The epigraph for Howl is from Walt Whitman: "Unscrew the locks from the doors!/Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!" Announcing his intentions with this ringing motto, Allen Ginsberg published a volume of poetry which broke so many social...
Man and Superman is a powerful drama of ideas by George Bernard Shaw, first written in 1901. Shaw intended to encapsulate the new century's intellectual inheritance by drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources, including Byron's verse satire, Shakespeare, and authors such as Conan Doyle and Kipling.
The play explores the role of the artist, the function of women in society, and Shaw's theory of Creative Evolution. It is a satirical and buoyant exposé of the eternal struggle between the sexes, combining seriousness with comedy. The drama follows the story of Ann Whitefield, who becomes the joint ward of two men: the respectable Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner, author of "The Revolutionist’s Handbook." Believing marriage would prevent him from achieving his higher intellectual and political ambitions, Tanner is horrified to discover that Ann intends to marry him. He flees to Spain, with the determined young woman in hot pursuit.
The chase leads them to the underworld, where the characters’ alter egos engage in a lively debate on human nature and philosophy in a scene often performed separately as "Don Juan in Hell." Shaw combines elements of comedy and serious philosophical discourse to create a work that remains a classic of twentieth-century English theatre.
As Bingtown slides toward disaster, clan matriarch Ronica Vestrit, branded a traitor, searches for a way to bring the city's inhabitants together against a momentous threat. Meanwhile, Althea Vestrit, unaware of what has befallen Bingtown and her family, continues her perilous quest to track down and recover her liveship, the Vivacia, from the ruthless pirate Kennit. Bold though it is, Althea's scheme may be in vain.
For her beloved Vivacia will face the most terrible confrontation of all as the secret of the liveships is revealed. It is a truth so shattering, it may destroy the Vivacia and all who love her, including Althea's nephew, whose life already hangs in the balance.
Only Georges Bataille could write, of an eyeball removed from a corpse, that "the caress of the eye over the skin is so utterly, so extraordinarily gentle, and the sensation is so bizarre that it has something of a rooster's horrible crowing." Bataille has been called a "metaphysician of evil," specializing in blasphemy, profanation, and horror.
Story of the Eye, written in 1928, is his best-known work; it is unashamedly surrealistic, both disgusting and fascinating, and packed with seemingly endless violations. It's something of an underground classic, rediscovered by each new generation. Most recently, the Icelandic pop singer Björk Guðdmundsdóttir cites Story of the Eye as a major inspiration: she made a music video that alludes to Bataille's erotic uses of eggs, and she plans to read an excerpt for an album.
Warning: Story of the Eye is graphically sexual, and is only suited for adults who are not easily offended.
The Dark Room tells the stories of three ordinary Germans, each ensnared by the tumultuous events of history. Helmut, a young photographer in Berlin during the 1930s, channels his patriotic fervour into his craft, yet his keen eye fails to comprehend the true significance behind the images he captures. Lore, a twelve-year-old girl, finds herself leading her younger siblings on a harrowing journey across a ravaged Germany in 1945 after their Nazi parents are taken by the Allies.
Half a century later, Micha, a young teacher, grapples with his family's past and the actions of his grandfather during the war. His quest for the truth is met with silence and resistance, and the only person willing to assist carries a burdened history of their own. The Dark Room delves into these individual experiences with profound emotional depth and psychological authenticity, shedding light on the complex and dark moments of the twentieth century.
Have you ever wanted to rewrite your past?
Three best friends, all with the same birthday, are about to turn forty. Celebrating at a summerhouse in Maine, Leslie Headrick, Madison Appleby, and Ellie Abbott are taking stock of their lives and loves, their wishes and choices. But none of them expect the gift that awaits them at the summerhouse: the chance for each of them to turn their “what-might-have-beens” into reality…
Leslie, a suburban wife and mother, follows the career of a boy who pursued her in college and wonders: what if she had chosen differently? Madison dropped a modeling career to help her high school boyfriend recover from an accident, even though he’d jilted her. But what if she had said “no” when her old boyfriend had called? Ellie became a famous novelist, but a bitter divorce wiped out her earnings—and shattered her belief in herself. Why had the “justice” system failed her? And could she prevent its happening the second time around?
