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Dylan Thomas: A New Life
By Andrew Lycett. 2003
Dylan Thomas was a romantic and controversial figure; a poet who lived to excess and died young. An inventive genius…
with a gift for both lyrical phrases and impish humour, he also wrote for films and radio, and was renowned for his stage performances. He became the first literary star in the age of popular culture - a favourite of both T.S. Eliot and John Lennon. As his status as a poet and entertainer increased, so did his alcoholic binges and his sexual promiscuity, threatening to destroy his marriage to his fiery Irish wife Caitlin. As this extraordinary biography reveals, he was a man of many contradictions. But out of his tempestuous life, he produced some of the most dramatic and enduring poetry in the English language.Wisdom of the Buddha: The Unabridged Dhammapada (Dover Thrift Editions Ser.)
By F. Max Müller. 2000
These ancient verses offer a compelling introduction to Buddhist thought, revealing the Four Truths -- concerning the nature of the…
world and our lot in it -- and the Eightfold Path to enlightenment, the means by which to overcome the essential suffering revealed by the Four Truths as the essence of life.Design Idea Book: Learning From Designer Showhouses
By Karen Templer. 2007
Leading magazine editors team up with top builders and designers to provide fresh ideas that represent the best in modern…
home design, in a colorful volume that tours thirty-nine inspirational residences that combine real-world functionality with style to create designs that match today's busy family lifestyles.Inspiring Life of Eudora Welty, The
By Richelle Putnam, John Aycock. 2014
Eudora Alice Welty led an exciting and surprising life. Before she won a Pulitzer Prize, as a little girl she…
made her own books and won national poetry prizes. As a young woman during the Great Depression, she was a photographer and took pictures all over the South. These and other stories pack the life of one of Mississippi's most famous authors. With author and teacher Richelle Putnam, learn about the remarkable life of one of Mississippi's literary treasures, complete with vivid illustrations by John Aycock that are as colorful as Eudora's stories.Who Is Jeff Kinney?
By Patrick Kinney, John Hinderliter. 2015
Even as a kid, everyone thought Jeff Kinney was talented. People loved his drawings, and when he went to college,…
his comic strip Igdoof was so popular that it spread to other universities! Still, Jeff faced challenges. His cartoons were rejected by syndicates that claimed his art was unprofessional. Then, an idea struck: Jeff would write a journal from the perspective of a child, illustrated with doodles just like a kid might do. And so, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series was born--and it was a hit! In this biography, Jeff's brother, Patrick Kinney, provides a knowledgeable look at the life of this best-selling author/illustrator. From Jeff's childhood pranks to his job developing online games, kids will love the chance to learn more about the creator of the popular Wimpy Kid books.Dancing Fish and Ammonites: A Memoir
By Penelope Lively. 2013
The beloved and bestselling author takes an intimate look back at a life of reading and writing"The memory that we…
live with . . . is the moth-eaten version of our own past that each of us carries around, depends on. It is our ID; this is how we know who we are and where we have been."Memory and history have been Penelope Lively's terrain in fiction over a career that has spanned five decades. But she has only rarely given readers a glimpse into her influences and formative years.Dancing Fish and Ammonites traces the arc of Lively's life, stretching from her early childhood in Cairo to boarding school in England to the sweeping social changes of Britain's twentieth century. She reflects on her early love of archeology, the fragments of the ancients that have accompanied her journey--including a sherd of Egyptian ceramic depicting dancing fish and ammonites found years ago on a Dorset beach. She also writes insightfully about aging and what life looks like from where she now stands.The Urban Homestead (Expanded & Revised Edition)
By Kelly Coyne, Erik Knutzen. 2008
The expanded, updated version of the best-selling classic, with a dozen new projects."A delightfully readable and very useful guide to…
