This book would be impressive enough as a collection of finely-forged fragments, but as it weaves itself into an even more impressive whole, my hat came off. Lily Hoang writes like she has nothing to lose and everything at stake.” —Maggie Nelson“A Bestiary is a work of great subtlety, precision, intelligence, daring, and emotive keenness. It seems completely contemporary (by which I mean that it is unlike anything I’ve read and that it makes me want to change my own writerly procedures). With head¬long, reckless, improvisatory gestures, Lily Hoang prompts us to rethink what literature today can dare to aspire to. Her intellectually magnanimous book’s position on the threshold between recognizable ‘literature’ and some other vanguard form of performance/utterance made me feel happy and stimulated and dizzy (in a rapturous way) while I was reading it.” —Wayne Koestenbaum“The most perfect use of fragmentation, myth, language, fairytale, and terrible beauty that I have ever seen in my life. I’m swooning. My faith in what writing can be has been restored.” —Lidia YuknavitchLily Hoang is the author of four books, including Changing, recipient of a PEN Open Books Award. She has two novels forthcoming: Old Cat Lady and The Book of Martha and she co-edited the anthology The Force of What’s Possible: Writers on Accessibility and the Avant-Garde. She teaches in the MFA program at New Mexico State University, where she is Associate Department Head. She serves as Prose Editor at Puerto del Sol and Non-Fiction Editor at Drunken Boat.

    Race director Peter McDonald arrives at the Expo for an interview with TV reporter Christine Ferrara, new in town. Peter and Christine find love almost immediately, but when will she learn the dark secret that clouds his life? Thus begins the fascinating 72-hour countdown to the Lake City Marathon, a race beset by problems: Will Peter lose his sponsor and job? Will hot weather threaten the health of runners? Can he keep the identity of Celebrity X secret? And for Christine: Why is Naní the supermodel clinging to Peter’s side? The race up front pits fast Kenyans against twin brothers from Minnesota. Among the women, the sudden loss of the world record holder opens the door for a flirtry Irishwoman and an unheralded podiatrist, who has not raced since injuries cancelled her college career. Back in the pack, Naní raises money for charity, a New York Times reporter chases Celebrity X, and once-married color commentators bicker their way through the telecast. Marathon, amazingly, is Hal Higdon’s first novel, told in the grand tradition of fact/fiction books by James Michener (Hawaii, The Source) and Arthur Hailey (Hotel, Airport). If you are a runner, veteran or newcomer, or someone who has a friend who runs, Marathon will provide details about the sport that you never knew.

    A Nebula and Hugo Award-winning writer of science fiction presents a collection of essays that explores the various issues, concepts, challenges, and paradoxes that confront the science fiction writer.

    Soldiers, mercenaries, free-booters. Europeans all, braving the heat and dust of India. They fought for wealth, for glory, and for sheer fun. Their glorious and inglorious exploits are full of thrill, romance, and violence. Ruskin Bond has recreated the turbulent and colourful India of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with the soldiers of fortune strutting across the subcontinent. The saga of their lives and loves in Delhi, Jaipur, Aligarh, Sardhana, and Lucknow reads stranger than fiction.

    Offering bold new ways of conceiving the present, Lauren Berlant describes the cruel optimism that has prevailed since the 1980s, as the social-democratic promise of the postwar period in the United States and Europe has retracted. People have remained attached to unachievable fantasies of the good life—with its promises of upward mobility, job security, political and social equality, and durable intimacy—despite evidence that liberal-capitalist societies can no longer be counted on to provide opportunities for individuals to make their lives “add up to something.”Arguing that the historical present is perceived affectively before it is understood in any other way, Berlant traces affective and aesthetic responses to the dramas of adjustment that unfold amid talk of precarity, contingency, and crisis. She suggests that our stretched-out present is characterized by new modes of temporality, and she explains why trauma theory—with its focus on reactions to the exceptional event that shatters the ordinary—is not useful for understanding the ways that people adjust over time, once crisis itself has become ordinary. Cruel Optimism is a remarkable affective history of the present.

