A seagull. An impossible task.A worldwide bestseller and the subject of a feature film, THE STORY OF A SEAGULL... is finally out in paperback!Her wings burdened by an oil slick, a seagull struggles to the nearest port to lay her final egg. Exhausted, she lands on a balcony where Zorba the cat is sunning himself. She extracts three extraordinary promises from him: that he will watch over the egg, that he will not EAT the egg, and that, when it's time, he will teach the baby gull to fly. The first two promises are hard enough, but the third one is surely impossible. Isn't it?

    He's a quiet ten year old who can't help himself from dropping out of reality and into the amazing world of his vivid imagination. His daydreams are fantastic and fascinating - only in the bizarre and disturbing world of dreams can he swap bodies with the family cat and his baby cousin, Kenneth, or wipe out his entire family with vanishing cream.

    Apollodorus' Library has been used as a source book by classicists from the time of its compilation in the 1st-2nd century AD to the present, influencing writers from antiquity to Robert Graves. It provides a complete history of Greek myth, telling the story of each of the great families of heroic mythology, and the various adventures associated with the main heroes and heroines, from Jason and Perseus to Heracles and Helen of Troy. As a primary source for Greek myth, as a reference work, and as an indication of how the Greeks themselves viewed their mythical traditions, the Library is indispensable to anyone who has an interest in classical mythology. Robin Hard's accessible and fluent translation is supplemented by comprehensive notes, a map and full genealogical tables. The introduction gives a detailed account of the Library's sources and situates it within the fascinating narrative traditions of Greek mythology.

    The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian folklore and literature. In particular, many tales were originally folk stories from the Caliphate era, while others, especially the frame story, are most probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work Hazār Afsān. Though the oldest Arabic manuscript dates from the 14th century, scholarship generally dates the collection's genesis to around the 9th century.Some of the best-known stories of The Nights, particularly "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp", "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor", while almost certainly genuine Middle-Eastern folk tales, were not part of The Nights in Arabic versions, but were interpolated into the collection by its early European translators. (From wikipedia) The Arabian Nights, by Anonymous, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Once upon a time, the name Baghdad conjured up visions of the most magical, romantic city on earth, where flying carpets carried noble thieves off on wonderful adventures, and vicious viziers and beautiful princesses mingled with wily peasants and powerful genies. This is the world of the Arabian Nights, a magnificent collection of ancient tales from Arabia, India, and Persia. The tales—often stories within stories—are told by the sultana Scheherazade, who relates them as entertainments for her jealous and murderous husband, hoping to keep him amused and herself alive. In addition to the more fantastic tales which have appeared in countless bowdlerized editions for children and have been popularized by an entire genre of Hollywood films, this collection includes far more complex, meaningful, and erotic stories that deal with a wide range of moral, social, and political issues. Though early Islamic critics condemned the tales’ “vulgarity” and worldliness, the West has admired their robust, bawdy humor and endless inventiveness since the first translations appeared in Europe in the eighteenth century. Today these stories stand alongside the fables of Aesop, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, and the folklore of Hans Christian Andersen as some of the Western literary tradition’s most-quoted touchstones. Muhsin J. Al-Musawi is Professor of Arabic Studies at Columbia University in New York City and University Professor at the American University of Sharjah. He is the editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature and the author of twenty-seven books in Arabic and English. He was the recipient in 2002 of the Owais Award in literary criticism, the most prestigious nongovernmental literary award in the Arab World.

    Included in this collection are stories, painstakingly culled and thoughtfully crafted, from the Mahabharata (‘Shiva’s Anger’ and ‘Shakuntala’); the Jataka (‘The Hare in the Moon’ and ‘The Crane and the Crab’) and from regional folklore (‘The Tiger-King’s Gift’ and ‘The Happy Herdsman’). With detailed annotations on the sources of each of these stories, Tales and Legends from India showcases the unique and wonderful ethos of India, as told by its most beloved storyteller, Ruskin Bond.

