Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Between the Acts—portray the essential experiences of life.For Edward Mendelson—a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University—these classic novels tell life stories that are valuable to readers who are thinking about the course of their own lives. Looking beyond theories to the individual intentions of the authors and taking into consideration their lives and times, Mendelson examines the sometimes contradictory ways in which the novels portray such major passages of life as love, marriage, and parenthood. In Frankenstein's story of a new life, we see a searing representation of emotional neglect. In Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre the transition from childhood to adulthood is portrayed in vastly different ways even though the sisters who wrote the books shared the same isolated life. In Mrs. Dalloway we see an ideal and almost impossible adult love. Mendelson leads us to a fresh and fascinating new understanding of each of the seven novels, reminding us—in the most captivating way—why they matter.The Things That Matter is a book that will delight all passionate readers.

    Its usage is common in such current political hot spots as the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Near East.Among the highlights of" Teach Yourself Turkish are: An in-depth study of how the language was formedA phonetic approach to the spoken languageThe grammar and rules of written TurkishVocabulary exercises to make learning easier

    Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

    It contains concise essays on a wide variety of literary concepts among the 50 entries, and everything you need to know about literary techniques and genres.

    From imagining the secret sex life of Tolstoy to the secrets of Sufism, from reviews of classic books to commentaries on world politics, these essays cover an impressive range of subjects, cultures, periods, and themes, yet they are remarkably consistent in one key regard: Lessing's clear-eyed vision and clearly expressed prose.

    In this collection of lively and provocative pieces he talks about what readers want from books and how to look at the literature we encounter in a new light.

    In this superb anthology can be found the best of the English-speaking world’s inspirational and reassuring verse, including such classics as Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’ and W.H. Davies’ ‘Leisure’. This beautifully illustrated collection of over 120 poems is sure to offer solace, hearten the soul and motivate the human spirit.

    The book presents a lot of valuable phrases and sentences you will never think of unless you come across them. It contains plenty of common sentences used by native English speakers in everyday life. The book covers topics such as meeting new people and making small talk, dating and visiting friends, emergency situations and doctor’s appointments, car and flat rental, staying in hotels and traveling by air, shopping and bargaining.

    Her father, determined to improve the family’s lot, relocates to Georgia.Ezekiel Salter scrimps to buy a ticket in Georgia’s 1807 Land Lottery, wins, and he and his impoverished family head west to newly-created Murcheson County.Prominent since colonial times, the Underwoods foresee the growing demand for cotton and acquire extensive acreage in newly-opened lands in central Georgia. Dispatched by his father, Jacob Underwood begins construction of Poplar Grove plantation.And, the slave known as Gant, his wife and daughter, Lucey, have no say as to their destination…the highest bidder will decide for them…and if the family remains intact.Spanning over fifty years, Murcheson County chronicles the four families’ fortunes against the backdrop of the most turbulent time in American history.An epic saga of slavery, emancipation, war and hardship, Murcheson County will remain in your heart long after the winds of war have stopped blowing.

    . .” One hundred years after its first publication in August 1915, Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget that it is, in fact, a poem. Yet poetry it is, and Frost’s immortal lines remain unbelievably popular. And yet in spite of this devotion, almost everyone gets the poem hopelessly wrong. David Orr’s The Road Not Taken dives directly into the controversy, illuminating the poem’s enduring greatness while revealing its mystifying contradictions. Widely admired as the poetry columnist for The New York Times Book Review, Orr is the perfect guide for lay readers and experts alike. Orr offers a lively look at the poem’s cultural influence, its artistic complexity, and its historical journey from the margins of the First World War all the way to its canonical place today as a true masterpiece of American literature. “The Road Not Taken” seems straightforward: a nameless traveler is faced with a choice: two paths forward, with only one to walk. And everyone remembers the traveler taking “the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” But for a century readers and critics have fought bitterly over what the poem really says. Is it a paean to triumphant self-assertion, where an individual boldly chooses to live outside conformity? Or a biting commentary on human self-deception, where a person chooses between identical roads and yet later romanticizes the decision as life altering?What Orr artfully reveals is that the poem speaks to both of these impulses, and all the possibilities that lie between them. The poem gives us a portrait of choice without making a decision itself. And in this, “The Road Not Taken” is distinctively American, for the United States is the country of choice in all its ambiguous splendor.Published for the poem’s centennial—along with a new Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Frost’s poems, edited and introduced by Orr himself—The Road Not Taken is a treasure for all readers, a triumph of artistic exploration and cultural investigation that sings with its own unforgettably poetic voice.

    Why this is so is the subject of Barry Miles's fresh and revealing portrait of the writer who is the acknowledged leader of the Beats, the group of writers that included Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Gary Snyder, who together influenced the direction of writing and culture more than any group of artists since England's Bloomsbury.Drawing on Kerouac's close friendship and conversations with Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, Miles offers provocative new insights into both the exuberance and the dismay of Kerouac, a man full of contradictions who was surprisingly conventional despite his longing to rebel. The Kerouac who emerges is deeper, darker, and more fascinating than any we've ever known. Kerouac is now an icon, an image, an attitude, and Barry Miles convincingly conveys his longing for greatness and the consequences of achieving it.

    From the blue-collar realism of his early writing to his expansive later stories, the cool-eyed intensity and steady witnessing of Carver's work remains an inspiration for readers and writers alike.Call If You Need Me traces the arc of Carver's career, not in the widely anthologized stories that have become classics, but through his uncollected fiction and his essays. Here are the five "last stories," discovered a decade after Carver's death. Also here are Carver's first published story, the fragment of an unfinished novel, and all of his nonfiction--from a recollection of his father to reflections on writers as varied as Anton Chekhov and John Gardner, Donald Barthelme and Sherwood Anderson. Call If You Need Me does not merely enhance the stature of a twentieth-century master; it invites us to travel with a singular artist, step by step, as he discovers what is worth saying and how to say it so it pierces the heart.

    A human skull is discovered in Madrid.A serial killer takes a life in London..The race is on, to own the most notorious relic of all time..An enticing prequel to Alex Connor’s MEMORY OF BONES.

    They call on the fluidity of the imagination, from poetic vision to social justice, from the badlands of political demoralization to an art that might wound, that may open scars when engaged in its work, but will finally suture and not tear apart.This volume collects Rich's essays from the last decade of the twentieth century, including four earlier essays, as well as several conversations that go further than the usual interview. Also included is her essay explaining her reasons for declining the National Medal for the Arts.

    G. Ballard has provided thoughtful remarks on the state of the world for decades. J.G. Ballard Conversations brings together several of Ballard's latest interviews and gives readers penetrating insight into the mind of one of the freshest thinkers at work today. Covering topics such at the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the evolution of sexual relationships, and our strange, immersive celebrity culture, this book is a fount of provocative takes on the things that matter. Rounded out with rare photographs of Ballard and supplemental resources, J.G. Ballard Conversations is a necessary item for anyone interested in the modern world.