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Extravagance by Gary Krist


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Brigadoon (Vocal Score)


Alan Jay Lerner - 1947
    Includes 200 pages of songs, incidental music and dialogue cues.

New Poems of Emily Dickinson


Emily Dickinson - 1993
    Although many critics have commented on the poetic quality of Dickinson's letters, William Shurr is the first to draw fully developed poems from them. In this remarkable volume, he presents nearly 500 new poems that he and his associates excavated from her correspondence, thereby expanding the canon of Dickinson's known poems by almost one-third and making a remarkable addition to the study of American literature. Here are new riddles and epigrams, as well as longer lyrics that have never been seen as poems before. While Shurr has reformatted passages from the letters as poetry, a practice Dickinson herself occasionally followed, no words, punctuation, or spellings have been changed. Shurr points out that these new verses have much in common with Dickinson's well-known poems: they have her typical punctuation (especially the characteristic dashes and capitalizations); they use her preferred hymn or ballad meters; and they continue her search for new and unusual rhymes. Most of all, these poems continue Dickinson's remarkable experiments in extending the boundaries of poetry and human sensibility.

A Quiet Storm


Rachel Howzell Hall - 2002
     Rikki Moore was always the star of the family, easily outshining her younger sister, Stacy, at every turn. Smart, kind, and beautiful, it was no surprise when Rikki met and married the perfect man -- pediatrician Matt Dresden. Her students at 59th Street Elementary School adored her, the church matrons solicited her help on every committee, and everyone wanted the golden couple to put in an appearance at their parties. Stacy? She was just the overweight little sister who couldn't get her love life together. But the world didn't know about the storms that rippled just beneath the surface of Rikki's image of perfection. Ever since she was a teenager there were emotional breakdowns and obsessive behaviors -- secrets that Stacy was left to bear alone. Folks whispered, but they didn't know. When Rikki's husband, Matt, mysteriously disappears, however, the Moore family's carefully constructed image comes crashing down.

A Month of Sundays: Searching for the Spirit and My Sister


Julie Mars - 2005
    So, she dedicated herself to visiting 31 houses of worship over a period of as many weeks. A Month of Sundays is the story of her enlightening spiritual pilgrimage.In each chapter, Mars takes readers to a different scene -- whether it's a synagogue, a Baptist church, or a mosque -- and with each visit readers are able to piece together a more complete, heartfelt picture of faith, God, and the search for meaning. Along the way, a poignant memoir of the relationship between two sisters unfolds.Drifting in and out of her memories with her sister, a grief-stricken Mars weaves between past and present, moving readers along her narrative path. Her story spills out like that of an old friend sitting at the kitchen table, fanning out her photos, sharing her struggles. A generosity and lack of judgment season her tale, full of joy and loss. Early on in her memoir, Mars says of her dying sister, "I consider it an honor and a privilege to be with her, every day, as she reflects on the state of her soul." We could say the same of Julie Mars. (Summer 2005 Selection)

Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos


Julia de Burgos - 1982
    Numbering more than 200, these poems form a literary landmark—the first time her poems have appeared in a complete edition in either English or Spanish. Many of the verses presented here had been lost and are presented here for the first time in print. De Burgos broke new ground in her poetry by fusing a romantic temperament with keen political insights. This book will be essential reading for lovers of poetry and for feminists.

Rescuing Patty Hearst: Growing Up Sane in a Decade Gone Mad


Virginia Holman - 2003
    In May 1974, one year after Patty Hearst and her captors robbed Hibernia National Bank, a second kidnapping took place, far from the glare of the headlines. Virginia Holman's mother, in the thrall of her first psychotic episode, believed she'd been inducted into a secret army. On command of the voices in her head, she spirited her two daughters to the family cottage on the Virginia Peninsula, painted the windows black, and set up the house as a field hospital. They remained there for four years, waiting for a war that never came. At first, it was easy to explain away her mother's symptoms in the context of the changing times -- her mother was viewed as "finding herself" in the spirit of the decade. When challenged about her delusion of the secret war, she invoked the name of Martha Mitchell. When she exhibited florid psychosis, her aunt, influenced by Hollywood's smash hit movie The Exorcist, seriously suggested that an exorcism might be in order. Even after she was hospitalized and diagnosed with schizophrenia in the early 1980s, Holman's mother retained just enough lucidity to appease caseworkers in a system seemingly more concerned with protecting a patient's rights than with halting the progress of a woman's desperately dangerous illness. Rescuing Patty Hearst is an unflinching account of the dark days during which Holman's family was held hostage by her mother's delusions and the country was beset by the folly of the Watergate era. It is a startling memoir of a daughter's harrowing sojourn in the prison of her mother's mind. And, finally, it lingers as a moving portrait of a young woman defined by her mother's illness -- until at last she rekindles a family love that had lost its way.

