GrantBook - From Dream to Grant
This book introduces Sardor Tukhtaev, a dedicated student of international law passionate about human rights. With extensive academic achievements, international experience, and leadership roles, he exemplifies commitment to social justice and global human rights issues. The narrative highlights his active participation in international forums, competitions, and youth councils, reflecting his desire to promote human dignity. His pursuit of an LLM in Human Rights at the University of Birmingham stems from a deep commitment to advancing legal frameworks that protect individual rights, especially in Central Asia. Sardor's journey of academic excellence, leadership, and international engagement demonstrates his potential to contribute significantly to the global human rights movement. His aspiration to work within international law reinforces the importance of well-educated advocates dedicated to shaping laws that uphold human dignity and justice worldwide. This inspiring account underscores the role of persistent effort, leadership, and international outlook in fostering positive societal change.
The American Sentence
A compelling quest to locate a history and poetics of the American sentence, this book applies four stages of communication to the story of American writing - the sermon, the telegraph, the newspaper and the screen - to ask what is an American sentence and how has it changed? While sentences have become the subject of their own form, literary histories, cultural narratives, and personal writings have not centred on the sentence as a singular object. There is no history of the sentence. This book addresses that absence, reviewing American style through American literary history for evolutionary moments in the development of the American sentence from the Puritans to the present day. Reading sentences from writers as diverse as Benjamin Franklin, Henry James, Gertrude Stein, Lydia Davis, Cormac McCarthy and Colson Whitehead, we find ourselves asking if a poetics of the American sentence actually exists, whether good sentences are the reason we read, and what the future of the American sentence might be.
Stranger Than Fiction
One of the Washington Post's 50 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A Boston Globe Best Book of 2024 "Ambitious, intelligent, and happily unpretentious." --Louis Menand, The New Yorker "Convincing, idiosyncratic and often felicitous." --Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book ReviewA legendary editor's reckoning with the twentieth-century novel and the urgent messages it sends. "How can we live differently?" a young woman urgently demands in Virginia Woolf's novel The Years. It is the 1930s, war and death are in the air, but her question was asked again and again in the course of a century where things changed fast and changed all the time. The century brought world wars, revolutions, automobiles, movies, and the internet, votes for women, death camps. The century brought questions. Novelists in the twentieth century had a question of their own: how can we write a novel as startling and unforeseen as the world we live in? Again and again they did, transforming the novel as the century remade the world. Imagine the history of the twentieth-century novel recounted with the urgency and intimacy of a novel. That's what Edwin Frank, the legendary editor who has run the New York Review Books publishing imprint since its inception, does in Stranger Than Fiction. With penetrating insight and originality, Frank introduces us to books, some famous, some little-known, from the whole course of the century and from around the world. Starting with Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground of 1864, Frank shows how its twitchy, self-undermining, and never-satisfied narrator established a voice that would echo through the coming century. He illuminates the political vision of H. G. Wells's science fiction, Colette and Andre Gide's subversions of traditional gender roles, and Gertrude Stein's untethering of the American sentence. He describes the monumental ambition of books such as Mrs. Dalloway, The Magic Mountain, and The Man Without Qualities to rebuild a world of human possibility upon the ruins of World War I and explores how Japan's Natsume Sōseki and Nigeria's Chinua Achebe broke open European models to reflect their own, distinct histories and experience. Here too are Vasily Grossman, Anna Banti, and Elsa Morante reckoning in specific ways with the traumas of World War II, while later chapters range from Marguerite Yourcenar and V. S. Naipaul to Gabriel Garc穩a M獺rquez and W. G. Sebald. The story as a whole is one of fearless, often reckless exploration, as well as unfathomable desolation. Throughout, we discover the power of the novel to reinvent itself, to find a way for itself, to live differently. Stranger Than Fiction offers a new vision of the history and art of the novel and of a dark and dazzling time in whose light and shadow we still stand.
Portrait of an Island on Fire
A deeply moving and revelatory reading experience, the essays collected in Portrait of an Island on Fire form a searing account of Mauritius at a crucial moment in its history. Unceasing in its critiques of racist, patriarchal abuses of power, in its unpicking of the ills at the core of contemporary Mauritian society and their roots, the collection is a milestone in thinking about the lasting social and political effects of colonialism and how they play out at the level of government policy, the handling of environmental issues, in schools, in hospitals, in families, in language. For all its well-placed anger, Ariel Saramandi's sparklingly intelligent and intimate debut is full of love and momentum - a push for a better future for Mauritius and, by extension, for the world.
Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures - Southeast Asian Mythology
Unveil the Mythology of Thailand, Bali, Vietnam and much more!Journey through sun-drenched temples, jungle-clad mountains, and moonlit islands with the Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures: Southeast Asian Mythology Volume. This beautifully illustrated bestiary unveils a realm where forest spirits whisper through bamboo groves, serpent kings guard rivers of fire, and ghostly maidens wander between devotion and vengeance. From the sacred plains of Cambodia to the volcano-shrouded shores of Indonesia, each page breathes with the pulse of ancient belief - a world where ancestors, demons, and gods share the same breath as the living.Discover Legendary Spirits and Divine Beasts: Meet Banaspati, the fiery guardian of the forest; Rangda, Bali's terrifying queen of witches; and Phi Am, the shadow that suffocates sleepers in the night. Encounter the seductive Pontianak, who drifts beneath moonlight seeking retribution, and the noble Phaya Naga, serpent lord of the Mekong who commands the river's tides. Wander through Thailand's haunted villages, Malaysia's misted jungles, and the Philippines' enchanted coasts, where Aswang, Bakunawa, and Tikbalang still stir the imaginations of storytellers. Rooted in the animist traditions of the region and shaped by Buddhist, Hindu, and indigenous beliefs, these tales illuminate humanity's oldest bond with nature - reverence, fear, and wonder entwined.Breathtaking Art for Every Spirit, Demon, and Guardian: Each creature is reborn through luminous illustrations - capturing the glow of temple lanterns, the shimmer of tropical rain, and the eerie calm of jungles at dusk. From the serpent coils of Ngư Tinh to the golden eyes of ?ng Ba Mươi, every portrait radiates color, movement, and emotion. The art celebrates the living mythology of Southeast Asia - where every breeze carries prayer, and every shadow may conceal a soul.Inside this book, you'll find: In-depth profiles of mythical beings such as Rangda, Banaspati, Phi Am, Pontianak, Phaya Naga, Bakunawa, Aswang, and Tikbalang - among dozens more.Cultural insights into how Southeast Asian mythology shaped temples, festivals, rites, and moral traditions across the region.Exquisite artwork that brings to life the creatures, spirits, and elemental forces that still haunt Southeast Asia's imagination.A perfect reference for artists, historians, worldbuilders, and lovers of mythology from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures - Southeast Asian Mythology
Unveil the Mythology of Thailand, Bali, Vietnam and much more!Journey through sun-drenched temples, jungle-clad mountains, and moonlit islands with the Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures: Southeast Asian Mythology Volume. This beautifully illustrated bestiary unveils a realm where forest spirits whisper through bamboo groves, serpent kings guard rivers of fire, and ghostly maidens wander between devotion and vengeance. From the sacred plains of Cambodia to the volcano-shrouded shores of Indonesia, each page breathes with the pulse of ancient belief - a world where ancestors, demons, and gods share the same breath as the living.Discover Legendary Spirits and Divine Beasts: Meet Banaspati, the fiery guardian of the forest; Rangda, Bali's terrifying queen of witches; and Phi Am, the shadow that suffocates sleepers in the night. Encounter the seductive Pontianak, who drifts beneath moonlight seeking retribution, and the noble Phaya Naga, serpent lord of the Mekong who commands the river's tides. Wander through Thailand's haunted villages, Malaysia's misted jungles, and the Philippines' enchanted coasts, where Aswang, Bakunawa, and Tikbalang still stir the imaginations of storytellers. Rooted in the animist traditions of the region and shaped by Buddhist, Hindu, and indigenous beliefs, these tales illuminate humanity's oldest bond with nature - reverence, fear, and wonder entwined.Breathtaking Art for Every Spirit, Demon, and Guardian: Each creature is reborn through luminous illustrations - capturing the glow of temple lanterns, the shimmer of tropical rain, and the eerie calm of jungles at dusk. From the serpent coils of Ngư Tinh to the golden eyes of ?ng Ba Mươi, every portrait radiates color, movement, and emotion. The art celebrates the living mythology of Southeast Asia - where every breeze carries prayer, and every shadow may conceal a soul.Inside this book, you'll find: In-depth profiles of mythical beings such as Rangda, Banaspati, Phi Am, Pontianak, Phaya Naga, Bakunawa, Aswang, and Tikbalang - among dozens more.Cultural insights into how Southeast Asian mythology shaped temples, festivals, rites, and moral traditions across the region.Exquisite artwork that brings to life the creatures, spirits, and elemental forces that still haunt Southeast Asia's imagination.A perfect reference for artists, historians, worldbuilders, and lovers of mythology from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures - Yokai & Japanese Mythology
Unveil the Mythology of Japan!Step into the lantern-lit realms of misty mountains, moonlit rivers, and haunted temples with the Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures: Yokai & Japanese Mythology Volume. This beautifully illustrated bestiary unveils a world where spirits dwell in every shadow, foxes dance between illusion and truth, and ancient gods whisper through thunder, flame, and rain. From the snow-capped peaks of Hokkaido to the sacred forests of Kyoto, each page reveals the pulse of a land where beauty and terror walk hand in hand, and where the unseen governs the seen.Discover Legendary Beings and Timeless Spirits: Meet the nine-tailed Kitsune who bends hearts and destiny, the mischievous Kappa who lurks beneath still waters, and the fearsome Oni who tests human courage. Cross paths with the mournful Yuki-onna, the seductive Jorōgumo, and the prophetic Amabie who rises from the sea to warn of plague. Wander mountain passes where the Tengu guard hidden shrines, and misted cemeteries where the Shinigami collect wandering souls. Rooted in Shinto reverence for nature, Buddhist visions of karma, and the storytelling spirit of Edo folklore, these tales illuminate Japan's eternal dialogue between purity and corruption, devotion and desire, life and the lingering afterlife.
Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures - Yokai & Japanese Mythology
Unveil the Mythology of Japan!Step into the lantern-lit realms of misty mountains, moonlit rivers, and haunted temples with the Encyclopedia of Mythical Creatures: Yokai & Japanese Mythology Volume. This beautifully illustrated bestiary unveils a world where spirits dwell in every shadow, foxes dance between illusion and truth, and ancient gods whisper through thunder, flame, and rain. From the snow-capped peaks of Hokkaido to the sacred forests of Kyoto, each page reveals the pulse of a land where beauty and terror walk hand in hand, and where the unseen governs the seen.Discover Legendary Beings and Timeless Spirits: Meet the nine-tailed Kitsune who bends hearts and destiny, the mischievous Kappa who lurks beneath still waters, and the fearsome Oni who tests human courage. Cross paths with the mournful Yuki-onna, the seductive Jorōgumo, and the prophetic Amabie who rises from the sea to warn of plague. Wander mountain passes where the Tengu guard hidden shrines, and misted cemeteries where the Shinigami collect wandering souls. Rooted in Shinto reverence for nature, Buddhist visions of karma, and the storytelling spirit of Edo folklore, these tales illuminate Japan's eternal dialogue between purity and corruption, devotion and desire, life and the lingering afterlife.
South Carolina Review:
Volume 46, no. 2 of South Carolina Review is a themed issue entitled Locating African American Literature.