Now, a mysterious “Madame Zoya,” offers each of them a chance to relive any three weeks from the past. Will the road not taken prove a better path? Each woman will have to decide for herself as she follows the dream that got away…and each must choose the life that will truly satisfy the heart’s deepest longings.
When young Tenar is chosen as high priestess to the ancient and nameless Powers of the Earth, everything is taken away - home, family, possessions, even her name. For she is now Arha, the Eaten One, guardian of the ominous Tombs of Atuan. While she is learning her way through the dark labyrinth, a young wizard, Ged, comes to steal the Tombs' greatest hidden treasure, the Ring of Erreth-Akbe.
But Ged also brings with him the light of magic, and together, he and Tenar escape from the darkness that has become her domain. Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle has earned a treasured place on the shelves of fantasy lovers everywhere, alongside the works of such beloved authors as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
The text of Eliot's 1922 masterpiece is accompanied by thorough explanatory annotations as well as by Eliot's own knotty notes, some of which require annotation themselves.
His birth was marked by wonder and tragedy. He sees beauty and terror beyond our deepest dreams. His story will change the way you see the world.
Bartholomew Lampion is born on a day of tragedy and terror that will mark his family forever. All agree that his unusual eyes are the most beautiful they have ever seen. On this same day, a thousand miles away, a ruthless man learns that he has a mortal enemy named Bartholomew. He embarks on a relentless search to find this enemy, a search that will consume his life.
And a girl is born from a brutal rape, her destiny mysteriously linked to Barty and the man who stalks him. At the age of three, Barty Lampion is blinded when surgeons remove his eyes to save him from a fast-spreading cancer.
As he copes with his blindness and proves to be a prodigy, his mother counsels him that all things happen for a reason and that every person’s life has an effect on every other person’s, in often unknowable ways. At thirteen, Bartholomew regains his sight. How he regains it, why he regains it, and what happens as his amazing life unfolds and entwines with others results in a breathtaking journey of courage, heart-stopping suspense, and high adventure.
Polly is a happy wife and mother from a remarkably strong and attractive family—until one day she finds herself entangled in a completely unexpected, sweet, yet painful, love affair with a painter named Lincoln Bennett.
All of Polly's beliefs about herself explode, uprooting what had seemed to be a settled—and everlasting—idea of family happiness.
The Oxford School Shakespeare has become the preferred introduction to the literary legacy of the greatest playwright in the English language. This exclusive collection of the Bard's best works has been designed specifically for readers new to Shakespeare's rich literary legacy. Each play is presented complete and unabridged, in large print. Every book is well illustrated, and starts with a commentary and character summary. Scene synopses and character summaries clarify confusing plots, while incisive essays explore the historical context and Shakespeare's sources. Each book ends with a complete list of Shakespeare's plays and a brief chronology of the Bard's life. The detailed explanatory notes are written clearly and positioned right next to the text--no more squinting at microscopic footnotes or flipping pages back and forth in search of endnotes! The new edition of the series features new covers and new illustrations, including both new drawings and photos from recent productions of Shakespeare's plays around the globe. In addition, the notes and the introductory material have been completely revised in line with new research and in order to make them clearer and more accessible. Finally, the entire text has been redesigned and reset to enhance readability. The new edition achieves the feat of unprecedented clarity of presentation without any cuts to the original text or the detailed explanations.
Just before dawn one winter's morning, a hijacked jetliner explodes above the English Channel. Through the falling debris, two figures, Gibreel Farishta, the biggest star in India, and Saladin Chamcha, an expatriate returning from his first visit to Bombay in fifteen years, plummet from the sky, washing up on the snow-covered sands of an English beach, and proceed through a series of metamorphoses, dreams, and revelations.