front- and back-yard vegetable gardening, food foraging, food preserving, chicken keeping, and other useful skills for anyone interested in taking a more active role in growing and preparing the food they eat."-BoingBoing.net"...the contemporary bible on the subject."-The New York TimesThis celebrated, essential handbook shows how to grow and preserve your own food, clean your house without toxins, raise chickens, gain energy independence, and more. Step-by-step projects, tips, and anecdotes will help get you started homesteading immediately. The Urban Homestead is also a guidebook to the larger movement and will point you to the best books and Internet resources on self-sufficiency topics.Written by city dwellers for city dwellers, this copiously illustrated, two-color instruction book proposes a paradigm shift that will improve our lives, our community, and our planet. By growing our own food and harnessing natural energy, we are planting seeds for the future of our cities.Learn how to:Grow food on a patio or balconyPreserve or ferment food and make yogurt and cheeseCompost with wormsKeep city chickensDivert your grey water to your gardenClean your house without toxinsGuerilla garden in public spacesCreate the modern homestead of your dreamsThe Bronte Sisters
By Catherine Reef. 2012
The Brontë sisters are among the most beloved writers of all time, best known for their classic nineteenth-century novels Jane…
Eyre (Charlotte), Wuthering Heights (Emily), and Agnes Grey (Anne). In this sometimes heartbreaking young adult biography, Catherine Reef explores the turbulent lives of these literary siblings and the oppressive times in which they lived. Brontë fans will also revel in the insights into their favorite novels, the plethora of poetry, and the outstanding collection of more than sixty black-and-white archival images. A powerful testimony to the life of the mind. (Endnotes, bibliography, index.)Teen Feng Shui: Design Your Space, Design Your Life
By Susan Levitt. 2003
A feng shui book specifically for teens.• Shows how to create balanced teen environments that promote personal development and positive…
self expression.• Tailors solutions to teen spaces: bedrooms, dormitories, desks, drawers, and lockers.• Shows how, when, and where to use music, incense, and posters.• Addresses real teen issues such as body image, tattoos and piercings, and cigarettes and other drugs.Teen Feng Shui demonstrates how the universal principles behind the design practice of feng shui can be applied to the contemporary environments of teenagers--from school lockers to dorm rooms--in order to maximize personal power, develop harmonious relationships, and define personal space. Noting that all books on feng shui are created for adults, Susan Levitt has provided a resource geared specifically toward the needs and realities of the teenage experience, addressing how young adults can design their living spaces to transform their lives. She describes how music, posters, and incense can influence space and includes before-and-after illustrations of feng shui "fixes." Teen Feng Shui also incorporates Chinese astrology, financial management and shopping tips for teens, insights on love and sex, personal stories, and case studies to provide a fun and comprehensive guide to this ancient art of placement.The Wisdom of the Zen Masters
By Christmas Humphreys, Irmgard Schloegl. 1976
Unlike most other formal religions, the Japanese school of Zen Buddhism has no canonized corpus of sacred literature which will…
reveal the "truth" to diligent readers. There are, however, numerous collections of anecdotes and aphorisms that may serve to convey the sensibility which underscores the practice of Zen. Drawing on these traditional sources, Dr. Irmgard Schloegl of the Buddhist Society in London has gathered into one short volume a sampling of stories and sayings that are a valuable introduction to the study of Zen. "If in every mind burns a flame of the Buddha's Enlightenment," Christmas Humphreys writes in his foreword to The Wisdom of the Zen Masters, "there is nothing to seek and nothing to acquire. We are enlightened, and all the words in the world will not give us what we already have. The man of Zen, therefore, is concerned with one thing only, to become aware of what he already is..." The task of the Japanese Zen master has been to guide his pupils in their awakening. The means used vary--from severe physical discipline to the proposition of enigmatic riddles, or koans--but always to the same end, Enlightenment: experiencing the Great Death of the worldly "I."Between You and Me: A Memoir
By Mike Wallace, Gary Paul Gates. 2005
At the age of 87, Mike Wallace is a legendary figure in broadcast journalism. Now, after 60 years of reporting…