As I Was Saying
An indispensable companion to Gertrude Stein's masterpiece, The Making of Americans.One of the great works of 20th-century American fiction, Stein's novel represents a peak of modernist literature: filled with repetition, overlapping and disintegrating plots, innumerable characters, and sentences stretching over pages. It is an immensely rewarding book, but also a potentially frustrating one.At last, Cecilia Konchar Farr and Janie Sisson offer a reader's guide-the first of its kind. As I Was Saying is proof that The Making of Americans is not unreadable as charged, and offers accessible entry to the experimental writing Stein valued and promoted most--the original modernist novel by the era's most influential author.
Fascist Directive
Fascist Directive reveals changes in Ezra Pound's prose writing resulting from his excitement over Mussolini's use of Italian cultural heritage to build the modern Fascist state. Drawing on archival material and periodical contributions, Catherine E. Paul delves into the work of the most notorious American in Italy in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Dust of a Contact That Is Everywhere
the dust of a contact that is everywhere moves between theoretical reflection and aesthetic practice through essays, fragments, daybook entries, and lyrical experiments. It explores attention, the temporality of lyric lines, and the ethical implications of how we read, write, and live beside others. Collage and drift function as both method and ethic; friendship becomes a form of nonhierarchical inquiry. Drawing on artists and thinkers such as Giorgio Agamben, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, and Toru Takemitsu, the book is a capacious and intimate work of reading understood as a form of radical attentiveness.
Zen in the Art of Writing
Discover the inimitable genius of Ray Bradbury as he explores the art of writing, the power of creativity, and the timeless appeal of storytelling in this collection of essays that are part masterclass, part memoir, featuring a new introduction by Dan Chaon. In Zen in the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury's love for his craft shines. With signature wisdom, wit, and verve, Bradbury delves into his prolific writing career, exploring the creation of countless stories, novels, plays, movies, and more that have stood the test of time. Written over a thirty-year period, these inspirational essays insist that there is a "deep well of explosive self-revelation" in all of us waiting to be released through the process of writing. Bradbury's essays illuminate the passion and intellect of one of the most inventive and prolific artists of the 20th century. He reveals how writers can find their own unique path to developing their voice and style. Zen celebrates the art of writing that will delight, impassion, and inspire, but most of all, it celebrates life.
Karen Blixen's Search for Self
In Karen Blixen's Search for Self, Patti M. Marxsen presents a twenty-first-century reconsideration of Blixen's iconic memoir Out of Africa, originally published in 1937 and now regarded as a classic of twentieth-century literature. The methodology of this "book about a book" draws on seasoned historical perspectives of European colonial activities in early twentieth-century Africa as it engages Blixen's letters, tales, speeches, interviews, the photographic record of her various personas, memoir literature of others who knew her, and three generations of scholarship, including pointed postcolonial critiques. Mixing scholarly research with personal reflection, Marxsen recounts an inspiring tale of a writer's evolution, along with thoughtful analysis of the art and craft of memoir. As a modern woman both trapped and liberated by privilege, Karen Christentze Dinesen Blixen experienced considerable personal and financial challenges during her years living in colonial Kenya (1914-1931), a period that Marxsen approaches as a belated coming-of-age journey rather than a romantic tale. Blixen returned to Denmark at age forty-six, bankrupt and in a state of physical and mental fragility with no idea about what she would do or how she would live in a bourgeois society that she viewed as "incarceration." Only when Blixen set out to reinvent herself with the "liberating mask" of the pseudonym Isak Dinesen did she begin to realize her potential as a storyteller and find the strength to develop her uniquely poetic narrative voice by writing about her African years. Blixen's process of loss and recovery through writing constitutes the frame of Marxsen's book, just as it constitutes the frame of Out of Africa. Marxsen traces Blixen's inner life through letters and writings to probe the origins of her imaginative power, her instinctive multiculturalism (considered "eccentric" in colonial Kenya), and the feminism of a creative woman in a new century. Marxsen continues the story through the contested legacies of the book, including its serving as the basis for the acclaimed, Academy Award-winning film released in 1985. This new study of Blixen's widely read memoir, which has remained consistently in print for almost ninety years, broadens understandings of the author's complex self-realization, the skill of her literary art, and the book's evolving afterlife.
Rubble Masonry
Rubble Masonry is a collection of lyric essays that takes its title from the practice of stone masons who, rather than using materials cut to ideal measurements, work with found rocks' natural shapes. It combines the rich images and musical language of poetry with prose's capacity to share personal narratives and information from wide-ranging sources. Diverse content and innovative form distinguish a book that explores the places in which its author, Rose McLarney, finds herself as a woman from the mountain South--in history, national dialogues, public spaces, the natural world, and lineages that extend beyond an individual's life on earth.
Speculative Insight
Collecting the essays in Speculative Insight: A Journal of Space, Magic and Footnote from January and June 2025, as well as a bonus essay by Lee Murray ONZM. Topics include an exploration of "quiet fiction", Terry Pratchett's male characters, the predominance of ethnically Chinese writers in South East Asian speculative fiction, national myth-making in The Lord of the Rings, and more. Authors include Nina Niskanen, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Ng Yi-Sheng, E.D.E bell, V.J Knipe, Abby Roberts, Emilie Morscheck, Kyle Tam, Val Nolan, Nick Hubble, and Lee Murray.
Speculative Insight
Collecting the essays in Speculative Insight: A Journal of Space, Magic and Footnote from July-December 2024, plus a bonus essay by Bogi Takacs. The essays explore aspects of science fiction and fantasy such as time travel as a way to deal with trauma, Terry Pratchett's male characters, and what makes something a cosy fantasy. Authors include Tansy Rayner Roberts, Signe Maene, Phoebe Wagner, Lee Murray, Rjurik Davidson, Amy Salley, Paula Aamli, Mary Fan, Christine Yunn-Yu Sun, Dove Cooper, and Bogi Takacs.