The story begins with a bang: the terrorist bombing of a London-bound jet in midflight. Two Indian actors of opposing sensibilities fall to earth, transformed into living symbols of what is angelic and evil. This is just the initial act in a magnificent odyssey that seamlessly merges the actual with the imagined.
A book whose importance is eclipsed only by its quality, The Satanic Verses is a key work of our times, embracing life in all its contradictions.
This edition of The Trial and Death of Socrates presents G. M. A. Grube's distinguished translations, as revised by John Cooper for Plato, Complete Works. A number of new or expanded footnotes are also included along with a Select Bibliography. John M. Cooper is Stuart Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University.
Captains Courageous is a tale of transformation and growth. A pampered millionaire's son, Harvey Cheyne Jr., tumbles overboard from a luxury liner, only to be rescued by a gruff and hearty crew of fishermen. Stripped of his former privileges, he must learn the ways of the sea and earn his place among the crew.
As Harvey navigates the waters off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, he discovers the value of hard work, loyalty, and friendship. Through thrilling adventures and humorous encounters, he sheds his spoiled demeanor and embraces the tough life of a fisherman.
Rudyard Kipling's masterful storytelling brings to life the rugged beauty of the sea and the camaraderie of those who live by its rules. This classic coming-of-age story is filled with action, humor, and the timeless lessons of resilience and honor.
What is the relationship of the individual to the state? What is the ideal state, and how can it bring about the most desirable life for its citizens? What sort of education should it provide? What is the purpose of amassing wealth? These are some of the questions Aristotle attempts to answer in one of the most intellectually stimulating works.
Both heavily influenced by and critical of Plato's Republic and Laws, Politics represents the distillation of a lifetime of thought and observation. Encyclopaedic knowledge has never, before or since, gone hand in hand with a logic so masculine or with speculation so profound.
Students, teachers, and scholars will welcome this inexpensive new edition of the Benjamin Jowett translation, as will all readers interested in Greek thought, political theory, and depictions of the ideal state.
Written in a fast-paced thriller style, The Goal is the gripping novel which is transforming management thinking throughout the Western world.
Alex Rogo is a harried plant manager working ever more desperately to try and improve performance. His factory is rapidly heading for disaster. So is his marriage. He has ninety days to save his plant—or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a colleague from student days—Jonah—to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done.
The story of Alex's fight to save his plant is more than compulsive reading. It contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC) developed by Eli Goldratt.
Lord Jim, one of Joseph Conrad's greatest novels, brilliantly combines adventure and analysis. Haunted by the memory of a moment of lost nerve during a disastrous voyage, Jim submits to condemnation by a Court of Inquiry. In the wake of his disgrace, he travels to the exotic region of Patusan, and as the agent at this remote trading post, comes to be revered as ‘Tuan Jim.’ Here, he finds a measure of serenity and respect within himself. However, when a gang of thieves arrives on the island, the memory of his earlier disgrace comes again to the fore, and his relationship with the people of the island is jeopardized.
This new Broadview edition is based on the first British edition of 1900, which provides the historical basis for the accompanying critical and contextual discussions. The appendices include a wide variety of Conrad’s source material, documents concerning the scandal of the Jeddah, along with other materials such as a substantial selection of early critical comments.
Brilliant, caustic, comic, and severe, The Elementary Particles is an unflinching look at a modern world plagued by consumerism, materialism, and unchecked scientific experimentation. An international bestseller and controversial literary phenomenon, this is the story of two half-brothers abandoned by a mother who gave herself fully to the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties.
Bruno, overweight and a failure at everything, is himself a raucously promiscuous hedonist, while Michel, his younger brother, is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is an endlessly unpredictable and provocative tale that speaks to the impossible redemption of the human condition.
Rand is on the run with Min, and in Cairhein, Cadsuane is trying to figure out where he is headed. Rand's destination is, in fact, one she has never considered.
Mazrim Taim, leader of the Black Tower, is revealed to be a liar. But what is he up to?
Faile, with the Aiel Maidens, Bain and Chiad, and her companions, Queen Alliandre and Morgase, is prisoner of Savanna's sept.