on important events around the world, he shares his personal stories about the incredible range of celebrities, newsmakers, criminals, and world leaders who have subjected themselves to his unique brand of questioning.Through Wallace's intimate observations about these figures, we experience afresh the pivotal events that have shaped our world. Here, we meet the guilt-racked Secret Service agent assigned to John F. Kennedy's car in Dallas. We learn about the candid moment when President Nixon revealed an unexpected softer side. We witness the underpinnings of the century's greatest social movement through Wallace's eyes as he manages to earn the trust of major civil rights leaders, and we see the trauma Wallace experienced while covering the conflict in Israel. These off-camera anecdotes and fascinating excerpts from Wallace's interviews--with everyone from Eleanor Roosevelt to all the presidents of the last half century, from Frank Lloyd Wright to Johnny Carson, from Margaret Sanger to Malcom X--give us a new perspective on some of the greatest lives and minds of our time.With a reporter's eye for detail, Wallace mingles laughter, tragedy, and revelatory insight in a memoir unlike any other. For anyone who's ever wondered what it's like to make history for a living, this is a must-read.My City Highrise Garden
By Susan Brownmiller. 2017
Gardening on rooftops, balconies, and terraces is a popular trend. After thirty-five years of experience, Susan Brownmiller writes with honesty…
and humor about her oasis twenty floors above a Manhattan street. She reports the catastrophes: losing daytime access during building-wide renovations; assaults from a mockingbird during his mating season. And the joys: a peach tree fruited for fifteen years; the windswept birches lasted for twenty-five. Butterflies and bees pay annual visits. She pampers a buddleia, a honeysuckle, roses, hydrangeas, and more. Her adventures celebrate the tenacity of nature, inviting readers to marvel at her garden’s resilience, and her own. Enhanced by over thirty color photographs, this passionate account of green life in a gritty, urban environment will appeal to readers and gardeners wherever they dwell.The Lightning Dreamer: Cuba's Greatest Abolitionist
By Margarita Engle. 2013
"I find it so easy to forget / that I'm just a girl who is expected / to live /…
without thoughts." Opposing slavery in Cuba in the nineteenth century was dangerous. The most daring abolitionists were poets who veiled their work in metaphor. Of these, the boldest was Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, nicknamed Tula. In passionate, accessible verses of her own, Engle evokes the voice of this book-loving feminist and abolitionist who bravely resisted an arranged marriage at the age of fourteen, and was ultimately courageous enough to fight against injustice. Historical notes, excerpts, and source notes round out this exceptional tribute.Who Was Maya Angelou? (Who was?)
By Nancy Harrison, Dede Putra, Ellen Labrecque. 2016
Born in Missouri in 1928, Maya Angelou had a difficult childhood. Jim Crow laws segregated blacks and whites in the…
South. Her family life was unstable at times. But much like her poem, "Still I Rise," Angelou was able to lift herself out of her situation and flourish. She moved to California and became the first black--and first female--streetcar operator before following her interest in dance. She became a professional performer in her twenties and toured the U.S. and Europe as an opera star and calypso dancer. But Angelou's writing became her defining talent. Her poems and books, including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, brought her international acclaim.What happens when a grown man returns to the site of his fondest childhood memories? A wry, clear-eyed, and laugh-out-loud…
look at the transition to adulthood.Three months before getting married at age thirty-four, Josh Wolk decides to treat himself to a "farewell to childhood" extravaganza: one last summer working at the beloved Maine boys camp where he spent most of the eighties. And there he finds out that there's no better way to see how much you've changed than to revisit a place that hasn't changed at all.In these eight hilarious, uncomfortable, enlightening weeks, Josh readjusts to life teaching swimming and balancing on a thin metal cot in a cabin of shouting, wrestling, wet-willie-dispensing fourteen-year-olds who, contrary to the warnings of doomsaying sociologists, he finds indistinguishable from the rowdy fourteen-year-olds of his day in any way other than their haircuts. With his old camp friends gone, he finds himself working alongside guys who used to be his campers. Moments of feeling cripplingly old are offset by the corrosive insecurities of his youth when he's paired in the cabin with Mitch, the forty-two-year-old jack-of-all-extreme-sports whose machismo intimidated Josh so much fifteen years earlier, and whom their current campers idolize. And throughout all this disorienting regression, Josh's telephone conversations with his fiance, Christine, grow increasingly intense as their often-comical discussions over the wedding become a flimsy cover for her worries that he's not ready to relinquish his death-grip on the comforts of the past.A hilarious and insightful look at the tenacious power of nostalgia, the glory of childhood, and the nervous excitement of taking a leap to the next unknown stage in life, Cabin Pressure will appeal to anyone who's ever been young, wishes he was young again, but knows deep down it probably isnt a good idea.What happens when a grown man returns to the site of his fondest childhood memories? A wry, clear-eyed, and laugh-out-loud…