Speculative Insight
This book collects all of the essays published by Speculative Insight across 2024, including the two bonus essays by Lisa L Hannett and Bogi Takacs. Topics include Terry Pratchett's male characters, Murderbot's love of soap opera, what makes something a cosy fantasy, and much more.Authors include Cheryl Morgan, Joanne Anderton, Kemi Ashing-Giwa, Amy Sjoquist, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Octavia Cade, Liz Barr, Joyce Chng, Celia Lake, Andrew Dana Hudson, Nina Niskanen, Lisa L Hannett, Signe Maene, Phoebe Wagner, Lee Murray, Rjurik Davidson, Amy Salley, Paula Aamli, Mary Fan, Christine Yunn-Yu Sun, Dove Cooper, and Bogi Takacs.
Speculative Insight
Collecting the essays from the first six months of the journal Speculative Insight: A Journal of Space, Magic and Footnotes. Essays range across a wide variety of topics, including Star Trek fandom and what counts as historical fiction, why readers love Murderbot and Joan of Arc as a lady knight. The book also includes a bonus essay by Lisa L Hannett about new motherhood and the lack of mothers in space. Authors include Cheryl Morgan, Joanne Anderton, Kemi Ashing-Giwa, Amy Sjoquist, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Octavia Cade, Liz Barr, Joyce Chng, Celia Lake, Andrew Dana Hudson, Nina Niskanen, and Lisa L Hannett.
Memory
A poet's spacious exploration of time, memory, and art, in homage to Bernadette Mayer. A spiritual homage to Bernadette Mayer's monumental artwork of the same title, Dorothea Lasky's Memory is a cycle of "poet's essays" stirred by two profound questions. What constitutes personhood and consciousness? What memories get lost, and why? Expansive in her quest for answers, Lasky launches an inspired investigation of the forces that form our lives and deepest senses of ourselves. She identifies three dimensions of memory--ancestral, personal, and poetic--and in her singularly clear voice, undertakes to enter into their mysteries. From those recesses, she returns with a wide-ranging collection of essays that like lyric poems find the universal inside the particular. Memory reflects on the banal; private emotions and historical trauma; dear departed poets (Diane di Prima, Lucie Brock-Broido); her father's battle with Alzheimer's; and cultural events that have become charged sites of collective reminiscence (the moon landing, the music of Neutral Milk Hotel). Other pieces face the flip side of memory, asking what's left where memory is absent, and what's "real" beyond the horizon of death. The book closes with "Time, the Rose, and the Moon," an ars poetica published here in English for the first time, which offers the ancient symbol of the Ouroboros as a figure for the nonlinear processes of time, memory, and art. Like Mayer before her, Lasky reveals memory to be huge and haunting, as she accumulates impressions that challenge the very possibility of fixed meaning. "Every rose has the scent of death," she writes. "And poetry is a perfume. That will stay on your body forever.... Whatever happens this time around, remember that."
Fire Ants
That's your first lesson in East Texas-where words stretch like summer days and stories run deeper than the Red River itself. In Fire Ants, O'Banion delivers a witty, unvarnished portrait of growing up in that forgotten corner of the map where Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana blur together-Texarkana, the town that can't quite decide which state it belongs to, or if it even wants to.Born from the ashes of an offhand remark about "a man from nowhere," these essays took root and refused to die-like the stubborn "far aints" of their title. What began as a detour from a stalled novel became a vibrant, darkly funny, and deeply human collection about small-town oddities, family legacies, fried turkeys gone wrong, four-wheeler flips dubbed "903ers," and the peculiar beauty of a place that exists halfway between myth and memory.These aren't stories of oil barons or tumbleweeds. They're stories of dirt bikes, church picnics, and the subtle heartbreak of realizing your hometown will never make Garden & Gun. From chicken magnates to high school beauty queens, from ER nurses to backyard philosophers, the voices in Fire Ants hum with regional humor, contradiction, and tenderness.
A Man Without a Country
The last of the canonical Kurt Vonnegut books, A Man Without a Country spent eight weeks on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list, selling over a quarter-million copies This 20th anniversary edition features a new introduction by Lewis Black. "For all those who have lived with Vonnegut in their imaginations . . . this is what he is like in person."-USA Today "The America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."-Kurt Vonnegut, from A Man Without a Country The closest Kurt Vonnegut ever came to writing his autobiography, A Man Without a Country is part memoir, part social and political commentary, and part riveting personal conversation with an old friend. An undeniably moving and unique return of the literary grandmaster to form. A Man Without a Country features Vonnegut's coming of age, his war experiences, his life as an artist, and the hilariously funny and razor-sharp way of understanding things that helped him get through it all. Some Vonnegut jewels in A Man without a Country "If I die--God forbid--I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, 'Hey, what was the good news and what was the bad news?""To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.""I asked former Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton what he thought of our great victory over Iraq and he said, 'Mohammed Ali versus Mr. Rogers.'"And finally, on the subject of the condition of the soul of America today: "What has happened to us?"Plentifully illustrated with the author's signature woodcut aphorisms, which appear in the book in blue, A Man Without a Country is possibly Vonnegut's most intimate book, and certainly one of his best.
City of Toys
A genre-defying debut that distills memoir, cultural criticism, and poetic inquiry into a kaleidoscopic meditation on motherhood, memory, art, and transformation. Composed in a postpartum blur and finessed as Lesley Jenike settled into established motherhood, the essays in City of Toys careen from exteriority to interiority, from high to low culture, and from the manufactured to the natural world, all on a quest to understand creativity, mothering, and how art drives and shapes us. With madcap acuity, Jenike casts her eye on cultural flash points from Harambe the gorilla to Steven Spielberg and Ada Lovelace to Yayoi Kusama. At times she doubles back to her own experience as a young performer, and at others hurtles into her children's possible futures, when AI starts to dream, imagination is commodified, and the polar bear drowns. All the while she wonders what we owe our children and what we believe (rightly or wrongly) our children owe us. Fascinated by creativity and peopled by dolls, automatons, robots, ghosts, puppets, and historical figures, this exuberant and devastating debut asks, What world are we building, and what are we tearing down?