Perrin is desperately searching for Faile. With Elyas Machera, Berelain, the Prophet and a very mixed "army" of disparate forces, he is moving through country rife with bandits and roving Seanchan. The Forsaken are ever more present, and united, and the man called Slayer stalks Tel'aran'rhiod and the wolfdream.
In Ebou Dar, the Seanchan princess known as Daughter of the Nine Moons arrives--and Mat, who had been recuperating in the Tarasin Palace, is introduced to her. Will the marriage that has been foretold come about?
There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it is a beginning....
Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion.
Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of Galileo's daughter, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has written a biography unlike any other of the man Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics--indeed of modern science altogether."
Galileo's Daughter also presents a stunning portrait of a person hitherto lost to history, described by her father as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me."
The son of a musician, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) tried at first to enter a monastery before engaging the skills that made him the foremost scientist of his day. Though he never left Italy, his inventions and discoveries were heralded around the world. Most sensationally, his telescopes allowed him to reveal a new reality in the heavens and to reinforce the astounding argument that the Earth moves around the Sun. For this belief, he was brought before the Holy Office of the Inquisition, accused of heresy, and forced to spend his last years under house arrest.
Of Galileo's three illegitimate children, the eldest best mirrored his own brilliance, industry, and sensibility, and by virtue of these qualities became his confidante. Born Virginia in 1600, she was thirteen when Galileo placed her in a convent near him in Florence, where she took the most appropriate name of Suor Maria Celeste. Her loving support, which Galileo repaid in kind, proved to be her father's greatest source of strength throughout his most productive and tumultuous years. Her presence, through letters which Sobel has translated from their original Italian and masterfully woven into the narrative, graces her father's life now as it did then.
Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion. Moving between Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its place in the cosmos was being overturned. In that same time, while the bubonic plague wreaked its terrible devastation and the Thirty Years' War tipped fortunes across Europe, one man sought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope.
With all the human drama and scientific adventure that distinguished Longitude, Galileo's Daughter is an unforgettable story.
The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass are available together in one volume perfect for any fan or newcomer to this modern fantasy classic series.
These thrilling adventures tell the story of Lyra and Will—two ordinary children on a perilous journey through shimmering haunted otherworlds. They will meet witches and armored bears, fallen angels and soul-eating specters. And in the end, the fate of both the living—and the dead—will rely on them.
Phillip Pullman's spellbinding His Dark Materials trilogy has captivated readers for over twenty years and won acclaim at every turn. It will have you questioning everything you know about your world and wondering what really lies just out of reach.
London, 1936. Gordon Comstock has declared war on the money god; and Gordon is losing the war. Nearly 30 and "rather moth-eaten already," a poet whose one small book of verse has fallen "flatter than any pancake," Gordon has given up a "good" job and gone to work in a bookshop at half his former salary. Always broke, but too proud to accept charity, he rarely sees his few friends and cannot get the virginal Rosemary to bed because (or so he believes), "If you have no money ... women won't love you."
On the windowsill of Gordon's shabby rooming-house room is a sickly but unkillable aspidistra—a plant he abhors as the banner of the sort of "mingy, lower-middle-class decency" he is fleeing in his downward flight.
In Keep the Aspidistra Flying, George Orwell has created a darkly compassionate satire to which anyone who has ever been oppressed by the lack of brass, or by the need to make it, will all too easily relate. He etches the ugly insanity of what Gordon calls "the money-world" in unflinching detail, but the satire has a second edge, too, and Gordon himself is scarcely heroic. In the course of his misadventures, we become grindingly aware that his radical solution to the problem of the money-world is no solution at all—that in his desperate reaction against a monstrous system, he has become something of a monster himself. Orwell keeps both of his edges sharp to the very end—a "happy" ending that poses tough questions about just how happy it really is.
That the book itself is not sour, but constantly fresh and frequently funny, is the result of Orwell's steady, unsentimental attention to the telling detail; his dry, quiet humor; his fascination with both the follies and the excellences of his characters; and his courageous refusal to embrace the comforts of any easy answer.
