She didn't find out her date of birth until she was 17 and didn't learn to read or write until she was well into her 30s. This is her story.

    Many of the poems in this expanded collection are from Rich's five recent volumes--The Dream of a Common Language (1978), A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far (1981), Your Native Land, Your Life (1986), Time's Power: Poems 1985-1988 (1989), and An Atlas of the Difficult World (1991). Prose selections include When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision, Rich's canonical statement on feminism; Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, on being a lesbian in a heterosexual world; Rich's interview for American Poetry Review, which presents a full and frank discussion of her work; and her previously unpublished commentary on the genesis of the poem Yom Kippur 1984. The editors have also taken into account the many essays on Rich and reviews of her work that have been published since 1975. Some earlier biographical selections have been replaced with works that focus on the quality of Rich's writing and her place in twentieth-century American literature--not just as a poet, but as a woman, a lesbian, and a mother. Criticism includes thirteen reviews and interpretations of Rich's work by W. H. Auden, John Ashbery, Margaret Atwood, Helen Vendler, Judith McDaniel, Adrian Oktenberg, Charles Altieri, and Joanna Feit Diehl, among others. A second recent study by Albert Gelpi traces the events in Rich's life from which her work evolves. An updated Chronology and Selected Bibliography, as well as an expanded Index, are included.

    Barricaded in a bar called Tony's while a riot rages outside, the characters that people The Assault on Tony's are united by their desire to drink to the end, no matter what the consequences. In this stark and darkly humorous novel, social alliances are forged and challenged as each member of this macabre party ignores his fears in favor of keeping his tumbler full to the brim. As time goes on and the liquor supply starts to dwindle, the novel reaches a gritty intensity as it exposes the highs and lows of the human spirit.

    In war, are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahl's time as a fighter pilot in the Second World War as well as seven other tales of conflict and strife, Dahl reveals the human side of our most inhumane activity.Among other stories, you'll read about the pilot shot down in the Libyan desert, the fighter plane that vanishes inside a mysterious thick white cloud and the soldier who returns from war but has been shockingly changed by his experiences.Featuring extraordinary cover art by Charming Baker, whose paintings echo the dark and twisted world of Dahl's short stories.Roald Dahl reveals even more about the darker side of human nature in seven other centenary editions: Lust, Madness, Cruelty, Deception, Trickery, Innocence and Fear.

    Darcy's Diary"A journey through both a physical landscape and the geography of the human heart and mind...delightfully entertaining and often deeply moving, this book reminds us that Austen's world--and her characters--are very much alive."--Michael Thomas Ford, author of Jane Bites BackWHERE DO BOOKS TAKE YOU?With a suitcase full of Jane Austen novels en espanol, Amy Elizabeth Smith set off on a yearlong Latin American adventure: a traveling book club with Jane. In six unique, unforgettable countries, she gathered book-loving new friends-- taxi drivers and teachers, poets and politicians-- to read Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice.Whether sharing rooster beer with Guatemalans, joining the crowd at a Mexican boxing match, feeding a horde of tame iguanas with Ecuadorean children, or tangling with argumentative booksellers in Argentina, Amy came to learn what Austen knew all along: that we're not always speaking the same language-- even when we're speaking the same language.But with true Austen instinct, she could recognize when, unexpectedly, she'd found her own Senor Darcy.All Roads Lead to Austen celebrates the best of what we love about books and revels in the pleasure of sharing a good book-- with good friends.

    Choices were made without thinking. Young lives came together and would never be the same again. Years on, as Ursula confronts decisions that are not so easy to make, revelations collide with memories of Candelo - and some breathtaking secrets come to light.

    In The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea, and numerous short stories, he explored such universal themes as stoicism in adversity, as well as our futile struggles against nature and mortality.This evocative, sympathetic biography illuminates the events that informed Hemingway's vigorous life: an accident-prone youth and early rivalry with his father; his experiences in World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II; his stormy relationships with writers and women; his sudden fame, slow decline, and suicide. Based on previously unavailable information and exclusive interviews, Hemingway enriches anyone's understanding and appreciation of America's most important twentieth-century writer.

    Here, he dares to tell the truth about cold-blooded Killer Mobs and how they work.

    It covers the first 26 years of his life and ends with his joining the Communist Party in 1931, an event he felt to be second only in importance to his birth in shaping his destiny.In the years before 1931, Arthur Koestler lived a tumultuous and varied existence. He was a member of the duelling fraternity at the University if Vienna; a collective farm worker in Galilee; a tramp and street vendor in Haifa; the editor of a weekly paper in Cairo; the foreign correspondent of the biggest continental newspaper chain in Paris and the Middle East; a science editor in Berlin; and a member of the North Pole expedition of the Graf Zeppelin.Written with enormous zest, joie de vivre and frankness, Arrow in the Blue is a fascinating self-portrait of a remarkable young man at the heart of the events that shaped the twentieth century.The second volume of Arthur Koestler's autobiography is The Invisible Writing.

    This guide introduces and sets in context, the range of critical arguments that have been generated by this work.

    Overhearing a conversation at his club one day, he becomes interested in a discussion regarding a man named Gastrell. Gastrell is somewhat of a mystery to the club members in spite of his renting a house from one of them. Berrington’s interest in Gastrell intensifies as his fiancé, Dulcie Challoner, befriends a wealthy widow, Mrs. Connie Stapleton who evidently has some type of relationship with Gastrell. As the plot progresses, Berrington finds himself involved with sensational robberies, brutal murders, coded messages, and even mind control! As in many Le Queux books, there are twists and turns as new characters and locations are introduced. When you are sure you know the ending, something new occurs and you wonder how it will affect the conclusion of the book.Excerpt:"I confess I'd like to know somethin' more about him." "Where did you run across him first?" "I didn't run across him; he ran across me, and in rather a curious way. We live in Linden Gardens now, you know. Several of the houses there are almost exactly alike, and about a month ago, at a dinner party we were givin', a young man was shown in. His name was unknown to me, so I supposed that he must be some friend of my wife's. Then I saw that he was a stranger to her too, and then all at once he became very confused, inquired if he were in Sir Harry Dawson's house - Sir Harry lives in the house next to ours - and, findin' he was not, apologized profusely for his mistake, and left hurriedly."

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Called up by the army, he soon found himself hundreds of miles away, advancing on Russian lines—or perhaps on his own lines—and facing relentless rifle and artillery fire. Badly wounded, he returned to normal life, which now struck him as unspeakably strange. He had witnessed, he realized, the end of a way of life, of a whole world.Published here for the first time in any language, this extraordinary reminiscence is a deeply moving addition to the literature of the terrible war that defined the shape of the twentieth century.

    First published in English in 1986, the novel probes the long and checkered history of radical politics in Latin America.

    For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching correspondence. In her first letter to Marks & Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, "The phrase 'antiquarian booksellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive." Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover. When they arrive, Hanff is ecstatic--but unsure she'll ever conquer "bilingual arithmetic." By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the six-pound ham she's sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank Doel, does the real fun begin. Two years later, Hanff is outraged that Marks & Co. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. "i enclose two limp singles, i will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. THEN i will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT." Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh or powdered eggs for Christmas. Soon they're sharing news of Frank's family and Hanff's career.