Enter a world of Victorian technology, where steam power meets space travel. From Jules Verne and H. G. Wells to Alan Moore, Hayao Miyazaki, and Philip Pullman, the genre has captured imaginations around the globe. Here’s the first grand, illustrated history of the counterculture movement in a book fittingly stylish in its design, package, and artwork. From the fastest dirigible and steam-powered ray guns to fashionistas Lady Gaga and Alexander McQueen, the whole story of the gaslight romance is here.

    In Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, Anne Boyd Rioux brings a fresh and engaging look at the circumstances leading Louisa May Alcott to write Little Women and why this beloved story of family and community ties set in the Civil War has resonated with audiences across time.

    Featuring a diverse selection, from Pride and Prejudice to The Handmaid's Tale, The Kite Runner to Cloud Atlas, the guide includes interesting discussion points and facts as well as potential companion books with similar themes, honest opinions from readers, and razor-sharp reviews from critics, so readers will know they're making the right choice every time. Top ten lists are also included, such as Top Ten Quick Reads (Metamorphosis, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), Top Ten Challenging Reads (Anna Karenina, Possession), Top Ten Gay Reads (Giovanni's Room, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit), and Top Ten Chilling Reads (The Stand, Ring). Compiled by a range of English literature experts and avid readers, this book is sure to inspire any book lover.

    Why?In this book, I argue that the root of the problem is America’s religiosity. A crisis that only science could meet threatened to expose the impotence of religious claims, and religious leaders and institutions went on the attack. Any hope of a rational, scientifically informed response was crippled by a presidential administration elected by religious zealots, staffed by religious zealots, and beholden to religious zealots. But their malfeasance was not limited to the political arena.From churches ignoring state lock downs, to televangelists declaring the disease miraculously eradicated, to pastors suing their governors for enforcing public safety measures, religion was at the forefront of virtually every misguided step towards catastrophe that the nation took.When science eventually solves this problem, religions will be quick to thank their gods for the scientist’s labor and forgive themselves their trespasses. We cannot afford to give them such easy absolution. Their disastrous contributions to our national pandemic response are a potent reminder that a nation in the twenty-first century can ill afford to let anyone compete with science in the realm of truth.

    Country musicians and magicians, professional wrestlers and rock stars, all have turned to Nashville's historic Hatch Show Print to create showstopping posters. Established in 1879, Hatch preserves the art of traditional printing that has earned a loyal following to this day (including the likes of Beck, Emmylou Harris, and the Beastie Boys). Hatch Show Print: The History of a Great American Poster Shop is the first fully illustrated tour of this iconic print shop and also chronicles the long life and large cast of employees, entertainers, and American legends whose histories are intertwined with it. Complete with 190 illustrations--as well as a special book jacket that unfolds to reveal an original Hatch poster on the reverse--Hatch Show Print is a dazzling document of this legendary institution.

    What are America's best-loved novels? PBS will launch The Great American Read series with a 2-hour special in May 2018 revealing America's 100 best-loved novels, determined by a rigorous national survey. Subsequent episodes will air in September and October. Celebrities and everyday Americans will champion their favorite novel and in the finale in late October, America's #1 best-loved novel will be revealed. The Great American Read: The Book of Books will present all 100 novels with fascinating information about each book, author profiles, a snapshot of the novel's social relevance, film or television adaptations, other books and writings by the author, and little-known facts. Also included are themed articles about banned books, the most influential book illustrators, reading recommendations, the best first-lines in literature, and more. Beautifully designed with rare images of the original manuscripts, first-edition covers, rejection letters, and other ephemera, The Great American Read: The Book of Books is a must-have book for all booklovers.

    From the minutiae of Future World to the farthest reaches of World Showcase this guide covers it all in intimate detail. No stone is left unturned, and no legacy tile left unmocked. With a little bit of wit and a whole lot of heart you'll be led through the splendorific sprawl of the most endearing monument to humanity that has ever been created. Highlights include: A history of each pavilion and the forces that shaped its existence - or the end thereof. Insight into the inner-workings of the park. What makes it tick and why things happen the way they do. A scene-by-scene analysis of Horizons, quite possibly the most beloved attraction in the company's history and all of the World Disney World resort.

    Pretending to work? That’s fudgelling, which may lead to rizzling if you feel sleepy after lunch, though by dinner time you will have become a sparkling deipnosophist.From Mark Forsyth, author of the bestselling The Etymologicon, this is a book of weird words for familiar situations. From ante-jentacular to snudge by way of quafftide and wamblecropt, at last you can say, with utter accuracy, exactly what you mean.