The Dancers at the End of Time is a series of science fiction novels and short stories written by Michael Moorcock, set in an era where entropy is king and the universe is collapsing upon itself. The inhabitants of this era are immortal decadents, creating flights of fancy using power rings drawing on energy stored by their ancestors millions of years prior.
Time travel is possible, and throughout the series, various points in time are visited and revisited. Space travelers are also common, though most residents find leaving the planet distasteful and clichéd.
This tenth volume of the Eternal Champion series blends humor and romance in a monumental story that spans all of space and time. Can love blossom across millennia, in a world where 'conscience' and 'morality' are meaningless, amidst a multiverse collapsing and racing toward destruction?
For the first time, all five novels in the epic fantasy series that inspired HBO's Game of Thrones are together in one boxed set. An immersive entertainment experience unlike any other, A Song of Ice and Fire has earned George R. R. Martin--dubbed the American Tolkien by Time magazine--international acclaim and millions of loyal readers. Now here is the entire monumental cycle:
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords
A Feast for Crows
A Dance with Dragons
Winter is coming. Such is the stern motto of House Stark, the northernmost of the fiefdoms that owe allegiance to King Robert Baratheon in far-off King's Landing. There Eddard Stark of Winterfell rules in Robert's name. There his family dwells in peace and comfort: his proud wife, Catelyn; his sons Robb, Brandon, and Rickon; his daughters Sansa and Arya; and his bastard son, Jon Snow. Far to the north, behind the towering Wall, lie savage Wildings and worse--unnatural things relegated to myth during the centuries-long summer, but proving all too real and all too deadly in the turning of the season.
Yet a more immediate threat lurks to the south, where Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, has died under mysterious circumstances. Now Robert is riding north to Winterfell, bringing his queen, the lovely but cold Cersei, his son, the cruel, vainglorious Prince Joffrey, and the queen's brothers Jaime and Tyrion of the powerful and wealthy House Lannister--the first a swordsman without equal, the second a dwarf whose stunted stature belies a brilliant mind. All are heading for Winterfell and a fateful encounter that will change the course of kingdoms.
Meanwhile, across the Narrow Sea, Prince Viserys, heir of the fallen House Targaryen, which once ruled all of Westeros, schemes to reclaim the throne with an army of barbarian Dothraki--whose loyalty he will purchase in the only coin left to him: his beautiful yet innocent sister, Daenerys.
هزمتك يا موت الفنون جميعها
هكذا وفي عبارة واحدة يكثف الشاعر محمود درويش في جداريته ما حاول أن يقوله بأساليب متنوعة على مدى هذه القصيدة - الديوان. إنها لحظة التحدي الأخيرة بين لغة وذاكرة من جهة، ونهاية كانت تقترب بسرعة.
فمن غير الشاعر يتطيع منازلة الموت بهذه الطريقة وذاك الدفق وهذا البوح؟ محمود درويش هنا جديد، تتصاعد درجة انتباهه على شرفة الموت، فيهدي إلينا تلك التجربة شعرًا آسرًا، يتوقف فيه الزمن وتتباطأ حركته، فتتأبد اللحظات واللقطات والمشاهد، لنعثر بعد رحلة جلجامش الشهيرة على سفر مبتكر للخلود.
روی ماه خداوند را ببوس is a captivating novel by Mostafa Mastoor, a renowned Iranian author.
This story delves into the depths of human emotions and spirituality, exploring the intricate relationship between man and the divine.
Through its pages, readers are invited to embark on a journey of self-discovery and reflection, as the characters navigate their personal struggles and aspirations.
Rich in cultural context and philosophical insights, this novel offers a unique perspective on life's profound questions.
Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn’s very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in the most startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent’s Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna’s limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank Minna, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable, so who cares if the tasks he sets them are, well, not exactly legal.
But when Frank is fatally stabbed, one of Lionel’s colleagues lands in jail, the other two vie for his position, and the victim’s widow skips town. Lionel’s world is suddenly topsy-turvy, and this outcast who has trouble even conversing attempts to untangle the threads of the case while trying to keep the words straight in his head. Motherless Brooklyn is a brilliantly original homage to the classic detective novel by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation.
