The excitement began the moment "The Fourth State of Matter," one of the fourteen extraordinary personal narratives in this book, appeared in the pages of The New Yorker. It increased when the author received a prestigious Whiting Foundation Award in November 1997, & it continued as the hardcover edition of The Boys of My Youth sold out its first printing even before publication. The author writes with perfect pitch as she takes us through one woman's life -- from childhood to marriage & beyond -- & memorably captures the collision of youthful longing & the hard intransigences of time & fate.

    Whether she is contemplating the Grand Canyon, her vegetable garden, motherhood, genetic engineering, or the future of a nation founded on the best of all human impulses, these essays are grounded in the author's belief that our largest problems have grown from the earth's remotest corners as well as our own backyards, and that answers may lie in both those places.Sometimes grave, occasionally hilarious, and ultimately persuasive, Small Wonder is a hopeful examination of the people we seem to be, and what we might yet make of ourselves.

    The debut collection of the Orange- and Whitbread-shortlisted author of Buddha DaA beautiful collection—charming, witty, and touching—these stories give voice to a variety of different characters: from the little girl who wants to look "subtle" for her father's funeral, a child who has an email pen pal on Jupiter, and an old lady who becomes a star through "zimmerobics." Often writing in a vibrant Glaswegian vernacular, Donovan deftly gives her characters authenticity with a searing power, aided and abetted by tender subtlety.

    Kennedy, Victor Hugo, and H. L. Mencken have in common? They all indulged in chiasmus-a literary device in which word order is reversed to hilarious or poignant effect. When Mae West said, "It's not the men in my life, it's the life in my men," she was using chiasmus; when John F. Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," he was doing the same. Dr. Mardy Grothe has compiled hundreds of examples of chiasmus in this whimsically illustrated collection, bringing this witty and thought-provoking device out of obscurity and into the public imagination.

    In other words, this remarkable collection of stories is unlike anything else you’ve read.

    She has lived with partner Ed for fifteen years and is proud of all they’ve achieved. They go out into the world separately: Ed with one eye on the future in the world of finance; Anita with one foot the past, a curator at Hampton Court Palace. This is the life she has chosen - choices that weren’t open to her mother’s generation - her dream job, equal partnership, freedom from the monotony of parenthood, living mortgage-free in a quirky old house she adores. The future seems knowable and secure.But then Anita finds herself standing in the middle of the road watching her home and everything inside it burn to the ground. Before she can come to terms with the magnitude of her loss, hairline cracks begin to appear in her perfect relationship. And returning to her childhood home in search of comfort, she stumbles upon the secret that her mother has kept hidden, a taboo so unspeakable it can only be written about.The reflection in the mirror may look the same. But everything has changed.Authentic and heartbreaking, Davis’s intoxicating new novel is an exploration of identity, not as a fixed point, but as something fragile, shape-shifting and transient

    A disused London Underground lift goes way beyond the bottom floor.A psychic boy discovers what terrors are buried in the fallow field.A handshake seals a midnight fate in an old farming dispute.A corpse must be buried by dawn.BLACK GATE TALES: Fourteen short stories of dread, hope, death and wonder.

    D. B. Bryan- The necklace by Guy de Maupassant- The adventure of the speckled band by Arthur Conan Doyle- To build a fire by Jack London- Leiningen versus the ants by Carl Stephenson- Eveline by James Joyce- The secret life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber- What stumped the bluejays by Mark Twain- The pearl by John Steinbeck