    The ghost of a young murdered girl flits through every scene linking the pain and anguish of all the characters struggling to cope with urban life.

    For when Jeanette Winterson looks at works as diverse as the Mona Lisa and Virginia Woolf's The Waves, she frees them from layers of preconception and restores their power to exalt and unnerve, shock and transform us."Art Objects is a book to be admired for its effort to speak exorbitantly, urgently and sometimes beautifully about art and about our individual and collective need for serious art."--Los Angeles Times

    In this penetrating book, Joan Gould brings to the surface the hidden meanings in fairy tales and myths, and illuminates what they can tell you about the stages in your own life. As Gould explores the transformations that women go through from youth to old age–leaving home and mother, the first experience of sexuality, the surprising ambivalence of marriage, the spiritual work required by menopause and aging–her keen observations will enrich your awareness of your inner life.Full of archetypal figures known to us all, Spinning Straw into Gold also includes stories from the lives of ordinary women that clarify the insights to be gained from the beloved tales that have been handed down from one generation to the next.

    On this six-part live performance series, bestselling author and beloved cantadora (keeper of the old stories) Clarissa Pinkola Estés shares the work of her lifetime: myths, tales, and poetry with the power to nourish and heal. Contained within Theatre of the Imagination are the great universal themes—tales of loss and resurrection; of love and sacrifice; of the courage to survive—yet it is as if Dr. Estés is speaking only to you. With words that weave in and out of the interior and exterior worlds, she creates an amazing fabric of the purest wisdom—fought for, won, and preserved to teach all generations—that which is most worth knowing. You will hear more than 40 original poems, archetypal insights, and dozens of strengthening stories from Dr. Estés' own family's oral traditions. Dr. Estés teaches that each story holds a key to a deeper self-knowing: "Stories cut fine wide doors in previous blank walls, openings that lead to the dreamland, that lead to love and learning that lead us back to our own real lives."Presented in her one-of-a-kind lyrical style, Theatre of the Imagination seats you in the front row at these performances of a lifetime. More than five hours of signature stories, plus earthy and wise advice, archetypal insights, poetry, and much more. Six Healing Stories Include: Las Tres Osas Viejas (The Three Old Ones)• The Fisherman's Wife• Skeleton Woman• The Crescent Moon Bear• Sealskin/Soulskin• Wolfen Learn More About:The cycles of life and death• How the language of symbols translates into everyday life• Community and healing the homesickness within the soul• How to stop your destructive inner critic• Reclaiming the bodies we were born with• Facing the cycles of change in a relationship• Agelessness and the aerial view of the elder• How to awaken the 1,000 eyes of your intuition• Transformation through the four vital steps to forgiveness• The power of the Divine Child• Finding courage and the sacred center of the psyche• When others try to silence you: how to claim your strength

    That’s about to change! With Small is Big, Rafaa Dalvi has created a potpourri of 100 diverse micro tales (140 characters or less) that will provide you a rich experience in easy-to-digest fragments and urge you to read one page after another before you finally finish the book. And the best part is that there’s a story for everyone, including YOU! If you’re a romantic at heart, this micro tale is for you- She kissed his cheek as he smiled back. Nothing had changed much since two decades. Her husband called her. She hid the photo in the closet. If you love happy endings, this micro tale is for you- You rested on my lap, opened yourself before me and shared your fantasies with me. Then the stories ended and you turned back into a book. If you ever had a tough time fitting in, this micro tale is for you- Nerd. Not anymore. A new college. A new identity. Math. First lecture. Finished my test first. Teacher graded me aloud- 20/20. I had failed. If you are a big fan of word play, this micro tale is for you- They’re lying in bed. “You’re the one,” he says; he’s lying. “I never doubted it,” she says; she’s lying. They’re lying in bed. And if you like thrillers, this micro tale is for you- There were two of us and one vacant position. He would die for this job and I would kill for it. No wonder it worked out just fine for me. In fact, there are 100 such small tales that will have a big impact on you. So what are you waiting for? Scroll to the top of this page, buy the book and start reading today. About the Author: Rafaa Dalvi is a vibrant mess of innumerable thoughts, quotes and movie dialogues, who tries to escape from the mundane with words and contemplates about befriending the voices in his head. He dreams about changing the world, one smile at a time. Already published numerous times, his stories can be read in the anthologies – Curtain Call (editor), Terribly Tiny Tales- Volume 1, Kaleidoscope, Myriad Tales, and many others. He’s the recipient of Indian Bloggers League Booker Prize 2013 and a Select Writer at Terribly Tiny Tales.