Joke Farming
The winner of four Emmys, a Peabody, and two Writers Guild Awards (all of which badly need dusting) explains his process for writing comedy without going insane. Philosophers may debate the meaning of comedy (thankfully keeping them too busy to fall into a life of crime), but the rest of us are more likely to wonder how we can make an audience laugh--or at least, how to entertain our friends and followers. According to award-winning comedy writer Elliott Kalan, we need to stop staring out the window, waiting for hilarious bits to stroll into view, fully formed. What we need is a process to plant their premises, tend to their structure and wording, and ultimately harvest them as funny material. In short, a farm. But for jokes. In Joke Farming, Kalan explains that it's easier to write jokes when you have a dependable method for doing so. All jokes, he argues, are built from the same elements: structure, premise, voice, tone, wording, and audience--and these elements can be applied to any comedic genre, from stand-up to sitcoms to satire. Kalan analyzes examples from his own career--including jokes that he wrote (and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote . . . ) as head writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart--as well as material from a diverse array of comedians, writers, and filmmakers, highlighting the phrasing, rhythm, and precise details that make their work so dang funny. Drawing on his experiences in professional writers' rooms as well as episodes from everyday life, Kalan's guide to jokes will appeal to aspiring writers, their mentors, comedy fans, and anyone who has to speak at a wedding. Joke Farming points the way toward a writing process that lessens stress and agony and yields more reliable rewards: a surprising tagline, a hilarious word choice, and--most importantly--a bigger laugh from the audience, whoever they may be.
Origin Myths of the Stars
How did a Scorpion become a constellation? Who lifted the Archer into the sky? Which timeless tales gave birth to the twelve zodiac signs-and when did we forget we ever knew their origins?In ancient times, mythos was neither true nor false but a living story, rich with symbolic wisdom waiting to be remembered.In Origin  Myths  of  the  Stars, each chapter unfolds a tale older than memory-retold through a Jungian, archetypal lens that illuminates the unconscious patterns shaping our lives. Simple, lyrical, and accessible, these narratives transform Cancer's tender devotion, Capricorn's surrender to fate, and every sign in between into guiding mirrors and medicine. Here, you'll rediscover the hidden truths written in starlight and carry their lessons into your own journey of self-discovery.
Origin Myths of the Stars
How did a Scorpion become a constellation? Who lifted the Archer into the sky? Which timeless tales gave birth to the twelve zodiac signs-and when did we forget we ever knew their origins?In ancient times, mythos was neither true nor false but a living story, rich with symbolic wisdom waiting to be remembered.In Origin  Myths  of  the  Stars, each chapter unfolds a tale older than memory-retold through a Jungian, archetypal lens that illuminates the unconscious patterns shaping our lives. Simple, lyrical, and accessible, these narratives transform Cancer's tender devotion, Capricorn's surrender to fate, and every sign in between into guiding mirrors and medicine. Here, you'll rediscover the hidden truths written in starlight and carry their lessons into your own journey of self-discovery.
Encounters with Jane Austen
"The range of the contributors leaves the reader with a sense of how important Austen is to writers in particular, who see in her not simply an antecedent or role model but as an old friend who, with constancy and wit, is always there during those transitional moments in life--the very moments that Austen herself wrote about with such precision. A loving tribute to a legendary author whose work continues to resonate in the current day." -- Kirkus ReviewsAs we mark the 250th birthday of one of literature's most beloved authors, this highly original collection celebrates the enduring influence of Jane Austen's works. With an insightful introduction by academic and author Professor Jennie Batchelor, 30 + contributors--including acclaimed writers, scholars, and artists--share how Austen's timeless storytelling has shaped their own journeys. A heartfelt tribute to the writer whose wit, wisdom and charm continue to captivate audiences across generations. Featuring contributions from classic and contemporary authors including April de Angelis, Mary Hamer, Natalie Jenner, Martin Jennings, Charlie Lovett, Katherine Reay, Talulah Riley, Julia Quinn, Edna St Vincent Millay, Sara Teasdale, Janet Todd, Zita Holbourne and more.
A World of Possibilities
Published in 1992, Teodolinda Barolini's The Undivine Comedy: Detheologizing Dante was a clarion call for a paradigmatic shift in reading Dante's Commedia. Bringing together an international cadre of scholars, A World of Possibilities: The Legacy of 'The Undivine Comedy' illustrates the generative influence that Barolini's approach has exerted across continents, disciplines, and generations. It testifies to the variety of interpretations that originate in her method, and opens new perspectives on Dante's oeuvre and the significance of literature.
Inventions on the Brink
Inventions on the Brink, a collection of literary journalism by J. T. Barbarese, offers engagingly plainspoken and informed essays on American poetry from Edgar Allan Poe to the present, written by a poet with long experience in the classroom. The collection discusses writers as divergent as Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound, Hart Crane and A. R. Ammons, Gerald Stern and John Prine. It includes a separate section of essays examining the craft of translation with attention to specific works translated from ancient Greek, Italian, and modern French. A distinguishing feature of the book is that it is informed by literary theory but independent of any particular critical modality. Barbarese writes about literature for a general audience, particularly readers with wide tastes interested in engaging with literary art. His essays are the outcome of deeply reading and internalizing work he has known, studied, and admired over the course of a long career of publishing, teaching, and public lecturing.
A World of Possibilities
Published in 1992, Teodolinda Barolini's The Undivine Comedy: Detheologizing Dante was a clarion call for a paradigmatic shift in reading Dante's Commedia. Bringing together an international cadre of scholars, A World of Possibilities: The Legacy of 'The Undivine Comedy' illustrates the generative influence that Barolini's approach has exerted across continents, disciplines, and generations. It testifies to the variety of interpretations that originate in her method, and opens new perspectives on Dante's oeuvre and the significance of literature.
