Book picks similar to
Essential Whitman by Walt Whitman
poetry
classics
favorites
mfa-reading
Tales and Sketches
Nathaniel Hawthorne - 1982
Everything is included from his three books of stories, Twice-told Tales (1837, revised 1851), Mosses from an Old Manse (1846, 1854), The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-told Tales (1851) and from his two books of stories for children based on classical myths, A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys (1852) and Tanglewood Tales (1853)—along with sixteen stories not found in any of these volumes.The stories are arranged, as they never have been in any other edition, in the order of their periodical publication. Readers of Hawthorne will thereby get a unique sense of how he became one of the most powerful and experimental writers of American fiction.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. B: The Sixteenth Century & The Early Seventeenth Century
M.H. AbramsLawrence Lipking - 1986
Under the direction of Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor, the editors have reconsidered all aspects of the anthology to make it an even better teaching tool.
Murder on Music Row
Stuart Dill - 2011
Meanwhile, Ripley’s label, Galaxy Records, is preparing a secret merger agreement that would create the largest record conglomerate in the world. Trouble arises when rumors spread that Ripley and Simon are withholding Ripley’s new album in hopes of renegotiating his contract.When Simon and Judd are shot on the famed Grand Ole Opry stage during the filming of Ripley’s new music video, no one is more upset than Ripley—especially as everyone assumes the shots were meant for him. While Simon’s life hangs in the balance, Judd seeks help from Megan Olsen, Simon’s right hand and Ripley’s day-to-day manager. The two set off on a high-powered chase to disclose the real motive behind the shootings and spare Ripley from a second murder attempt.Not unlike John Grisham’s legal thrillers and Michael Crichton’s science-based thrillers, Stuart Dill’s “music industry thriller” can now be added to the literary lexicon. Murder on Music Row leads readers through a maze of twists and turns that connect Nashville, New York, Los Angeles, and London in a behind-the-scenes look at an industry where there are no limits in the pursuit of money, power, and fame.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Padmasambhava
Unlike other translations of the Bar do thos grol, the so-called
Tibetan Book of the Dead
, Robert Thurman's takes literally the entire gamut of metaphysical assumptions. The Bar do thos grol, or as Thurman translates, The Great Book of Natural Liberation through Understanding in the Between, is but one of many mortuary texts of Nyingma sect of Tibetan Buddhism and is commonly recited to or by a person facing imminent death. Thurman reproduces it for this purpose, explaining in some depth the Tibetan conception of post-mortem existence. Over as many as 12 days, the deceased person is given explanations of what he or she sees and experiences and is guided through innumerable visions of the realms beyond to reach eventual liberation, or, failing that, a safe rebirth. Like a backpacker's guide to a foreign land, Thurman's version is clear, detailed, and sympathetic to the inexperienced voyager, including background and supplementary information, even illustrations (sorry, no maps). Don't wait until the journey has begun, every page should be read and memorised well ahead of time. --Brian Bruya
Wasted Beauty
Eric Bogosian - 2005
Reba runs away from her shabby and desolate rural community for the lure of New York City. Her tall and awkward frame lands her work modeling, but she is not prepared for the glamorous, drug-fueled life of a celebrated mannequin. After a series of painful relationships, she sees hope and an exit toward stability and sanity in the man who saves her brother's life. This man is Rick, a successful SoHo general practitioner with a warm family and an idyllic life that has left him restless and hollow. He doesn't take Reba seriously until he finds himself so enmeshed in her beauty that he risks losing everything--his home, his children and his beloved wife. Now this master monologist and author of the acclaimed Mall returns with a sprawling novel of urban desperation and desire that brings to mind the winding narratives of Tom Wolfe salted with the dark urges of Philip Roth. The New York Times hailed Eric Bogosian's fiction as "caustic, fast-paced....Adapting himself to fiction with...the same garrulous intensity he brings to plays and monologues, Mr. Bogosian sets in motion a suburban nightmare." And Entertainment Weekly has lauded his "merciless satirical vision (that) takes you deep into the dark heart of the American dream." Wasted Beauty is Bogosian's enthralling journey through the high life of drugs and fashion celebrity, middle-class guilt and sexual obsession. Copyright © 2005 by Simon & Schuster
Pro Eto - That's What
Vladimir Mayakovsky - 1923
His poetry, influenced by Whitman and Verhaeren and strangely akin to modern rock poetry in its erotic thrust, bluesy complaints and cries of pain, not to mention its sardonic humour, is at once aggressive, mocking and tender, and often fantastic or grotesque. Pro Eto - That's What is a long love poem detailing the pain and suffering inflicted on the poet by his lover and her final rejection of him. But as well as being an agonising parable of separation and betrayal, it is also a political work, highly critical of Lenin's reforms of Soviet Socialism. The publication of That's What is something of a landmark for not only is this the first time that this seminal work has appeared in its entirety in translation, but it is illustrated with the 11 inspired photomontages that Alexander Rodchenko designed to interleave and illuminate the text, illustrations which inaugurate a world of new possibilities in combining verbal and visual forms of expression and which are reproduced in colour (as originally conceived) for the first time.
A Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World
Robert Bringhurst - 1999
For more than a thousand years before the Europeans came, a great culture flourished on these islands. In 1900 and 1901 the linguist and ethnographer John Swanton took dictation from the last traditional Haida-speaking storytellers, poets, and historians. Robert Bringhurst worked for many years with these manuscripts, and here he brings them to life in the English language. A Story as Sharp as a Knife brings a lifetime of passion and a broad array of skills—humanistic, scientific, and poetic—to focus on a rich and powerful tradition that the world has long ignored.
Nehru: The Making of India
M.J. Akbar - 1989
He also wrote "India: The Siege Within".
The Weight of a Human Heart
Ryan O'Neill - 2012
O'Neill is a writer of limitless imagination." —Hector Tobar, author of The Barbarian NurseriesRanging from Australia and Africa to Europe and Asia and back again, The Weight of a Human Heart heralds a fresh and important new voice in fiction. Ryan O'Neill takes us on a journey that is sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, and wholly original.A young Tutsi girl flees her village on the brink of the Rwandan genocide. A literary duel—and an affair—play out in the book review section of a national newspaper. A young girl learns her mother’s disturbing secrets through the broken key on a typewriter. With imagination, wit, and a keen eye, Ryan O'Neill draws the essence of the human experience with a cast of characters who stick with you long after you turn the last page of this brilliant short story collection.
Way of the Warrior
Bernard Schaffer - 2011
A sixteen year veteran and second-generation cop, Schaffer possesses a keen insight into what it takes to successfully uphold the law and not lose your mind in the process. Equal parts biography and instructional guide, Way of the Warrior focuses on the core of the individual officer: the warrior spirit.Whether you're a grunt working The Street or a white shirt who'd need a GPS to find it, this guide is designed to help you reconnect with why you took the oath to serve and protect. Behind the badge and the gun lies the heart of a warrior. Unleash your inner hero.One of the most authentic Law Enforcement Kindle books available, this essay on the modern warrior society of police officers is part-biography, part-instructional guide as to what it means to protect and serve the public, at any cost. It employs Law Enforcement leadership principals, Law Enforcement tactics and methods of Law Enforcement intelligence, but focuses on the core of the individual officer: the warrior spirit.For anyone interested in real Law Enforcement police stories, whether they are grunts in the field or in positions of police leadership. Behind the badge and the gun lies the heart of a warrior. Unleash your inner hero.
You Kant Make it Up!: Strange Ideas from History's Great Philosophers
Gary Hayden - 2011
Augustine said that babies deserve to go to hell. Berkeley asserted that matter doesn’t exist. Bentham would have argued that Dan Brown is better than Shakespeare. All these statements stem from philosophy’s greatest minds. What were they thinking? Overflowing with compelling arguments for the downright strange – many of which are hugely influential today – popular philosopher Gary Hayden shows that just because something is odd, doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t argued for it. Spanning ethics, logic, politics, sex and religion, this unconventional introduction to philosophy will challenge your assumptions, expand your horizons, infuriate, entertain and amuse you. Gary Hayden is a journalist and popular philosopher. He has a master’s degree in philosophy and has written for The Times Educational Supplement. He is the author of This Book Does Not Exist: Adventures in the Paradoxical.
The Ring of the Nibelung
Richard Wagner - 1853
His own libretto to the operas, translated by Andrew Porter, is an intricate system of metric patterns, imaginative metaphors and alliteration,combining to produce the music in text.'Andrew Porter's utterly natural, often poetic, faithfully rendered English text should be a revelation...The immediacy of instant comprehension gives the entire drama an added dimension.'--The New York Times
Immortal Poems of the English Language
Oscar Williams - 1952
Vincent Millay, and Emily Dickinson. The last six hundred years in British and American literature have given us some of the most moving and memorable poems in all literature. Now, discover many of these same works in one gorgeously wrought collection, featuring entries from poets as legendary and beloved as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Ralph Waldo Emerson, D.H. Lawrence, and many more. From Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberywocky” to Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and from Shakespeare’s sonnets to anonymous classics, this is the ultimate gift for poetry lovers of all ages and backgrounds. Arranged chronologically, the 150 poems featured in this stunning collection reflect the immortality of the poetic soul.
Herbs and Apples
Helen Hooven Santmyer - 1985
. . And Ladies of the Club. Laced with nostalgia as well as timeless insight into human character, Santmyer's enchanting novel is as contemporary today as the day it was written.