    In her debut collection of humor essays, Connie provides entertainment with hysterical stories about awkward workplace situations, ridiculous coworkers, and enough happy hour cocktails to make you question her life choices. From low paying high school gigs to “real world” marketing jobs in Chicago, Connie presents stories about life both in and out of the office that will have you laughing out loud in the break room.

    Plot synopsis of this classic is made meaningful with analysis and quotes by noted literary critics, summaries of the work's main themes and characters, a sketch of the author's life and times, a bibliography, suggested test questions, and ideas for essays and term papers.

    Editor Linda Sunshine, in her follow-up to the bestselling All Things Oz, has gathered together an incredible collection of artwork, quotations, letters, recipes, puzzles and games inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll. She has traveled the world for the most extraordinary examples of art from hundreds of editions of Carroll’s works, including versions from the United States, England, Italy, France, Japan and Russia. Complementing Sir John Tenniel’s classic drawings are works by such renowned illustrators as Arthur Rackham, Gwynedd Hudson, Charles Folkard, Blanche McManus, Gertrude Kay, Mabel Lucie Attwell and Milo Winter.Also among the treasures in this collection is a short story Carroll penned for a young friend, “Isa’s Adventures in Oxford,” which has gone unpublished since 1900. Excerpts from Carroll’s letters, most of which have been seen only in scholarly texts, reveal his passion for wordplay and his unique wit. Even rare excerpts from the magazines Carroll created as a child for members of his family are featured here, alongside images of his most famous characters.Open this book and begin a curiouser and curiouser journey with Alice and her friends: the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, Humpty Dumpty, and, of course, the White Rabbit.

    In this classic work, now back in print, Olsen broke open the study of literature and discovered a lost continent—the writing of women and working-class people. From the excavated testimony of authors’ letters and diaries we learn the many ways the creative spirit, especially in those disadvantaged by gender, class and race, can be silenced. Olsen recounts the torments of Melville, the crushing weight of criticism on Thomas Hardy, the shame that brought Willa Cather to a dead halt, and struggles of Virginia Woolf, Olsen’s heroine and greatest exemplar of a writer who confronted the forces that would silence her. This 25th-anniversary edition includes Olsen’s now infamous reading lists of forgotten authors and a new introduction and author preface.

    The stories began as part of her project she was a masters student at Lancaster University in 1993, inspired by her homesickness, and her longing for the 'Terengganu air'. She explores themes of love, grief, loss and longing, and the magic in our lives. A young boy, grieving for his late father, meets a ghost who tells him that he is the king of the sea. Alia, a missing child, comes back as a chicken to bewildered parents. A daughter witnesses an affair by her unfaithful mother, but she is not sure if she was hallucinating. A young man arrives on an island, and marries a jungle spirit, a bunian. Hell breaks lose in a small village when a brash modern city woman decides to live there. A teacher who longs for a more glamorous life, literally, disappears into a movie screen.Dina Zaman, a survivor from the I Am Muslim tsunami, has been writing in the Malaysian media for over 17 years. Her first book, a collection of short stories, night & day, which was part of the Black & White series, was published by Rhino Press in 1997. She has had her works of fiction, and non-fiction, published in many journals and periodicals, locally and regionally. She is currently studying saints, and other holy men and women, and their impact on Malaysia for her next book Holy Men, Holy Women under the API Fellowship 2012-2013 programme that she has just been awarded.