The Inside World
Poet, playwright, and critic, Wystan Hugh Auden was an essential figure in the development of literature throughout the 20th century. With great relevance to the modern struggles of humanity, this collection aspires to represent the power of Auden to move contemporary audiences.Philosopher-poet William C. Graham began to write poetry under Auden's influence as a graduate student. Adopting him as a poetic mentor, Graham had numerous opportunities to form a close bond with Auden as they became friends and colleagues through visits to Canada and Austria. This book brings together a collection of poetry, essays, and reflections by Graham that shed light on Auden's life, work, and impact. Politics, society, culture, and philosophy were consistent undercurrents throughout Auden's work, and he actively worked towards understanding the human condition. Graham follows in Auden's footsteps by examining the alchemy of poetry in The Inside World and its ability to foster change and growth.Investigating the deep-rooted intersections between poetry and philosophy, a connection held dear to both Auden and Graham, this meaningful tribute to the legendary poet seeks to remind us that the spirit of Auden's poetry lives on.
A Treasury of Essential Quotes on Form in Literature and in the Fine Arts
These passages from works written over the past two millennia by more than sixty authors from Aristotle to Auden afford hundreds of illuminating and often startling insights into the nature and primacy of artistic form and of its power to provide extraordinary aesthetic delight. They reject subordination of works of art to non-aesthetic purposes, arguing instead that in itself, exquisite composition is the primary element and source of the value of all great works of art. Moreover, they show that this emphasis on formal design is not merely a minority view or an exclusively modern sentiment: rather, these passages demonstrate that for more than 2,000 years, aesthetic form has served - and in our day ideally still should serve - as our primary concern in the reception and valuation of artistic works.
N繳menor, the Mighty and Frail
These proceedings contain papers from the Tolkien Society Hybrid Seminar 2023. It is the first ever event and edited collection to focus purely on N繳menor, the N繳men籀reans, and their legacies within and outside of Arda as a nexus of critical study. Through comparative, literary and philosophical, ecocritical, historical and religious readings, the volume examines the ways that N繳menor and its people shaped and were shaped by Tolkien's writing and the world of Arda. By seeking to develop conversation centred on N繳menor, the volume looks forward and hopes to foster and inspire future scholarship on the island, its citizens, and their legacies.
A Treasury of Essential Quotes on Form in Literature and in the Fine Arts
These passages from works written over the past two millennia by more than sixty authors from Aristotle to Auden afford hundreds of illuminating and often startling insights into the nature and primacy of artistic form and of its power to provide extraordinary aesthetic delight. They reject subordination of works of art to non-aesthetic purposes, arguing instead that in itself, exquisite composition is the primary element and source of the value of all great works of art. Moreover, they show that this emphasis on formal design is not merely a minority view or an exclusively modern sentiment: rather, these passages demonstrate that for more than 2,000 years, aesthetic form has served - and in our day ideally still should serve - as our primary concern in the reception and valuation of artistic works.
Miss Grief
What does it cost to be heard?In Constance Fenimore Woolson's quietly devastating story Miss Grief (1877), a celebrated young writer in Rome meets a persistent stranger-an older woman who begs him to read her play. What begins as polite dismissal turns into uneasy admiration as he discovers that the "madwoman" at his door may be the truer artist of the two. Through the smallest gestures of kindness and cruelty, Woolson exposes the gulf between recognition and worth, and the timeless struggle of women whose voices were never meant to carry beyond the parlor walls.This Performance Edition, adapted by Querida Funck, invites that voice forward again. Blending Woolson's original prose with new contextual essays and stagecraft guidance, it transforms a nineteenth-century narrative into a living work for twenty-first-century readers, actors, and educators. Commentary and performance notes illuminate how silence, irony, and restraint can become tools of truth in both literature and spoken storytelling.Designed for classrooms, book clubs, salons, and small-stage performance, Miss Grief (Performance Edition) provides everything needed to interpret Woolson's text aloud-from pacing and tone to discussion prompts and a bonus monologue adaptation from Castle Nowhere. Each section encourages performers to inhabit the story's emotional architecture: the blindness of privilege, the dignity of perseverance, and the fragile armor of belief in one's art.Part of the True Voice Shorts - Whispers of Forgotten Women series from Lemery House Press, this edition continues the mission to revive timeless works with care, clarity, and purpose-for contemporary reflection, performance, and the enduring act of listening.
Considering The Female Man by Joanna Russ, or, As the Bear Swore
Joanna Russ's writing career was relatively short, running from 1968 to 1987, with a number of essay collections published in the years after that. Her fiction career consists of just six novels and four collections, but each of the novels she published challenged engrained conventions of the genre. This exploration of The Female Man offers a close reading of the text, focussing on how the book works, its structures, arguments, humour, and brilliant anger.
Pushing the Wave 2023
In Pushing the Wave 2023, L.A. Davenport returns with a captivating new collection of essays, stories, reflections, and recipes, continuing the journey begun in his first volume covering 2017-2022. With his trademark blend of insight, humour, and lyrical prose, Davenport explores the shifting landscape of modern life-charting the personal, political, cultural, and culinary with clarity and compassion.Whether recounting ferry journeys across European seas, reflecting on the nature of addiction and sobriety, critiquing the seductive illusion of progress, or sharing favourite dishes from his kitchen, Davenport's writing offers a rare combination of intellect and intimacy. These entries span the profound and the playful, the global and the domestic, all underpinned by a keen sense of the beauty and absurdity in everyday life.Perfect for readers of reflective non-fiction, literary memoir, and contemporary commentary, Pushing the Wave 2023 is a richly textured mosaic of a year lived thoughtfully-and a timely invitation to slow down, look around, and truly engage.For fans of: Rebecca Solnit, Karl Ove Knausg疇rd, Teju Cole, Deborah Levy, and those who cherish personal writing that speaks to the world at large.