Jeanette Winterson’s novels have established her as one of the most important young writers in world literature. The Passion is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirms her special claim on the novel. Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice’s compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny.
In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.
In an Arizona desert, a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world, archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology. Now this group is about to get a chance not to study the past but to enter it. And with history opened up to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves fighting for their very survival -- six hundred years ago.
The Insulted & Injured, published soon after Dostoevsky's political imprisonment, clearly foreshadows his later preoccupation with unconscious psychological drives and their external effects on the lives of his characters. Where his later works carry these drives to inevitably dramatic conclusions, The Insulted & Injured confines them within the smaller boundaries of everyday event.
In this story, the impulse toward self-abnegation in love, which appears so markedly in both Vanya and Natasha, isn't itself enough to direct their lives; instead, it combines with their social world and the mundane ambitions of Prince Valkovsky to defeat their hope of happiness. Of all the characters in the novel, only Natasha's lover, the Prince's son Alyosha—the person least driven to mold life to his own terms—emerges untouched.
Here are, to a greater extent than in Dostoevsky's more familiar works, flesh-and-blood people as we see them around every day. They are made up of both good and evil, of will and acceptance. Unfailingly, they command interest and illuminate understanding.
Prodigal Summer weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.
From her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. She is caught off-guard by a young hunter who invades her most private spaces and confounds her self-assured, solitary life. On a farm several miles down the mountain, Lusa Maluf Landowski, a bookish city girl turned farmer's wife, finds herself unexpectedly marooned in a strange place where she must declare or lose her attachment to the land that has become her own. And a few more miles down the road, a pair of elderly feuding neighbors tend their respective farms and wrangle about God, pesticides, and the possibilities of a future neither of them expected.
Over the course of one humid summer, these characters find their connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they share a place. Prodigal Summer demonstrates a balance of narrative, drama and ideas that is characteristic of Barbara Kingsolver's finest work.
First U.S. Publication
A major literary event—the complete, uncensored journals of Sylvia Plath, published in their entirety for the first time. Sylvia Plath's journals were originally published in 1982 in a heavily abridged version authorized by Plath's husband, Ted Hughes. This new edition is an exact and complete transcription of the diaries Plath kept during the last twelve years of her life.
Sixty percent of the book is material that has never before been made public, more fully revealing the intensity of the poet's personal and literary struggles, and providing fresh insight into both her frequent desperation and the bravery with which she faced down her demons.
The complete Journals of Sylvia Plath is essential reading for all who have been moved and fascinated by Plath's life and work.
Mick Foley is a nice man, a family man who loves amusement parks and eating ice cream in bed. So how to explain those Japanese death matches in rings with explosives, golden thumbtacks, and barbed wire instead of rope? The second-degree burn tissue? And the missing ear that was ripped off during a bout in which he kept fighting?
Here is an intimate glimpse into Mick Foley's mind, his history, his work, and what some might call his pathology. Now with a bonus chapter summarizing the past 15 months—from his experience as a bestselling author through his parting thoughts before his final match.
A tale of blood, sweat, tears, and more blood—all in his own words—straight from the twisted genius behind Cactus Jack, Dude Love, and Mankind.
Virginia Woolf's Orlando playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Constantinople, awakes to find that he is now a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.
Tommy Phan, a successful detective novelist, comes home one evening to find a small rag doll on his doorstep. That night, with the popping of two stitches, something terrifying will emerge to tear apart the fabric of Tommy's reality—and his life.
Ivanhoe, set in the late 12th century, marks a significant departure for Sir Walter Scott from the Scottish settings of his previous novels, venturing into English history. This novel artfully intertwines the seemingly divergent themes of historical authenticity and chivalric romance, social realism and high adventure. At its heart, Ivanhoe is a story of dispossessed Saxons pitted against their Norman overlords, a tale that seamlessly blends the historical and the fictional.
