Book by McLure, James

    In THE ART OF X-RAY READING, Clark invites you to don your X-ray reading glasses and join him on a guided tour through some of the most exquisite and masterful literary works of all time, from The Great Gatsby to Lolita to The Bluest Eye, and many more. Along the way, he shows you how to mine these masterpieces for invaluable writing strategies that you can add to your arsenal and apply in your own writing. Once you've experienced X-ray reading, your writing will never be the same again.

    A VINTAGE ORIGINAL.What do we see when we read? Did Tolstoy really describe Anna Karenina? Did Melville ever really tell us what, exactly, Ishmael looked like? The collection of fragmented images on a page - a graceful ear there, a stray curl, a hat positioned just so - and other clues and signifiers helps us to create an image of a character. But in fact our sense that we know a character intimately has little to do with our ability to concretely picture our beloved - or reviled - literary figures.In this remarkable work of nonfiction, Knopf's Associate Art Director Peter Mendelsund combines his profession, as an award-winning designer; his first career, as a classically trained pianist; and his first love, literature - he thinks of himself first, and foremost, as a reader - into what is sure to be one of the most provocative and unusual investigations into how we understand the act of reading.

    But for every group of "living-room players" there is someone who is "at one with the board." In Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis introduces readers to those few, exploring the underground world of colorful characters for which the Scrabble game is life — playing competitively in tournaments across the country. It is also the story of how the Scrabble game was invented by an unemployed architect during the Great Depression and how it has grown into the hugely successful, challenging, and beloved game it is today. Along the way, Fatsis chronicles his own obsession with the game and his development as a player from novice to expert. More than a book about hardcore Scrabble players, Word Freak is also an examination of notions of brilliance, memory, language, competition, and the mind that celebrates the uncanny creative powers in us all.

    Jonathan Culler, an extremely lucid commentator and much admired in the field of literary theory, offers discerning insights into such theories as the nature of language and meaning, and whether literature is a form of self-expression or a method of appeal to an audience. Concise yet thorough, Literary Theory also outlines the ideas behind a number of different schools: deconstruction, semiotics, postcolonial theory, and structuralism, among others. From topics such as literature and social identity to poetry, poetics, and rhetoric, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction is a welcome guide for anyone interested in the importance of literature and the debates surrounding it.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    Now at last here's a feast for them and other verbivores. Eat up!-Barbara WallraffSenior Editor at The Atlantic Monthly and author of Word CourtPraise for A Word a Day"AWADies will be familiar with Anu Garg's refreshing approach to words: words are fun and they have fascinating histories. The people who use them have curious stories to tell too, and this collection incorporates some of the correspondence received by the editors at the AWAD site, from advice on how to outsmart your opponent in a duel (or even a truel) to a cluster of your favorite mondegreens."-John Simpson, Chief Editor, Oxford English Dictionary"A banquet of words! Feast and be nourished!"-Richard Lederer, author of The Miracle of LanguageWritten by the founder of the wildly popular A Word A Day Web site (www.wordsmith.org), this collection of unusual, obscure, and exotic English words will delight writers, scholars, crossword puzzlers, and word buffs of every ilk. The words are grouped in intriguing categories that range from "Portmanteaux" to "Words That Make the Spell-Checker Ineffective." each entry includes a concise definition, etymology, and usage example-and many feature fascinating and hilarious commentaries by A Word A Day subscribers and the authors.

    That is all the more reason why this favorite reference book for students, writers, and educators requires periodic updating. In this new edition, the authors review the fundamentals of correct sentence structure, then present twenty basic sentence patterns that encompass virtually every effective way of writing simple, compound, and complex sentences. They give advice on ways to vary rhythm and sentence patterns to produce a more interesting writing style. Example sentences as well as brief essays by recognized writers are presented and analyzed. This brand-new edition, updated with many contemporary examples of fine writing style, will inspire both students and seasoned writers to make their own essays sing.

