Book picks similar to
The Practical Imagination: An Introduction To Poetry by Northrop Frye
contemporary-philosophy
critica-literaria
literature
philosophy
Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere
Hank Stuever - 2004
Elsewhere might be revealed in the tract-house adventures of a home-décor reality show, at a discount funeral home in a strip mall, or in the story of an armed man named Honey Bear in the hunt for his beloved but now missing sleeper sofa which he left in a store unit. Off Ramp shows us America through the humorous gaze of Hank Stuever, who finds beauty in the midst of the most unlikely and invisible lives and places.
The Pearls of Love and Logic for Parents and Teachers
Jim Fay - 2000
Book by Fay, Charles, Fay, Jim, Cline, Foster W.
Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society
Dorothy L. Sayers - 1970
The role of both men and women, in her view, was to find the work for which they were suited and to do it. While Sayers did not devote a great deal of time to talking or writing about feminism, she did explicitly address the issue of women's role in society in the two penetrating essays collected here. Though she wrote several decades ago, she still offers in her piquant style a sensible and conciliatory approach to ongoing gender issues.
The Boy Who Saw True: The Time-Honoured Classic of the Paranormal
Cyril Scott - 1953
'Not one of them has ever displayed the characteristics of this highly diverting human document, with its naïve candours, its unconscious humour, its oscillations between the ridiculous and the exalted, and its power to convince, for the very reason that the young diarist never set out with the intention of convincing. Here was a precocious young boy born with clairvoyance who could see auras and spirits, yet failed to realise that other people were not similarly gifted.'This is the Victorian diary of a boy whose extraordinary supernatural talent unfurls within these pages. A compelling read, The Boy Who Saw True is a time-honoured classic of the paranormal.
She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems
Caroline Kennedy - 2011
Inspired by her own reflections on more than fifty years of life as a young girl, a woman, a wife, and a mother, She Walks in Beauty draws on poetry's eloquent wisdom to ponder the many joys and challenges of being a woman. Kennedy has divided the collection into sections that signify to her the most notable milestones, passages, and universal experiences in a woman's life, and she begins each of these sections with an introduction in which she explores and celebrates the most important elements of life's journey.The collection includes works by Elizabeth Bishop, Sharon Olds, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda, W. H. Auden, Adrienne Rich, Sandra Cisneros, Anne Sexton, W. S. Merwin, Dorothy Parker, Queen Elizabeth I, Lucille Clifton, Naomi Shahib Nye, and W.B. Yeats. Whether it's falling in love, breaking up, friendship, marriage, motherhood, or growing old, She Walks in Beauty is a priceless resource for anyone, male or female, who wants a deeper understanding and appreciation of what it means to be a woman.She walks in beautyGeorge Gordon, Lord ByronI She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes:Thus mellow'd to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies.II One shade the more, one ray the less,Had half impair'd the nameless graceWhich waves in every raven tress,Or softly lightens o'er her face;Where thoughts serenely sweet expressHow pure, how dear their dwelling-place.III And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,The smiles that win, the tints that glow,But tell of days in goodness spent,A mind at peace with all below,A heart whose love is innocent!
The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New
Annie Dillard - 2016
Intense, vivid, and fearless, her work endows the true and seemingly ordinary aspects of life—a commuter chases snowball-throwing children through backyards, a bookish teenager memorizes the poetry of Rimbaud—with beauty and irony. These essays invite readers into sweeping landscapes, to join Dillard in exploring the complexities of time and death, often with wry humor. On one page, an eagle falls from the sky with a weasel attached to its throat; on another, a man walks into a bar.Marking the vigor of this powerful writer, The Abundance highlights Annie Dillard’s elegance of mind.
Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure
Larry Smith - 2008
When the online storytelling magazine SMITH asked readers to submit six-word memoirs, they proved a whole, real life can be told this way, too. The results are fascinating, hilarious, shocking, and moving. From small sagas of bittersweet romance ("Found true love, married someone else") to proud achievements and stinging regrets ("After Harvard, had baby with crackhead"), these terse true tales relate the diversity of human experience in tasty bite-size pieces. The original edition of Not Quite What I Was Planning spent six weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and thanks to massive media attention—from NPR to the The New Yorker—the six-word memoir concept spread to classrooms, dinner tables, churches, synagogues, and tens of thousands of blogs. This deluxe edition has been revised and expanded to include more than sixty never-before-seen memoirs. From authors Elizabeth Gilbert, Richard Ford, and Joyce Carol Oates to celebrities Stephen Colbert, Mario Batali, and Joan Rivers to ordinary folks around the world, everyone has a six-word story to tell.
