World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments


Aimee Nezhukumatathil - 2020
    But no matter where she was transplanted--no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape--she was able to turn to our world's fierce and funny creatures for guidance."What the peacock can do," she tells us, "is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life." The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world's gifts.Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy.

Hours in the Garden and Other Poems


Hermann Hesse - 1979
    Written during the same period as The Glass Bead Game, these poems reflect the book's mysticism and help to illuminate Hesse's physical and metaphysical search for a "sublime alchemy" that would go beyond all images

Poems that will Save Your Life: Inspirational verse by the world's greatest writers to motivate, strengthen and bring comfort in difficult times


John Boyes - 2010
    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.

A Week With Enya: We live blind...


Amar B. Singh - 2019
    Where we don't, we read, we ask, we learn and then, we solve! What happens when there are no answers though? When nobody in the world knows! When we see the need to invent Gods even if we can't discover Him. Through a string of poems, the author narrates such an experience with his non-verbal and autistic daughter, Enya. What started as a week of babysitting for him soon became a seeking to change her into 'normal'. But, that seeking ended up transforming the seeker!The narrative in the form of poetry touches upon the revelation that comes out of desperation of not finding an answer at all and therefore, the thoughts getting tired of themselves and the mind taking a back seat. In that silence, the author says, things become clear and all aspects of life show their inter-relation! The intellect gives way to the intelligence, the body and mind as 'me' gives way to the world as 'me'! The mind map once seen, one starts to see the true nature of the 'me' and that perspective and clarity make everything clear and possible in life...

The Unwashed


Seán Hogan - 2016
    Each story follows the life of a person living on a fictitious council estate in London. The stories illustrate the realities and struggles that ordinary people go through at a time when people are feeling disenfranchised and are frustrated at not having their voices heard. Ranging from a humorous look at the gentrification of London to the realities of living with addiction the stories place the reader in the shoes of each character allowing them to feel their emotions.

Love Is a Stranger


Rumi - 1993
    His poems of spiritual love still speak directly to our hearts after more than seven hundred years. These classic selections contemplate separation and longing, intoxication and bliss, union and transcendence.

Radical Attention


Julia Bell - 2020
    In today‘s online economy it has become a commodity to be bought and sold. Bombarding us with free smartphone apps and news websites, developers and advertisers have turned what and how focus our attention into the world‘s fastest growing industry.In exchange for our attention, information and entertainment is ever at our fingertips. But at what cost? In this essay, at once personal and polemical, meditative and militant, Julia Bell asks what has been lost in this trade off. How can we reclaim our attention? In a world of infinite distraction, how can attention become radical?

Point and Line


Thalia Field - 2000
    The wonderful writings in Thalia Field's long-awaited new book Point and Line deny categorization, they are "nicheless." Perhaps describable as "epic poetries," these riveting pieces represent a confluence of genres in which Thalia Field has been involved over the course of her career: fiction, theater, and poetry. Written from a constructivist, post-genre sensibility, they elude classification, and present the author's concern with clarity in a world that resists it. For instance, in "Hours" and "Setting, the Table," Field uses indeterminate performance techniques to emphasize the categorical/conceptual nature of thought. Other pieces use generative schemes, portraits of mental shapes, which create meaning out of noise. Visually, each chapter is captivating, showing the author's need for shapes and colors in her work, her fascination with the contours of speech.

Things That Are


Amy Leach - 2012
    In a series of essays that progress from the tiniest earth dwellers to the most far flung celestial bodies—considering the similarity of gods to donkeys, the inexorability of love and vines, the relations of exploding stars to exploding sea cucumbers—Amy Leach rekindles a vital communion with the wild world, dormant for far too long. Things That Are is not specifically of the animal, the human, or the phenomenal; it is a book of wonder, one the reader cannot help but leave with their perceptions both expanded and confounded in delightful ways.

The Party Worker


Omar Shahid Hamid - 2017
    In 2011, following an attack on his offices by the Pakistani Taliban, he took a five-year sabbatical to write books and worked as a political risk consultant. He has been widely quoted and regularly featured in major news outlets like The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Times, Le Monde, DW, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNN, BBC and NPR. His first novel, The Prisoner (2013), was longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015 and is now being adapted for a feature film. His second novel is The Spinner’s Tale (2015). In 2016, Omar returned to active duty as a Counter Terrorism Officer.

The Peril of Magnificent Love


Emma Magenta - 2004
    Simple story. Universal appeal. It's happened before in the publishing world, and it's happened again with The Peril of Magnificent Love.Author Bradley Trevor Greive walked into a rare-book shop in Sydney, Australia several years ago and felt like he was looking back in time. There before him was a creative force as raw, strong, and straightforward as himself when he was trying to launch his eventual hit The Blue Day Book. Her name was Emma Magenta.Magenta is the author-illustrator of The Peril of Magnificent Love, the first of a series published by Night Butterfly, an imprint founded by BTG. The book introduces readers to the emotional world of a young girl who seeks love with a three-eared bunny and pursues a course to win him. Much to her chagrin, the girl discovers love's path is fraught with illusion and strewn with disappointment. Nevertheless, the young heroine overcomes her disillusions and finds new possibilities and strength in the lessons she's learned.Magenta illustrates her seemingly simple tale with red, black, and white drawings that are filled with detail and emotion. Her keen, mischievous eye delves deeply and honestly into remote corners of the human heart. This artistic skill and the quirky text befriend readers on every page. The Peril of Magnificent Love's emotional adventure is an empowering experience for women of all ages. The book speaks to an even broader audience through its reflection of innocent dreams, sometimes-hard reality, and discerning hope for the future.

When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl's Book


Naja Marie Aidt - 2017
    When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back chronicles the few first years after receiving that devastating phone call. It is at once a sober account of life after losing a child and an exploration of the language of poetry, loss, and love.Intensely moving and quietly devastating, When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back explores what is it to be a family, what it is to love and lose, and what it is to treasure life in spite of death's indomitable resolve.

A Year with Rilke: Daily Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke


Anita Barrows - 2009
    He has influenced generations of writers with his classic Letters to a Young Poet, and his reflections on the divine and our place in the world are disarmingly profound. A Year with Rilke provides the first ever reading from Rilke for every day of the year, including selections from his luminous poetry, his piercing prose, and his intimate letters and journals. Rilke is a trusted guide amid the bustle of our daily experience, reflecting on such themes as impermanence, the beauty of creation, the voice of God, and the importance of solitude. With new translations from the editors, whose acclaimed translation of Rilke's The Book of Hours won an ardent readership, this collection reveals the depth and breadth of Rilke's acclaimed work.

Propa Propaganda


Benjamin Zephaniah - 1996
    He has released several records, including one with Bob Marley and the Wailers. His plays have been widely performed, and he has presented, appeared in, or been the subject of, numerous TV programs, including the East Enders. His other poetry books include The Dread Affair and City Psalms (Bloodaxe/Dufour).

Findings


Kathleen Jamie - 2005
    Kathleen Jamie, award winning poet, has an eye and an ease with the nature and landscapes of Scotland as well as an incisive sense of our domestic realities. In Findings she draws together these themes to describe travels like no other contemporary writer. Whether she is following the call of a peregrine in the hills above her home in Fife, sailing into a dark winter solstice on the Orkney islands, or pacing around the carcass of a whale on a rain-swept Hebridean beach, she creates a subtle and modern narrative, peculiarly alive to her connections and surroundings.