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Random Subterranean Mosaic 2012 – 2018 - Time frozen in myriad thoughts


Sabarna Roy - 2019
    His Pentacles and Winter Poems, did so well that Amazon Audible converted them into Audio books by the Australian young jazz singer, Colin Newcomer. Abyss was on the bestseller list at the Oxford Bookstore at the Kolkata Book Fair in 2014. Random Subterranean Mosaic: 2012–2018 is a kaleidoscope of random, yet mysteriously structured to a pattern, fiction, semi-autobiographical, and autobiographical pieces, covering poems, short-shorts, opinions, observations, and conversations. Roy says: “All my life I have struggled to achieve an optimal lucidity in language and expression that is required to demystify the hidden self and selves and agendas. I hope I have achieved this in a large measure in this fifth book of mine!” About Author : Sabarna Roy is the author of four books: Pentacles, Frosted Glass, Abyss, and Winter Poems. A civil engineer by profession (he passed out from Jadavpur University in 1988), Roy spends his time on books, music, movies and international television series, when he is not writing or at work in an engineering-manufacturing organization in Kolkata. With no love for pets or gardening (although he loves forests and wildlife) or socializing, and a lot of time for introspection and deep (and not-so-deep!) thinking, Roy’s works reflect his views on the global order and individuals striving to find their place in it.

Sharyn McCrumb's Appalachia


Sharyn McCrumb - 2011
    A collection of essays dealing with the ballad novels of New York Times Best-selling author Sharyn McCrumb, examining the history, folklore and culture of the region of which she writes

1996


Gloria Naylor - 2005
    government. This domestic spying both destroys the peace and tranqui

How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division


Elif Shafak - 2020
    We feel overwhelmed by the events around us, by injustice, by suffering, by an endless feeling of crisis. So, how can we nurture the parts of ourselves that hope, trust and believe in something better? And how can we stay sane in this age of division?In this powerful, uplifting plea for conscious optimism, Booker Prize-nominated novelist and activist Elif Shafak draws on her own memories and delves into the power of stories to bring us together. In the process, she reveals how listening to each other can nurture democracy, empathy and our faith in a kinder and wiser future.

Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence


Gavin Francis - 2022
    Recovery and convalescence are words that exist at the periphery of our lives - until we are forced to contend with what they really mean.Here, GP and writer Gavin Francis explores how - and why - we get better, revealing the many shapes recovery takes, its shifting history and the frequent failure of our modern lives to make adequate space for it.Characterised by Francis's beautiful prose and his view of medicine as 'the alliance of science and kindness', Recovery is a book about a journey that most of us never intend to make. Along the way, he unfolds a story of hope, transformation, and the everyday miracle of healing.

The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice


Gary McDowell - 2010
    With its pioneering introduction, this collection provides a comprehensive history of the development of the prose poem up to its current widespread appeal. Half critical study and half anthology, The Field Guide to Prose Poetry is a not-to-be-missed companion for readers and writers of poetry, as well as students and teachers of creative writing.

Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations


Philip Guston - 2010
    Over the course of his life, Guston’s wide reading in literature and philosophy deepened his commitment to his art—from his early Abstract Expressionist paintings to his later gritty, intense figurative works. This collection, with many pieces appearing in print for the first time, lets us hear Guston’s voice—as the artist delivers a lecture on Renaissance painting, instructs students in a classroom setting, and discusses such artists and writers as Piero della Francesca, de Chirico, Picasso, Kafka, Beckett, and Gogol.

You Play the Girl: And Other Vexing Stories That Tell Women Who They Are


Carina Chocano - 2017
    Dutifully absorbing all the conflicting information the culture has to offer on how to be a woman, Chocano grappled with sexed-up sidekicks, princesses waiting to be saved, and morally infallible angels who seemed to have no opinions of their own. She learned that "the girl" is not a person, but a man's idea of what a woman should be—she’s whatever the hero needs her to be in order to become himself. It wasn't until she spent five years as a movie critic and was laid off just after her daughter was born that she really came to understand how the stories the culture tells us about what it means to be female limit our lives and shape our destinies. She resolved to rewrite her own story.In You Play the Girl, Chocano blends formative personal stories with insightful and emotionally powerful analysis. Moving from Bugs Bunny to Playboy Bunnies, from Flashdance to "Frozen," from the progressive ’70s through the backlash ’80s, the glib ’90s, and the pornified aughts—and at stops in between—she explains how growing up in the shadow of “the girl” taught her to think about herself and the world and what it means to raise a daughter in the face of these contorted reflections. In the tradition of Roxane Gay, Rebecca Solnit, and Susan Sontag, Chocano brilliantly shows that our identities are more fluid than we think, and certainly more complex than anything we see on any kind of screen.

