Contributors include literary heavyweights like Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Orhan Pamuk, David Grossman and Nadine Gordimer, and others.In "Witness: The Inward Testimony" Nadine Gordimer discusses the role of the writer as observer, and as someone who sees "what is really taking place." She looks to Proust, Oe, Flaubert, Graham Green to see how their philosophy squares with her own, ultimately concluding "Literature has been and remains a means of people rediscovering themselves." "In Freedom to Write" Orham Pamuk elegantly describes escorting Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter around Turkey and how that experience changed his life.In "The Value of the Word" Salman Rushdie shares a story from Bugakov′s novel The Master and the Margarita in which the Devil talks to a frustrated writer called "The Master" The writer is so upset with his own work he decides to burn it: "How could you do that?" the devil asks... "Manuscripts to not burn." Indeed, manuscripts do not burn, Rushdie argues, but writers do.As Americans we often take our freedom of speech for granted. When we talk about censorship we talk about China, the former Soviet Union. But the recent presidential election has shined a spotlight on profound acts of censorship in our own backyard. Both provocative and timely, Burn this Book include a sterling list of award winning writers; it sure to ignite spirited dialogue.

    Her previous works are now available stateside in one volume, complete with a new preface. With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed, a raucous comedy of errors, follows the exploits of Osborne Lonsdale, who writes a weekly column called "Me and My Shed" for a floundering gardening magazine. When the publication is taken over by a gung-ho management team, Lonsdale must learn to cope with his new coworkers. In Tennyson's Gift and Going Loco, Truss turns a fiendishly clever eye to the literary world. Tennyson's Gift is an imaginative cocktail of Victorian seriousness and farce that re-imagines the world of the nineteenth-century English poet laureate, placing him in the midst of eccentric company that includes dodgy Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll). Going Loco features a critic trying to write a definitive account of the doppelg�nger in gothic fiction, amidst the chaos of her domestic life, including paranoia that her cleaning lady is taking over her life. Making the Cat Laugh is a riotous collection of columns about single life. Truss comments on dating, secondhand smoking, shopping, holidays, and people who ask, "How's the novel going?" All the while, she continues an eighteen-year quest to make her cat laugh. Reportedly, the feline remains unimpressed. A feast of wit, The Lynne Truss Treasury will delight fans of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Praise for Lynne Truss and her work: With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed Lynne Truss has written a perfect comic novel at the first attempt a witty, ingenious romp. Daily Telegraph This book will become a perennial comic delight this Truss must never be stopped. Sue Limb Sex, violence, murder and psychoanalysis lurk in the garden shed - a breezy, rude, pleasurable alternative to cutting the grass. Obeserver Making the Cat Laugh A small masterpiece of comedy...with abundant close observation, the familiar is made fresh...A continual hoot. The Times A truly inventive comic writer ... You should not attempt to read Making the Cat Laugh while travelling on public transport The Irish Times [Lynne Truss is] a social humorist of sharp insight and startling candour. Scotland on Sunday Tennyson s Gift A comic novel of subtle distinction ... richly entertaining and at times very moving. The Times The perfect summer book. No deck-chair will be complete without it. The Independent Terrific...Tennyson's Gift is witty, surprising, oddly compassionate and hugely assured. The Sunday Times Going Loco Truss lets her imagination explode in what can only be described as a riddle devised while coming down of hallucinogens. Time Out A classic comic novel, unashamed, exuberant, fiendishly clever, and a joy to read. The Daily Telegraph Going Loco is wonderfully underplayed, unpredictable and unexpectedly sinister. Sunday Express Author Bio: Lynne Truss is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, which has sold nearly one million copies and won Book of the Year at the British Book Awards. A novelist and journalist, she is also the author of numerous radio comedy dramas and for many years served as a television critic and sports columnist for The Times (London).

    B.

    Included are thirteen classic works of modern sf; wondrous stories by Alfred Bester, Philip K. Dick, Jack Vance, Frederick Pohl and many others. If you love science fiction, read how a young fan grew up to become one of the most honored masters in the history of the field, as told in his own words.