    This new and expanded third edition continues to offer students and readers the best one-volume introduction to the field.The bewildering variety of approaches, theorists and technical language is lucidly and expertly unraveled. Unlike many books which assume certain positions about the critics and the theories they represent, Peter Barry allows readers to develop their own ideas once first principles and concepts have been grasped.

    Its second edition, published in 1986, has confirmed that vocabulary is best taught by root, not rote. The importance of learning classical word roots is already acknowledged by vocabulary texts that devote chapters to them. Why a whole book based on this approach? Ayers' text exposes students to a wider range of roots, introduces new English words in context sentences, and reinforces vocabulary through exercises. It promotes more practice with roots so that students learn to use them as tools in their everyday encounters with new words. English Words is written from the standpoint of English; it neither attempts to teach students Latin or Greek nor expects a knowledge of classical languages on the part of instructors. Its success has been demonstrated at both the secondary and college levels, and it can be used effectively with students in remedial or accelerated programs. An Instructor's Manual (gratis with adoption) and a Workbook are also available.

    She invites us behind the scenes of novel-writing, sharing her own habits and spilling the secrets of her craft. And she offers priceless advice to aspiring authors. As she works her way through one hundred novels–from classics such as the thousand-year-old Tale of Genji to recent fiction by Zadie Smith and Alice Munro–she infects us anew with the passion for reading that is the governing spirit of this gift to book lovers everywhere.

    They would establish a British colony, find gold, and discover a water route to Asia. But what awaited them was far different - fire, hunger, sickness, death, even cannibalism. Here, from the noted historian Marshall W. Fishwick, is the dramatic story of Jamestown and the struggle of its leader, Captain John Smith, who, with the help of Pocahontas, daughter of the Algonquian chief Powhatan, succeeded against all odds.

    Richard Skinner believes it is your duty as a novelist to bring your whole self to the page; to find your story, not force it; to meet your reader in a spirit of openness. In Writing a Novel he offers up frameworks, strategies and stimuli to help you meet that duty, drawingon his deep experience as one of the UK's leading creative writing teachers. He covers the essentials - narrators, character, setting - with charm and rigour. But Writing a Novel is not a set of instructions: it is a way of thinking, a conversation, a relationship in itself.

    Smith, M.D., New York Times bestselling author of Feed Your Body Right""Syndrome X is the best new book to help you understand the facts about nutrition, health, and aging. . . . It is full of new information and insights most readers have never had access to before. Everyone who values his or her health will want to read the book and then individualize the program to suit his or her needs-the authors have made this easier than ever to do.""-Richard A. Kunin, M.D., author of Mega-NutritionWhat is Syndrome X? It's a resistance to insulin-the hormone needed to burn food for energy-combined with high cholesterol or triglycerides, high blood pressure, or too much body fat. Syndrome X ages you prematurely and significantly increases your risk of heart disease, hypertension, obesity, eye disease, nervous system disorders, diabetes, Alzheimer's, cancer, and other age-related diseases.Syndrome X is the first book to tell you how to fight the epidemic disorder that is derailing the health of nearly a third of North Americans. It outlines a complete three-step program-including easy-to-follow diets, light physical activity, and readily available vitamins and nutritional supplements-that will safeguard you against developing Syndrome X or reverse it if you already have it.

    Don't be one of them. Using examples of misuse from leading newspapers, prominent public figures and famous writers, among others, language gurus Ross Petras and Kathryn Petras explain how to avoid these perilous pitfalls in the English language. Each entry also includes short histories of how and why these mistake have happened, some of the (often surprisingly nasty) debates about which uses are (and are not) mistakes, and finally, how to use these words correctly ... or why to not use them at all. By the end of this book, every literati will be able to confidently, casually, and correctly toss in an "a priori" or a "limns" without hesitation.

    Lewis' The Discarded Image paints a lucid picture of the medieval world view, as historical and cultural background to the literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It describes the image discarded by later ages as the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organization of their theology, science and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe. This, Lewis' last book, was hailed as the final memorial to the work of a great scholar and teacher and a wise and noble mind.