A Poetry Handbook


Mary Oliver - 1994
    With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise from her long, celebrated career as a disguised poet. She walks readers through exactly how a poem is built, from meter and rhyme, to form and diction, to sound and sense, drawing on poems by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others. This handbook is an invaluable glimpse into Oliver’s prolific mind??—??a must-have for all poetry-lovers.

Women in Clothes


Sheila Heti - 2014
    It is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities—famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old—on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives. It began with a survey. The editors composed a list of more than fifty questions designed to prompt women to think more deeply about their personal style. Writers, activists, and artists including Cindy Sherman, Kim Gordon, Kalpona Akter, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Tavi Gevinson, Miranda July, Roxane Gay, Lena Dunham, and Molly Ringwald answered these questions with photographs, interviews, personal testimonies, and illustrations. Even our most basic clothing choices can give us confidence, show the connection between our appearance and our habits of mind, express our values and our politics, bond us with our friends, or function as armor or disguise. They are the tools we use to reinvent ourselves and to transform how others see us. Women in Clothes embraces the complexity of women’s style decisions, revealing the sometimes funny, sometimes strange, always thoughtful impulses that influence our daily ritual of getting dressed.

Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones: A Novel


Lana Witt - 1995
    Bringing to life a cast of eccentric, unforgettable characters, Lana Witt weaves a tale of epic dimension in a small rural town definitely worth a visit.When wayward Californian Tom Jetts rolls his broken-down car into remote Pick, Kentucky, he finds himself in a town among friends, enemies, and lovers who are playing out tales as old as the prehistoric soil beneath their feet.

Matters of Life and Death: Public Health Issues in Canada


Andre Picard - 2017
    Matters of Life and Death collects Picard's most compelling columns, covering a broad range of topics including Canada's right-to-die law, the true risks of the Zika virus, the financial challenges of a publicly funded health system, appalling health conditions in First Nations communities, the legalization of marijuana, the social and economic impacts of mental illness, and the healthcare challenges facing transgender people.The topic of health touches on the heart of society, intersecting with many aspects of private and public life—human rights, aging, political debate, economics and death. With his reporting, Picard demonstrates the connection between physical health and the health of society as a whole, provides the facts to help readers make knowledgeable health choices, and acts as a devoted advocate for those whose circumstances bar them from receiving the care they need.Providing an antidote to widespread fear-mongering and misinformation, Matters of Life and Death is essential reading for anyone with an investment in public health topics—in other words, everyone.

Wallace Stevens: Words Chosen Out of Desire (Revised)


Helen Vendler - 1984
    She shows us that this most intellectual of poets is in fact the most personal of poets; that his words are not devoted to epistemological questions alone but are also "words chosen out of desire."

The Faraway Nearby


Rebecca Solnit - 2013
    In the course of unpacking some of her own stories—of her mother and her decline from memory loss, of a trip to Iceland, of an illness—Solnit revisits fairytales and entertains other stories: about arctic explorers, Che Guevara among the leper colonies, and Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, about warmth and coldness, pain and kindness, decay and transformation, making art and making self. Woven together, these stories create a map which charts the boundaries and territories of storytelling, reframing who each of us is and how we might tell our story.

A Life in Frocks: A Memoir


Kelly Doust - 2010
    For as long as she can remember, Kelly Doust has been passionate about clothes. They are her first, and most enduring, love affair to date. Like many women, she adores the playfulness of fashion and its endless ability to transform. She loves the ritual and drama of getting dressed, assuming different identities in different outfits, and exploring the many facets of her personality. She buys far too many glossy magazines, and puzzles over how she can spend half her life shopping and yet still find herself with nothing to wear. Over the years, clothes have comforted her, given her confidence, lured lovers, made her invisible, secured jobs, aged her, and given back her youth. And yes, they have betrayed her. This is one woman's charming analysis of her fascinating relationship with what she wears.