    The book chronicles a young writer’s conversations with his heroes, writers he's read for years who inspired him both to pack his bags to travel and to pick up a pen and write. Michael skillfully coaxes a collective portrait through his interviews, allowing the authors to speak intimately about the writer's life, and how place influences their work and perceptions.In each chapter Michael sets the scene by describing the writer's surroundings, placing the reader squarely in the locale, whether it be Simon Winchester's Massachusetts, Redmond O'Hanlon's London, or Frances Mayes's Tuscany. He then lets the writer speak about life and the world, and through quiet probing draws out fascinating commentary from these remarkable people. For Michael it’s a dream come true, to meet his mentors; for readers, it's an engaging window onto the twin landscapes of great travel writers and the world in which they live.

    A life of soul. Professor Karen Swallow Prior poignantly and humorously weaves the two, until you can't tell one life from the other. Booked draws on classics like Great Expectations, delights such as Charlotte's Web, the poetry of Hopkins and Donne, and more. This thoughtful, straight-up memoir will be pure pleasure for book-lovers, teachers, and anyone who has struggled to find a way to articulate the inexpressible through a love of story.

    In over 30 essays, written over 20 years, one of the world's great story-tellers meditates on story-telling. Warm, funny, generous, entertaining, and above all, deeply considered, they offer thoughts on a wide variety of topic, including the origin and composition of Philip's own stories, the craft of writing and the story-tellers who have meant the most to him. The art of story-telling is everywhere present in the essays themselves, in the instantly engaging tone, the vivid imagery and the striking phrases, the resonant anecdotes, the humour and learnedness. Together, they are greater than the sum of their parts.

    From Solzhenitsyn to Laura Zigman, Catherine M. to Captain Underpants, the result is a personal chronicle of insight, wit, and enough infectious enthusiasm to make a passionate reader out of anybody.

    Scott Fitzgerald's writing career, beginning with the autobiographical essay called "Who's Who - and Why," which he wrote for The Saturday Evening Post in 1920, and ending with "News of Paris - Fifteen Years Ago," a story found among Fitzgerald's papers, apparently written in 1940, and posthumously published in Furioso. Here, clearly, is a book to be read both for the enjoyment of good writing, and for its illumination of an important figure in American letters. To supplement the reader's own insight into Fitzgerald's art, Arthur Mizener, author of the highly successful biography of Fitzgerald, The Far Side of Paradise, provides a revealing introduction and pertinent notes heading each selection.

    From an exploration of why women were barred from writing and under what conditions they might break free, to the solace derived from haunting London's streets, these essays, and stories present Woolf at her most impassioned, rendering the pursuit of liberty one of life's most poetic adventures. Selected from the books A Room of One's Own, The Waves, and Street Haunting and Other Essays by Virginia Woolf.

    Each selection showcases a writer's unique voice to demonstrate how writers present themselves through their work and to provide students with models they can use to develop their own voices. Arranged alphabetically by author and by five types of writing (informal, personal, expository, and argumentative writing, as well as short fiction) and with minimal apparatus, the readings allow instructors to be flexible and allow the writing to speak for itself.

    The question “Why?” has appeared under a multiplicity of guises and in vastly different contexts throughout the chapters of human history. Why does evil exist? What is beauty? How does language inform us? What defines our identity? What is our responsibility to the world? In Alberto Manguel’s most personal book to date, the author tracks his own life of curiosity through the reading that has mapped his way. Manguel chooses as his guides a selection of writers who sparked his imagination. He dedicates each chapter to a single thinker, scientist, artist, or other figure who demonstrated in a fresh way how to ask “Why?” Leading us through a full gallery of inquisitives, among them Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Lewis Carroll, Rachel Carson, Socrates, and, most importantly, Dante, Manguel affirms how deeply connected our curiosity is to the readings that most astonish us, and how essential to the soaring of our own imaginations.

    America's preeminent master of the fantastic, who has enchanted millions of readers worldwide, presents a new collection of writings on the future of our cities, our public transportation systems, our museums, galleries, concert halls, and cinemas.

    Undeterred, she went back, telling herself she must talk to the devadasis about the dangers of AIDS. This time, they threw tomatoes.But she refused to give up. The Infosys Foundation worked hard to make the devadasis self-reliant, to help educate their children, and to rid the label of the social stigma that had become attached to it. Today, there are no temple prostitutes left in the state of Karnataka.This is the powerful, inspirational story of that change initiative that has transformed thousands of lives.

    As he spars with the goddess who is often bemused by his demands, Sen writes of the seven changes he thinks India needs most, from improving the teaching of humanities to abolishing Article 377. Humorous in tone, yet deeply serious in intent, A Wish a Day for a Week is a marvellous essay and an important blueprint for India’s development from one of our great thinkers.