Returning from the crusades, Ivanhoe is banished from England for seeking to marry against his father's wishes. Joining Richard the Lion Heart, he finds himself entangled in a dangerous game upon his return. His longing for the beautiful, yet forbidden, lady Rowena draws him deeper into a bitter power struggle between the noble King Richard and his malevolent brother John. The novel is celebrated for its vivid portrayal of medieval tournaments and sieges, chivalry, and adventure. With Ivanhoe, Scott not only addresses a purely English subject but also creates a highly romanticized medieval world that continues to captivate readers.
Was God telling the truth when he said, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart"? In his #1 bestseller The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel examined the claims of Christ, reaching the hard-won verdict that Jesus is God's unique son. In The Case for Faith, Strobel turns his skills to the most persistent emotional objections to belief—the eight "heart barriers" to faith.
This compelling and thought-provoking book on the Christian faith includes two all-new chapters, a current list of recommended resources for further study, and a new discussion guide. It's for those who may be feeling attracted to Jesus but who are faced with difficult questions standing squarely in their path. For Christians, it will deepen their convictions and give them fresh confidence in defending their faith to skeptical friends, or during the hardest of times, when they have to defend their faith to themselves in moments of doubt.
Explore the tough questions:
Also available: The Case for Faith Spanish edition, kids' edition, and student edition. Plus, be sure to check out Lee Strobel's entire collection of Case for... books: The Case for Christ, The Case for a Creator, The Case for Grace, and more!
Enter the dark and sensual world of the Black Jewels Trilogy with this intriguing prequel.
Jared is a Red-Jeweled Warlord, bound as a pleasure slave by the ominous Ring of Obedience. After enduring nine years of torment as a slave, he bravely murders his owner and escapes, only to be captured and sold into slavery once more.
The notorious queen who has purchased him, known as the Gray Lady, may not be what she seems. Soon, Jared faces a difficult choice: his freedom, or his honor.
When Sierra discovers a handcrafted quilt made by one of her young ancestors, she embarks on a journey that intertwines her life with the past. Through the quilt, she finds the journal of a young pioneer woman on the Oregon Trail, leading her to realize that their lives, though separated by time, are strikingly similar.
As Sierra delves into the past, she finds herself rediscovering her own spirituality and understanding the meaning of unconditional love and surrendering to God's sovereignty. This touching narrative explores themes of love, loss, and the enduring power of faith, guiding Sierra to find her true path and reconnect with her own heart.
When he died in 1937, destitute and emotionally and physically ruined, H.P. Lovecraft had no idea that he would come to be regarded as the godfather of the modern horror genre, nor that his work would influence an entire generation of writers, including Stephen King and Anne Rice. Now, at last, the most important tales of this distinctive American genius are gathered in one volume.
Combining the nineteenth-century gothic sensibility of Edgar Allan Poe with a daring internal vision, Lovecraft's tales foretold a psychically troubled century to come. Set in a meticulously described, historically grounded New England landscape, his harrowing stories explore the collapse of sanity beneath the weight of chaotic events. Lovecraft's universe is a frightening shadow world where reality and nightmare intertwine, and redemption can come only from below.
When confronted by raging fires or deadly accidents, volunteer fireman Taylor McAden feels compelled to take terrifying risks to save lives. But there is one leap of faith Taylor can't bring himself to make: He can't fall in love. For all his adult years, Taylor has sought out women who need to be rescued, women he leaves as soon as their crisis is over, as soon as the relationship starts to become truly intimate.
Then, one day, a raging, record-breaking storm hits his small Southern town. Denise Holton, a young single mother, is driving through it when her car skids off the road. With her is her four-year-old son, Kyle, a boy with severe learning disabilities and for whom she has sacrificed everything. Unconscious and bleeding, she—but not Kyle—will be found by Taylor McAden. And when she wakes, the chilling truth becomes clear to both of them: Kyle is gone.
