settler and author Susanna Moodie’s 1852 memoir Roughing It in the Bush. To read Simpson’s work is an act of decolonization, degentrification, and willful resistance to the perpetuation and dissemination of centuries-old colonial myth-making. It is a lived experience. It is a breaking open of the self to a world alive with people, animals, ancestors, and spirits, who are all busy with the daily labours of healing — healing not only themselves, but their individual pieces of the network, of the web that connects them all together. Enter and be changed.

    100 lines from the author's MSN messenger chat history, set in large bold helvetica.

    In Beloved Dog, renowned artist and author Maira Kalman illuminates our cherished companions as only she can. From the dogs lovingly illustrated in her acclaimed children’s books to the real-life pets who inspire her still, Kalman’s Beloved Dog is joyful, beautifully illustrated, and, as always, deeply philosophical.  Here is Max Stravinsky, the dog poet of Oh-La-La (Max in Love)-fame, and her own Irish Wheaton Pete (almost named Einstein, until he revealed himself to be “clearly no Einstein”), who also made an appearance in the delightful What Pete Ate: From A to Z. And of course, there is Boganch, Kalman’s in-laws’ “big black slobbering Hungarian Beast.” And that’s just the beginning. With humor and intelligence, Kalman gives voice to the dogs she adores, noting that they are constant reminders that life reveals the best of itself when we live fully in the moment and extend unconditional love. “And it is very true,” she writes, “that the most tender, complicated, most generous part of our being blossoms without any effort, when it comes to the love of a dog.”

    Using video links, IP Factly's Amazing Animal series has been designed to encourage and bolster independent reading. The animals are accompanied by pictures and facts plus video links so children can see the animals and how they behave.

    Evie farewelled a nasty break-up, long hours in a demanding job, a hefty mortgage and snatched hours with her daughter for a new life lived outside the lines, spending every day with Emmie exploring the world beyond the suburbs.   They camped on the Great Wall of China, hung in train doorways in Sri Lanka, swam with mantas in Indonesia, donated much-needed blood in Cambodia, spotted wild orangutans and pygmy elephants in Malaysian Borneo, prayed in Buddhist temples in Taiwan and were chased by monkeys everywhere. In their journey toward happiness and self-acceptance, they learnt more about each other and the beautiful world around them than Evie ever expected.  Backyard to Backpack is the inspirational true story that will have you asking yourself, what might be if you took a chance, stepped off the path of expectation and created your own adventure?

    Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts', suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage. Witty, moving, and brilliantly entertaining, Cora's story marks the debut of a glorious storyteller who brings a fresh new spirit to the world of Edith Wharton and Henry James.

    First appearing on YouTube, the video of Wendy Francisco's charming animated illustrations and moving song tells of the unconditional love of both God and Dog. With over 2 million YouTube viewings to date, Francisco's story appeals to all ages, to animal enthusiasts, to people of religious persuasions, and especially to anyone who has been loved by a dog.Now in book format, Wendy's touching narrative will be expanded on through additional lyrics, illustrations, photographs and some of the powerful mail that is continually being sent to Francisco.