    I don’t have a text messaging plan. I paid 25 cents to get fired.Your girlfriend dumped you, your car broke down, your boss passed you up for the big promotion. Life’s not fair, but there is one sure-fire way to ease your pain–laughing at someone else who had an even worse day than you did. Enter the devastatingly funny world of F My Life, where calamity is comedy. Covering every disastrous pratfall in love, work, family-life, and more, F My Life proffers other people’s ruinous, real-life happenings to brighten your gloomiest day: someone getting dumped through a greeting card, ignored at their birthday party, or insulted by their own grandmother. Spanning everything from ironic twists of fate to down-right shameful moments, F My Life’s squirm-inducing stories are schadenfreude at its finest. So today, take solace in knowing that at least you’re not that guy. There now, don’t you feel better?Today, my boyfriend broke up with me. I cried and told him that I loved him. He gave me a quarter and told me to call someone who cared. I threw the quarter in his face and ran. I waited for the bus, but when I got on, I realized I was 25 cents short of the fare. I walked home in the rain. Today, my mom walked in on me looking at a 1978 Playboy. She asked if I found it in the basement. I said yes. Then I realized she was the centerfold. Today, I got in line at the grocery store. The woman in front of me looked right at me, turned to her friend, and said “That reminds me, I forgot to get acne cream.”

    Collects the best of Anne Sexton's memoirs and prose reflections on her development as a poet

    Yet all of these attempts have been hampered by a fundamental lack of access and by the persistent recycling of inaccurate information. Salinger remains, astonishingly, an enigma. The complex and contradictory human being behind the myth has never been revealed.No longer. In the eight years since Salinger was begun, and especially in the three years since Salinger’s death, the authors interviewed on five continents more than 200 people, many of whom had previously refused to go on the record about their relationship with Salinger. This oral biography offers direct eyewitness accounts from Salinger’s World War II brothers-in-arms, his family members, his close friends, his lovers, his classmates, his neighbors, his editors, his publishers, his New Yorker colleagues, and people with whom he had relationships that were secret even to his own family. Shields and Salerno illuminate most brightly the last fifty-six years of Salinger’s life: a period that, until now, had remained completely dark to biographers. Provided unprecedented access to never-before-published photographs (more than 100 throughout the book), diaries, letters, legal records, and secret documents, readers will feel they have, for the first time, gotten beyond Salinger’s meticulously built-up wall. The result is the definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures of the twentieth century.

    Throughout, gorgeous photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books inspire readers to live better with their own collections.Praise for Bibliostyle"Featuring enviable private libraries and packed floor-to-ceiling shelves, this beautiful volume makes a compelling case for books as d�cor."--New York"Freudenberger spotlights the splendid, enviable personal libraries of literary figures whose owners obviously care about their book collections and have actually read them, too."--The Boston Globe"This is a coffee table book that makes you think as well as admire and desire."--Sydney Herald"Offers a look into the fabulous homes of book lovers the world over, showcasing how their interior design is built around the tomes they love most."--CN"The photographs of rooms with rare collections, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and stacks upon stacks of books will inspire readers to live better with their own collections."--Publishers Weekly "Nina Freudenberger teams with Sadie Stein of The New Yorker and photographer Shade Degges of Architectural Digest to showcase beautiful photographs of the private libraries of book lovers from all over the world."--BookRiot

    Orner reads—and writes—everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is “a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir.” Among the many writers Orner addresses are Isaac Babel and Zora Neale Hurston, both of whom told their truths and were silenced; Franz Kafka, who professed loneliness but craved connection; Robert Walser, who spent the last twenty-three years of his life in a Swiss insane asylum, “working” at being crazy; and Juan Rulfo, who practiced the difficult art of silence. Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Yasunari Kawabata, Saul Bellow, Mavis Gallant, John Edgar Wideman, William Trevor, and Václav Havel make appearances, as well as the poet Herbert Morris—about whom almost nothing is known.An elegy for an eccentric late father, and the end of a marriage, Am I Alone Here? is also a celebration of the possibility of renewal. At once personal and panoramic, this book will inspire readers to return to the essential stories of their own lives.

    He paints a portrait of a country already far beyond its own crossroads.

    Each work of literature featured here is a seminal work key to understanding and appreciating the written word.The featured works have been handpicked by a team of international critics and literary luminaries, including Derek Attridge (world expert on James Joyce), Cedric Watts (renowned authority on Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene), Laura Marcus (noted Virginia Woolf expert), and David Mariott (poet and expert on African-American literature), among some twenty others.Addictive, browsable, knowledgeable--1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die will be a boon companion for anyone who loves good writing and an inspiration for anyone who is just beginning to discover a love of books. Each entry is accompanied by an authoritative yet opinionated critical essay describing the importance and influence of the work in question. Also included are publishing history and career details about the authors, as well as reproductions of period dust jackets and book designs.