    One reason she has become a timeless icon of mystery for many readers is that her developmental phases have not been clarified. In this exhaustively researched biography, Alfred Habegger presents the first thorough account of Dickinson's growth-a richly contextualized story of genius in the process of formation and then in the act of overwhelming production.Building on the work of former and contemporary scholars, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books brings to light a wide range of new material from legal archives, congregational records, contemporary women's writing, and previously unpublished fragments of Dickinson's own letters. Habegger discovers the best available answers to the pressing questions about the poet: Was she lesbian? Who was the person she evidently loved? Why did she refuse to publish and why was this refusal so integral an aspect of her work? Habegger also illuminates many of the essential connection sin Dickinson's story: between the decay of doctrinal Protestantism and the emergence of her riddling lyric vision; between her father's political isolation after the Whig Party's collapse and her private poetic vocation; between her frustrated quest for human intimacy and the tuning of her uniquely seductive voice.The definitive treatment of Dickinson's life and times, and of her poetic development, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books shows how she could be both a woman of her era and a timeless creator. Although many aspects of her life and work will always elude scrutiny, her living, changing profile at least comes into focus in this meticulous and magisterial biography.From the Hardcover edition.

    and Canada in the past 50 years. Authors include Ann Beattie, Ann Tyler, Tama Janowitz and Alice Walker.

    Celebrate the joy, love, and wonder of motherhood with these 101 stories from new moms.Share the excitement, the laughs, and the tears with other new mothers as you read their heartwarming, amusing, and inspirational stories about: the pregnancy countdown births, bodies, and babies becoming a new person — a mother! breastfeeding battles struggling with infertility adoption and other paths to motherhood the ups and downs of new motherhood great ideas for the sleep deprived moving on to the toddler years adding a second child and lots of funny stories for comic relief!

    With her marriage shattered, Erin Belieu sifts the wreckage for the black box, the record of disaster. Propelled by a blistering and clarifying rage, she composed at fever pitch and produced riveting, unforgettable poems, such as the ten-part sequence “In the Red Dress I Wear to Your Funeral”:I root through your remains,looking for the black box. Nothing leftbut glossy chunks, a pimp’s platinumtooth clanking inside the urn. I play youover and over, my beloved conspiracy,my personal Zapruder film—look. . .When Belieu was invited by the Poetry Foundation to keep a public journal on their new website, readers responded to the Black Box poems, calling them “dark, twisted, disturbed, and disturbing” and Belieu a “frightening genius.” All true.

    Editor Amy Ferris has collected these stories to illuminate the truth behind that stigma and offer compassion, solidarity, and hope for all those who have struggled with depression. Contributors to Shades of Blue include: Barbara Abercrombie, Sherry Amatenstein, Regina Anavy, Chloe Caldwell, Jimmy Camp, Debra LoGuercio DeAngelo, Marika Rosenthal Delan, Hollye Dexter, Beverly Donofrio, Beth Bornstein Dunnington, Matt Ebert, Betsy Graziani Fasbinder, Zoe FitzGerald Carter, Pam L. Houston, David Lacy, Patti Linsky, Mark S. King, Caroline Leavitt, Karen Lynch, Lira Maywood, C.O. Moed, Mark Morgan, Linda Joy Myers, Christine Kehl O’Hagan, Jennifer Pastiloff, Ruth Pennebaker, Angela M. Giles Patel, Alexa Rosalsky, Elizabeth Rosner, Kathryn Rountree, Kitty Sheehan, Jenna Stone, judywhite, and Samantha White. Shades of Blue brings the conversation around depression and sadness into the open with real, first-hand accounts of depression and mental health issues, offering empathy to all those who have been affected by these issues. It’s time to scream out loud against this silent annihilator: We are not alone.

    Twenty-one first person essays and 23 stunning photographs give readers a glimpse into the lives of real women who respond to emergencies—their hopes, fears, questions, challenges, frustrations as well as glimpses of the humour, beauty, and hope they find in the midst of misery.

    But a house of her own, where she could truly take root, has eluded her. With this collection—spanning nearly three decades, and including never-before-published work—Cisneros has come home at last. Ranging from the private (her parents' loving and tempestuous marriage) to the political (a rallying cry for one woman's liberty in Sarajevo) to the literary (a tribute to Marguerite Duras), and written with her trademark sensitivity and honesty, these poignant, unforgettable pieces give us not only her most transformative memories but also a revelation of her artistic and intellectual influences. Here is an exuberant, deeply moving celebration of a life in writing lived to the fullest—an important milestone in a storied career.