A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays


Mary McCarthy - 2001
    In addition to the novels and memoirs for which she is best remembered, she was also a tireless literary and social critic. Starting out as a theater reviewer for "Partisan Review" in 1937, she quickly distinguished herself for her witty and fearless commentary on topics ranging from McCarthyism to the French New Novel to women's fashion magazines. McCarthy was an eager controversialist, unsparing in her dissection of anything she found phony or hypocritical. Her reviews are sharp, sometimes malicious, and often very funny, but her criticism is also informed by deep erudition and enlivened by an inexhaustible capacity for enthusiasm. Her political writings, critical in equal measure of the Cold War consensus and of its critics, are less concerned with finding correct positions than with exploring the often absurd circumstances in which agonizing moral decisions are made. While the soundness of McCarthy's judgments can sometimes be doubted, her curiosity and intelligence cannot. The intellectual brio and acute judgment that characterizes her best fiction is vividly displayed in this selection of essays, which span McCarthy's career from the late 1930s to the late 1970s. It includes her writings on topics such as fashion magazines, Eugene O'Neill, "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Look Back in Anger," "Pale Fire," J.D. Salinger, Madame Bovary, Italo Calvino, and Watergate. The volume constitutes not only a valuable record of the ideological and cultural controversies that dominated American intellectual life from the Moscow trials to the Watergate hearings, but will also introduce a new generation of readers to a uniquelyforthright and vibrant critical voice.

Molière: A Biography


Hobart Chatfield Chatfield-Taylor - 1906
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion


Jim Irvin - 2001
    Compiled by the staff and contributors of Mojo magazine, The Mojo Collection tells the stories behind the greatest albums of all time and the artists who made them.

The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader


Michael Moore - 2004
    The Cannes Film Festival jury voted unanimously to award the 2004 Best Picture Award to Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11. Since then, it has gone on to smash all box office records for a documentary and created an international discussion about the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader is a powerful and informative book that includes the complete screenplay of the most provocative film of the year. The book also includes extensive sources that back up all facts in the film, as well as articles, letters, photos, and cartoons about the most influential documentary of all time.

Novels, 1930-1942: Dance Night / Come Back to Sorrento / Turn, Magic Wheel / Angels on Toast / A Time to Be Born


Dawn Powell - 1930
    Only recently has there been renewed awareness of the novelist who was such a vital presence in literary Greenwich Village from the 1920s to the 1960s. With these two volumes, The Library of America presents the best of Powell's quirky, often hilarious, sometimes deeply moving fiction.Dawn Powell was the tirelessly observant chronicler of two very different worlds: the small-town Ohio of her childhood and the sophisticated Manhattan to which she gravitated. If her Ohio novels are more melancholy and compassionate in their depiction of often frustrated lives, her Manhattan novels, with their cast of writers, show people, businessmen, and hustling hangers-on, are more exuberant and incisive. But all show rich characterization and a flair for the gist of social complexities. A playful satirist, an unsentimental observer of failed hopes and misguided longings, Dawn Powell is a literary rediscovery of rare importance.

The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age


Philip N. Meyer - 2004
    News professionals are inclined to blame themselves, but the real culprit is technology and its competing demands on the public's time. The Internet is just the latest in a long series of new information technologies that have scattered the mass audience that newspapers once held. By isolating and describing the factors that made journalism work as a business in the past, Meyer provides a model that will make it work with the changing technologies of the present and future. He backs his argument with empirical evidence, supporting key points with statistical assessments of the quality and influence of the journalist's product, as well as its effects on business success.

The Meaning of Consuelo


Judith Ortiz Cofer - 2003
    Consuelo, the elder, is thought of as pensive and book-loving, the serious child-la niña seria-while Mili, her younger sister, is seen as vivacious, a ray of tropical sunshine. Two daughters: one dark, one light; one to offer comfort and consolation, the other to charm and delight. But, for all the joy both girls should bring, something is not right in this Puerto Rican family; a tragedia is developing, like a tumor, at its core.In this fierce, funny, and sometimes startling novel, we follow a young woman's quest to negotiate her own terms of survival within the confines of her culture and her family.magazine"Judith Ortiz Cofer has created a character who takes us by the hand on a journey of self-discovery. She reminds readers young and old never to forget our own responsibilities, and to enjoy life with all its joys and sorrows."--Bessy Reyna, MultiCultural Review

George W. Bushisms: The Slate Book of Accidental Wit and Wisdom of Our 43rd President


Jacob Weisberg - 2001
    Here are over 100 memorable misstatements by our syntactically challenged president, collected, annotated, and introduced by Slate magazine's Jacob Weisberg. "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." "We'll let our friends be the peacekeepers and the great country called America will be the pacemakers." "It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it." "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." "I do know I'm ready for the job [the presidency]. And if not, that's just the way it goes.

Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals


Anne Collet - 2000
    Combining science with a sense of adventure, she conveys the sheer excitement of her work, from riding the tail of a white whale to saving animals harmed by drift nets or toxic spills.