look at the transition to adulthood.Three months before getting married at age thirty-four, Josh Wolk decides to treat himself to a "farewell to childhood" extravaganza: one last summer working at the beloved Maine boys camp where he spent most of the eighties. And there he finds out that there's no better way to see how much you've changed than to revisit a place that hasn't changed at all.In these eight hilarious, uncomfortable, enlightening weeks, Josh readjusts to life teaching swimming and balancing on a thin metal cot in a cabin of shouting, wrestling, wet-willie-dispensing fourteen-year-olds who, contrary to the warnings of doomsaying sociologists, he finds indistinguishable from the rowdy fourteen-year-olds of his day in any way other than their haircuts. With his old camp friends gone, he finds himself working alongside guys who used to be his campers. Moments of feeling cripplingly old are offset by the corrosive insecurities of his youth when he's paired in the cabin with Mitch, the forty-two-year-old jack-of-all-extreme-sports whose machismo intimidated Josh so much fifteen years earlier, and whom their current campers idolize. And throughout all this disorienting regression, Josh's telephone conversations with his fiance, Christine, grow increasingly intense as their often-comical discussions over the wedding become a flimsy cover for her worries that he's not ready to relinquish his death-grip on the comforts of the past.A hilarious and insightful look at the tenacious power of nostalgia, the glory of childhood, and the nervous excitement of taking a leap to the next unknown stage in life, Cabin Pressure will appeal to anyone who's ever been young, wishes he was young again, but knows deep down it probably isnt a good idea.Writing America
By Shelley Fisher Fishkin. 2015
American novelist E.L. Doctorow once observed that literature "endows places with meaning." Yet, as this wide-ranging new book vividly illustrates,…
understanding the places that shaped American writers' lives and their art can provide deep insight into what makes their literature truly meaningful. Published on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Historic Preservation Act, Writing America is a unique, passionate, and eclectic series of meditations on literature and history, covering over 150 important National Register historic sites, all pivotal to the stories that make up America, from chapels to battlefields; from plantations to immigration stations; and from theaters to internment camps. The book considers not only the traditional sites for literary tourism, such as Mark Twain's sumptuous Connecticut home and the peaceful woods surrounding Walden Pond, but also locations that highlight the diversity of American literature, from the New York tenements that spawned Abraham Cahan's fiction to the Texas pump house that irrigated the fields in which the farm workers central to Gloria Anzaldúa's poetry picked produce. Rather than just providing a cursory overview of these authors' achievements, acclaimed literary scholar and cultural historian Shelley Fisher Fishkin offers a deep and personal reflection on how key sites bore witness to the struggles of American writers and inspired their dreams. She probes the global impact of American writers' innovative art and also examines the distinctive contributions to American culture by American writers who wrote in languages other than English, including Yiddish, Chinese, and Spanish. Only a scholar with as wide-ranging interests as Shelley Fisher Fishkin would dare to bring together in one book writers as diverse as Gloria Anzaldúa, Nicholas Black Elk, David Bradley, Abraham Cahan, S. Alice Callahan, Raymond Chandler, Frank Chin, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, Countee Cullen, Frederick Douglass, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Jessie Fauset, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Allen Ginsberg, Jovita González, Rolando Hinojosa, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Lawson Fusao Inada, James Weldon Johnson, Erica Jong, Maxine Hong Kingston, Irena Klepfisz, Nella Larsen, Emma Lazarus, Sinclair