Orwell on Truth
George Orwell - 2017
With an introduction by Alan Johnson.
'Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows.'
This selection of George Orwell’s writing, from both his novels and non-fiction, gathers together his thoughts on the subject of truth. It ranges from discussion of personal honesty and morality, to freedom of speech and political propaganda. Orwell’s unique clarity of thought and illuminating scepticism provide the perfect defence against our post-truth world of fake news and confusion.
'The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.'
Includes an introduction by Alan Johnson and passages from Burmese Days, The Road to Wigan Pier, Coming Up for Air, The Lion and the Unicorn, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell’s letters, war-time diary, criticism and essays including ‘Fascism and Democracy’, ‘Culture and Democracy’, ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’, ‘As I Please’, ‘Notes on Nationalism’, ‘The Prevention of Literature’, ‘Politics and the English Language’ and ‘Why I Write’.
Generation Atheist
Dan Riley - 2012
The human journey is an emotional quest to find truth and meaning.Countless books have presented this journey through the eyes of people who concluded their search with devotion to God, salvation by Jesus, or commitment to religion.But there's a changing zeitgeist in America and the world: a growing number of people are finding truth and meaning from the opposite perspective.Through 25 personal narratives, Generation Atheist tells their stories.
A Love Like No Other: Stories from Adoptive Parents
Pamela Kruger - 2005
Featuring: Marcelle Clements, Laura Shaine Cunningham, Christina Frank, Jesse Green, Melissa Fay Greene, Doug Hood, Pamela Kruger, Jenifer Levin, Antoinette Martin, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Adam Pertman, Emily Prager, Amy Rackear, Bonnie Miller Rubin, Dan Savage, Bob Shacocchis, Jill Smolowe, Sheila Steinbeck, Joe Treen, and Jana Wolf.
No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters
Ursula K. Le Guin - 2017
Le Guin, and with an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler, a collection of thoughts—always adroit, often acerbic—on aging, belief, the state of literature, and the state of the nation.Ursula K. Le Guin has taken readers to imaginary worlds for decades. Now she’s in the last great frontier of life, old age, and exploring new literary territory: the blog, a forum where her voice—sharp, witty, as compassionate as it is critical—shines. No Time to Spare collects the best of Ursula’s blog, presenting perfectly crystallized dispatches on what matters to her now, her concerns with this world, and her wonder at it. On the absurdity of denying your age, she says, If I’m ninety and believe I’m forty-five, I’m headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub. On cultural perceptions of fantasy: The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is ‘escapism’ an accusation of? On her new cat: He still won’t sit on a lap…I don’t know if he ever will. He just doesn’t accept the lap hypothesis. On breakfast: Eating an egg from the shell takes not only practice, but resolution, even courage, possibly willingness to commit crime. And on all that is unknown, all that we discover as we muddle through life: How rich we are in knowledge, and in all that lies around us yet to learn. Billionaires, all of us.
The Penguin Book of Hell
Scott G. Bruce - 2019
Along the way, you'll take a ferry ride with Aeneas to Hades, across the river Acheron; meet the Devil as imagined by a twelfth-century Irish monk - a monster with a thousand giant hands; wander the nine circles of Hell in Dante's Inferno and witness the debates that raged in Victorian England when new scientific advances cast doubt on the idea of an eternal hereafter. Drawing upon religious poetry, epics, theological treatises, stories of miracles and accounts of saints' lives, this fascinating volume of hellscapes illuminates how Hell has long haunted us, in both life and death.
The Virgin Mary's Got Nits: A Christmas Anthology
Gervase Phinn - 2014
A hilarious and touching gift book anthology of poetry and prose on the subject of Christmas from the Yorkshire school inspector and bestselling author of the Dales series and Little Village School series.
The Harvard Classics - Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Journal of John Woolman, Fruits of Solitude
Charles William Eliot - 1909
Contents: Benjamin Franklin, His Autobiography; The Journal of John Woolman; Some Fruits of Solitude, in Reflections and Maxims, Part I; More Fruits of Solitude, being the Second Part of Reflections and Maxims.