Just the Plague
Rudolf Maier, a young microbiologist working on a plague vaccine, is summoned to Moscow to deliver a progress report to his superiors.Inadvertently, he carries the virus with him from the lab. When his illness is discovered, the state machinery turns with terrifying efficiency, rounding up dozens of people. But for many, the distinction between this enforced, life-sparing isolation and the constant churn of political surveillance and arrests is barely detectable, and personal tragedy is not completely averted. Based on real events in the Stalinist Russia of the 1930s, this gripping novel, written in the late 1980s and rediscovered by the author during lockdown - and never before translated into English - surfaces uncomfortable truths about the current Russian regime and the pandemic crisis.Includes a new afterword by the author.
Gold on the Horizon
Gold on the Horizon is an enthralling companion for readers revisiting C. S. Lewis's classic Narnia tales Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. With fascinating detail and bewitching diversion, it maps these two novels' myriad literary influences and cultural allusions to enhance our understanding of their deeper meanings and themes.
Selected Letters of John Updike
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE - The arc of literary giant John Updike's life emerges in these luminous daily letters to family, friends, editors, and lovers--a remarkable outpouring over six decades, from his earliest consciousness as a writer to his final days. As James Schiff writes in the introduction to this volume, of the writer who would eventually "express himself in written form as copiously and as elegantly as any American writer" before him, "Updike needed to write the way the rest of us need to breathe or eat." With his stunning rhetorical gifts--enabling him to thrive in both short fiction and the novel, criticism as well as poetry--Updike was also a consummate letter writer. When barely a teenager, he began submitting poems and cartoons to national magazines and soliciting famous cartoonists, with flattering requests, for a drawing. His letter writing only increased when he left the family farm in Pennsylvania for Harvard, where he composed more than 150 witty, substantive letters to his parents. The summer after he graduated, The New Yorker began accepting his work, and his exchanges with editors, publishers, and writers would stretch into a correspondence that, Schiff notes, "figures not as an adjunct to but rather an integral part of his astonishing literary output." The intimacy and lucidity of these letters brings to the fore all manner of subjects and situations, notably the ardent feelings for his first love and wife, Mary, and later the heartbreaking but honestly accounted breakup of their marriage; the uncensored passion for other women, including his Ipswich neighbor, Martha, who became his second wife; the concern for his children's path to adulthood; and the conversations with many literary peers, from Joyce Carol Oates to Philip Roth, as well as his Knopf and New Yorker editors, critics, translators, and others in the lit business. Filled with comic observations, opinions, and personal news, told in the fluid first-person voice of the writer himself, these missives, taken together, create a page-turning "life in letters" like no other.
The World in Books
A bestselling historian takes readers on an intellectual and cultural adventure, offering a carefully curated guide to great, short nonfiction works by some of the world's most influential writers--from Plato to Toni Morrison, Ernest Hemingway to bell hooks, and Marcus Aurelius to Joan Didion. A delightful roadmap to a year's worth of reading briefly, plus biographies, fascinating facts, and idea-rich insights into the lives of the thinkers, historians, and literary giants who have shaped our world. For both avid readers and those looking to spark a new habit, The World in Books is an invitation to a more lively and meaningful intellectual life. Davis's literary adventure guides readers through some of the most important works of nonfiction of all time, offering a political, literary, and cultural history through reading. Each of the fifty-two entries provides the book's opening lines or a brief excerpt from the work; a summary of the work; a biography of the author; why you should read the work; and what to read next. Davis offers insights into some of the most enduring issues of our time--from the existential perspective in Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, to questions of race in Toni Morrison's The Origin of Others, and the climate crisis in Elizabeth Kolbert's Under a White Sky. With insights from ancient times to the present day, Kenneth C. Davis offers a wide-ranging historical education through pleasure reading. In an accessible, conversational style, he explores texts that both mirror our contemporary moment and present new ways to think about our lives. These 52 selections, with books perfect for reading one week at a time, offer a year-long journey through history, philosophy, nature, and personal growth. More than just a literary companion, The World in Books is an education that combines wisdom with practical application. Davis's work has been called "a wealth of succinct, entertaining advice" (Kirkus Reviews). The World in Books provides an engaging way to explore some of the most influential books ever written. A refresher course for lifelong learners.
World of Tolkien Seven-Book Boxed Set
This striking collection of seven books with specially designed spines and illustrated page edges encompasses the myriad lands and inhabitants of Middle-earth. The fantasy world of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth contains a rich assortment of people, cities, powers, and creatures--as well as a deep, intertwined history that spans thousands of years. In these specially designed volumes, best-selling author and Tolkien scholar David Day presents four decades of research and writing on the lands and inhabitants of Middle-earth. A must-have guide to the Tolkien world, this collection includes seven individual books that provide an A-to-Z dictionary of the vernacular; an atlas describing the various terra firma; an exploration of the Rings of Power; and histories of the battles, dark powers, heroes, and Hobbits that started it all. More than 200 black-and-white and full-color illustrations make the pages a joy to behold as you learn all you'll need to know about Tolkien's fantasy realm. A full-color montage on the page edges adds a beautiful touch to this boxed set that will resonate with every Tolkien fan. This set includes the following titles: An Atlas of Tolkien The Battles of Tolkien The Dark Powers of Tolkien A Dictionary of Tolkien The Heroes of Tolkien The Hobbits of Tolkien The Ring Legends of Tolkien This work is unofficial and is not authorized by the Tolkien Estate or HarperCollins Publishers.
Jane Austen in 50 Words
What does Jane Austen mean when she writes approvingly of a character's 'gentility' and 'delicacy', or critically of another's 'indolence' and 'impertinence'? What are her characters doing when they take the measure of a person's 'air' and 'address'? These questions and more are answered in this Janeite treasure trove, which examines the distinctive language woven through Austen's signature stories. Much of the language used in Austen's time has either fallen out of common use or changed valence in significant and surprising ways. Maria Frawley takes 50 of those words - words that are integral to the fabric of Austen's fiction - and explores them in short, accessible and lively entries. With juicy morsels for lifelong Austen lovers as well as new students of the great writer, Frawley offers new perspectives on Austen's world, giving readers the tools to better understand her novels individually and as a whole.