During the search for Kyle, the connection, the lifeline, between Taylor and Denise takes root. Taylor doesn't know that this rescue will be different from all the others, demanding far more than raw physical courage. That it will lead him to the possibility of his own rescue from a life lived without love. That it will require him to open doors to his past that were slammed shut by pain. That it will dare him to live life to the fullest by daring to love.
In The Rescue, Nicholas Sparks weaves his inimitable spell, immersing us in the passions and the surprising complexities of modern relationships—and in doing so, teaching us something about our own.
Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaíso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquín Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquín takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him.
As we follow her spirited heroine on a perilous journey north in the hold of a ship to the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco and northern California, we enter a world whose newly arrived inhabitants are driven mad by gold fever. A society of single men and prostitutes among whom Eliza moves--with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chien--California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence for the young Chilean. Her search for the elusive Joaquín gradually turns into another kind of journey that transforms her over time, and what began as a search for love ends up as the conquest of personal freedom.
Antarctica is the last unconquered continent, a murderous expanse of howling winds, blinding whiteouts, and deadly crevasses. On one edge of Antarctica is Wilkes Station. Beneath Wilkes Station lies the gate to hell itself...
A team of U.S. divers, exploring three thousand feet beneath the ice shelf, has vanished. Sending out an SOS, Wilkes draws a rapid deployment team of Marines—and someone else...
First comes a horrific firefight. Then comes a plunge into a drowning pool filled with killer whales. Next comes the hard part, as a handful of survivors begin an electrifying, red-hot, non-stop battle of survival across the continent and against wave after wave of elite military assassins—who've all come for one thing: a secret buried deep beneath the ice...
As his beloved Kahlan lies close to death, Richard Rahl, who distrusts prophecy more than anyone, is confronted by a compelling vision - one that bears a terrible price. It would mean taking Kahlan away to safety while abandoning his people to a grim fate.
As savage hordes stand poised to invade their homeland, Richard and Kahlan's devotion, not only to each other but to their cause and their duty, is imperiled in the descending fury of war. Amid the turmoil, Nicci, a woman from Richard's past, haunted by her memory of him, makes a fateful decision. Despite Nicci's hunger to understand the source of Richard's indomitable will, her burning passion to destroy him commits her to the unthinkable.
It's late summer 1793, and the streets of Philadelphia are abuzz with mosquitoes and rumors of fever. Down near the docks, many have taken ill, and the fatalities are mounting. Now they include Polly, the serving girl at the Cook Coffeehouse. But fourteen-year-old Mattie Cook doesn't get a moment to mourn the passing of her childhood playmate. New customers have overrun her family's coffee shop, located far from the mosquito-infested river, and Mattie's concerns of fever are all but overshadowed by dreams of growing her family's small business into a thriving enterprise. But when the fever begins to strike closer to home, Mattie's struggle to build a new life must give way to a new fight—the fight to stay alive.
Once An Eagle is the story of one special man, a soldier named Sam Damon, and his adversary over a lifetime, fellow officer Courtney Massengale. Damon is a professional who puts duty, honor, and the men he commands above self-interest. Massengale, however, brilliantly advances by making the right connections behind the lines and in Washington's corridors of power.
Beginning in the French countryside during the Great War, the conflict between these adversaries solidifies in the isolated garrison life marking peacetime, intensifies in the deadly Pacific jungles of World War II, and reaches its treacherous conclusion in the last major battleground of the Cold War—Vietnam.
A study in character and values, courage, nobility, honesty, and selflessness, here is an unforgettable story about a man who embodies the best in our nation—and in us all.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, first published in Portuguese in 1968 and subsequently translated and published in English in 1970, presents the methodology of the late Paulo Freire. His work has been instrumental in empowering countless impoverished and illiterate individuals globally. The book gains particular relevance in the United States and Western Europe as it addresses the increasing acceptance of a permanent underclass among underprivileged and minority populations in urban areas.
The 30th Anniversary Edition includes a significant new introduction detailing Freire's life and the profound influence of this book, contributed by Donaldo Macedo, a writer and authoritative voice on Freire's work. This edition aims to motivate a new wave of educators, students, and general readers to engage with Freire's influential teachings.