    "You've got to get the girl to fall in love with you!"The Beast's only chance to break the spell is for him to fall in love with Belle and earn her love in return.

    In Ninety-Nine Stories of God, she takes on one of mankind’s most confounding preoccupations: the Supreme Being.This series of short, fictional vignettes explores our day-to-day interactions with an ever-elusive and arbitrary God. It’s the Book of Common Prayer as seen through a looking glass—a powerfully vivid collection of seemingly random life moments. The figures that haunt these stories range from Kafka (talking to a fish) to the Aztecs, Tolstoy to Abraham and Sarah, O. J. Simpson to a pack of wolves. Most of Williams’s characters, however, are like the rest of us: anonymous strivers and bumblers who brush up against God in the least expected places or go searching for Him when He’s standing right there. The Lord shows up at a hot-dog-eating contest, a demolition derby, a formal gala, and a drugstore, where he’s in line to get a shingles vaccination. At turns comic and yearning, lyric and aphoristic, Ninety-Nine Stories of God serves as a pure distillation of one of our great artists.

    It was there that he wrote most, if not all, of his works, completing the last in about 1470. Some fifteen years later William Caxton published the entire collection of his tales in one volume, "Le Morte Darthur."

    Led by a stouthearted pair of friends, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.

    But surely you've heard the story about the crocodiles who held a vote on whether or not to eat a man that had saved one of their lives? NO? Wow. Have we got some stories for you.

    His two earliest, and perhaps most accessible, successes—A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners—are here brought together in one volume. Both works reflect Joyce’s lifelong love-hate relationship with Dublin and the Irish culture that formed him.In the semi-autobiographical Portrait, young Stephen Dedalus yearns to be an artist, but first must struggle against the forces of church, school, and society, which fetter his imagination and stifle his soul. The book’s inventive style is apparent from its opening pages, a record of an infant’s impressions of the world around him—and one of the first examples of the “stream of consciousness” technique.Comprising fifteen stories, Dubliners presents a community of mesmerizing, humorous, and haunting characters—a group portrait. The interactions among them form one long meditation on the human condition, culminating with “The Dead,” one of Joyce’s most graceful compositions centering around a character’s epiphany. A carefully woven tapestry of Dublin life at the turn of the last century, Dubliners realizes Joyce’s ambition to give his countrymen “one good look at themselves.” Kevin J. H. Dettmar is Professor of English and Cultural Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He is the author or editor of a half-dozen books on James Joyce, modernist literature, and rock music. He is currently finishing a term as President of the Modernist Studies Association.--back cover

    Twelve-year-old Marco knows he is being trained for something, but he isn't sure what. All his life he has traveled with his father in secrecy, learning many languages and the ways of a gentleman, but forbidden to speak about their country of origin, Samavia. Samavia has been fraught with war for the last 500 years, ever since the prince mysteriously disappeared. But now, there is hope that peace may come at last, as it has been rumored that a descendant of the lost prince may have been found.

    You can find this book online in the Digital Collection of the University of Floridahttp://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00028272/00001?...

    Over the years it has inspired leading American Zen teachers, students, and practitioners. Its popularity is as high today as ever.Zen Flesh, Zen Bones is a book that offers a collection of accessible, primary Zen sources so that readers can struggle over the meaning of Zen for themselves. It includes 101 Zen Stories, a collection of tales that recount actual experiences of Chinese and Japanese Zen teachers over a period of more than five centuries; The Gateless Gate, the famous thirteenth-century collection of Zen koans; Ten Bulls, a twelfth century commentary on the stages of awareness leading to enlightenment; and Centering, a 4,000 year-old teaching from India that some consider to be the roots of Zen.

    It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the center of the conflict are Adam and Eve, who are motivated by all too human temptations but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love.Marked by Milton's characteristic erudition, Paradise Lost is a work epic both in scale and, notoriously, in ambition. For nearly 350 years, it has held generation upon generation of audiences in rapt attention, and its profound influence can be seen in almost every corner of Western culture.