Horror of Philosophy
Eugene Thacker's three cult-classic volumes of supernatural horror come together in this new Zer0 Books omnibus, revised with updated material, offering an essential resource for thinking about the unthinkable world. Zer0 Books presents a new, omnibus edition of a cult classic: all three volumes of Eugene Thacker's Horror of Philosophy trilogy, revised and expanded by the author. Across the three volumes of the series Thacker adopts a unique approach, reading works of horror as if they were philosophy, and works of philosophy as if they were horror, leading to far-reaching questions: Could it be that the more we know about the world, the less we understand it? Could it be that, while everything has been explained, nothing has meaning? At the center of Thacker's project is the idea of the 'world without us, ' an increasingly unthinkable world of planetary disasters, emerging pandemics, and the looming threat of extinction. To confront this idea is to confront the limit of our ability to understand the world in which we live - not a philosophy of horror, but a horror of philosophy.
Cursory Observations On The Poems Attributed To Thomas Rowley (1782)
A provocative mystery of authorship that reshaped English literary history rediscover Edmond Malone s landmark 1782 critique of the poems attributed to Thomas Rowley. Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley delivers a forensic, passionate investigation into the Rowley controversy and the poetry authenticity debate that exploded in the late 18th century. Malone s meticulous Edmond Malone analysis dismantles the celebrity around the Chatterton poems examination, parsing language, meter, and historical anachronism to argue that the celebrated Rowley verses are modern forgeries. Part literary detective story, part historical poetry analysis, this work illuminates Thomas Chatterton works, 18th century poetry critique, and the fraught line between genius and deception. This edition from Alpha Editions has been out of print for decades and is now republished, restored, and carefully edited for today s and future generations. More than a reprint, it s a collector s item and a cultural treasure essential for students of English literary history, bibliophiles, and curious readers drawn to literary forgery investigation. Read Malone s lucid 1782 literary critique and historical literary analysis to understand how one essay helped define standards of authenticity in literary scholarship. Perfect for casual readers intrigued by literary sleuthing and classic literature collectors building a definitive library, this restored volume reconnects you with the controversy that still echoes through studies of poetry authenticity and the legacy of Thomas Rowley and Thomas Chatterton.
The Historical Novel
Rediscover the power of storytelling that shapes our past and our understanding of it. In The Historical Novel: An Essay, Herbert Butterfield offers a clear, provocative exploration of the delicate dance between history and imagination. This seminal Herbert Butterfield essay probes how novelists reconstruct the past, balancing factual fidelity with moral and narrative truth. Butterfield maps the strengths and pitfalls of historical fiction, from the grand reconstructions of Walter Scott to the intimate moral insight of later novelists, delivering sharp historical novel analysis and literary criticism on historical novels that still resonates today. Celebrated for its lucid arguments about the history and fiction relationship, this essay examines why historical narrative exploration matters: how storytelling frames national memory, ethical judgment, and scholarly understanding. Readers gain historical fiction insights into genre conventions, the responsibilities of writers who recreate lives long gone, and critical frameworks for exploring historical narratives. Out of print for decades, this work is now lovingly restored and republished by Alpha Editions. This edition has been carefully prepared for today s and future generations not merely a reprint but a collector s item and cultural treasure. Essential for casual readers curious about understanding historical novels and for classic literature collectors seeking foundational historical literature critique, Butterfield s study remains a must-read for anyone investigating the historical novel genre study and the enduring relationship between history and fiction.
The Great Masters Of Russian Literature In The Nineteenth Century
A long-forgotten treasure of Russian letters returns: meet the great masters whose voices shaped 19th century Russian soul and story. Ernest Dupuy s The Great Masters of Russian Literature in the Nineteenth Century is a vivid, readable guide to the towering figures Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Turgenev and the novels, stories, and essays that redefined modern fiction. Combining biographical insight with lively Russian literary analysis, Dupuy traces how these Russian novelists of the 1800s wrestled with faith, society, and the self, shaping Russian literary history and the world stage. Readers will find clear summaries, critical perspective, and engaging author biographies that illuminate the lives behind the masterpieces. This edition out of print for decades is newly restored and republished by Alpha Editions. Meticulously refreshed for today s and future generations, it s more than a reprint: a collector s item and cultural treasure for anyone passionate about classic Russian literature. Whether you re a casual reader curious about classic Russian literature, a student of literature studies Russia, or a collector of Ernest Dupuy book editions and Russian literary criticism, this volume bridges scholarship and storytelling with warmth and authority. Perfect for shelves, classrooms, and bedside reading, this book invites you to rediscover the minds that made Russian literature unforgettable. Keywords: Russian literature masters, 19th century Russian authors, Russian literary history.
The Harvard Classics, (Volume 49) Epic And Saga; With Introductions And Notes
A thunderous reminder of storytelling s first voices rediscover the epic sweep and rugged intimacy of humanity s oldest tales. The Harvard Classics: Epic and Saga (Volume 49) gathers foundational epics and northern sagas with illuminating introductions and notes by Charles William Eliot, offering readers an immersive journey through heroic adventures, moral dilemmas, and cultural memory. This comprehensive literary collection presents close readings and scholarly literary analysis alongside accessible translations, making complex texts approachable for casual readers while satisfying classic literature collectors and academic audiences. Historically significant and rich in critical insight, this volume situates each poem and saga within its cultural moment and traces the evolution of epic conventions. The book s literary criticism and notes clarify themes, motifs, and language, turning daunting manuscripts into living narratives. Whether you seek epic literature analysis for study or the compelling drama of saga literature insights for pleasure, this anthology bridges scholarship and storytelling. Long out of print and now lovingly restored by Alpha Editions, this edition is more than a reprint it s a collector s item and a cultural treasure preserved for today s and future generations. Meticulously restored from Gutenberg Project classics and other sources, the volume honors the original academic book series while updating presentation for modern readers. Essential for anyone building a classic literature collection, it s the definitive historical literature anthology on epic and saga introductions.