Lewis, Genny Lim, Claude McKay, Herman Melville, N. Scott Momaday, William Northup, John Okada, Miné Okubo, Simon Ortiz, Américo Paredes, John P. Parker, Ann Petry, Tomás Rivera, Wendy Rose, Morris Rosenfeld, John Steinbeck, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, Yoshiko Uchida, Tino Villanueva, Nathanael West, Walt Whitman, Richard Wright, Hisaye Yamamoto, Anzia Yezierska, and Zitkala-Ša. Leading readers on an enticing journey across the borders of physical places and imaginative terrains, the book includes over 60 images, and extended excerpts from a variety of literary works. Each chapter ends with resources for further exploration. Writing America reveals the alchemy though which American writers have transformed the world around them into art, changing their world and ours in the process. Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: The Literary Landscape1 Celebrating the Many in One Walt Whitman Birthplace, Huntington, Long Island, New York2 Living in Harmony with Nature Walden Pond, Concord, Massachusetts3 Freedom's Port The New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, New Bedford, Massachusetts4 The House that Uncle Tom's Cabin Built Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Hartford, Connecticut5 The Irony of American History The Mark Twain Boyhood Home, Hannibal, Missouri, and the Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut6 Native American Voices Remember Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota7 "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" The Paul Laurence Dunbar House, Dayton, Ohio8 Leaving the Old World for the New The Tenement Museum, New York City9 The Revolt from the Village The Original Main Street, Sauk Centre, Minnesota10 Asian American Writers and CreLet There Be Light: A Book about Windows
By James Cross Giblin. 1988
Windows are our eyes on the world. Through them we can gaze at our surroundings and, looking out, feel connected…
to the larger world outside. Windows transform our interiors, filling a room with light and letting cool breezes in. Windows protect us. But windows are vulnerable, too. A well-aimed rock can shatter one in an instant. For as long as there have been buildings, there have been windows. A simple roof hole, a narrow slit-these served as windows in early structures. Later windows might be covered with anything from mica to paper to a fish bladder; the transparent pane of glass we take for granted today took many centuries to develop. In the Middle Ages, with the achievement of stained glass, windows became the focus of a great outpouring of artistic expression. Today the "walls of glass" of the modern skyscraper represent the ultimate window. In this wide-ranging history, we also learn of the role windows have played in many dramatic events, from castle sieges to the infamous Kristallnacht of Nazi Germany to riots that scarred American cities in the 1960s. With the aid of splendid pictures, James Cross Giblin traces the intriguing development of windows-in our homes, our houses of worship, our offices, and public buildings, and shows how they illuminate our lives.Who Was Jane Austen? (Who was?)
By Jerry Hoare, Sarah Fabiny, Who Hq. 2017
Step into the world of Georgian England and learn more about the genteel life of this beloved author.Although Jane Austen's…
works were first published anonymously and brought her little personal recognition, today they are rarely out of print and have inspired movies, television shows and mini-series, literary anthologies, and many other adaptations all around the world. Her writing—principally her five novels—is a critique of the British landed gentry at the end of the eighteenth century, and often a comment on the pursuit of a "good match" in matters of marriage. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Northhanger Abbey remain her most famous works. Who Was Jane Austen? reveals the life of this most private author.Who Was Lewis Carroll? (Who was?)
By Pam Pollack, Meg Belviso, Joseph J. Qiu, Who Hq. 2017
Meet the man who created Alice, the Mad Hatter, and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum!Lewis Carroll is the pen name…
of Charles L. Dodgson, a mathematician and church deacon, who taught at Oxford University. He was inspired to write his best known works, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, by one of the Dean's daughters, Alice Liddell. The books were hugely successful and brought Carroll wide acclaim, especially for the nonsense poems "Jabberwocky" and The Hunting of the Snark.Children and adults continue to be delighted by the fantasy of the Alice stories, which have been the basis of plays and movies since their publication in Victorian England during the 1860s and 1870s.