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World-Building and the Early Modern Imagination
by Allison B. KaveyThe early modern period was rife with attempts to re-imagine the world and the human place within it. This volume looks at natural philosophers, playwrights, historians, and other figures in the period 1500-1700 as a means of accessing the plethora of world models that circulated in Europe during this era.
The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker
by Alice WalkerThe National Book Award– and Pulitzer Prize–winning author&’s fascinating and far-reaching conversations with acclaimed writers and thought leaders. Spanning more than three decades, this collection of fascinating discussions between Alice Walker and renowned writers, leaders, and teachers, explores the changes that Walker has experienced in the world, as well as the change she herself has brought to it. Compelling literary and cultural figures such as Gloria Steinem, Pema Chödrön, and Howard Zinn represent a different stage in Walker&’s artistic and spiritual development. Yet, they also offer an unprecedented look at her career and political growth. Noted literary scholar Rudolph Byrd sets Walker&’s work into context with an introductory essay, as well as with a comprehensive annotated bibliography of her writings. &“Read as separate pieces, these conversations offer vivid glimpses of Walker&’s energetic personality. Taken together, they offer a sense of her marvelous engagement with her world.&” —Kirkus Reviews
The World Is Bigger Now: An American Journalist's Rescue from Captivity in North Korea ... A Remarkable Story of Faith, Family, and Forgiveness
by Lisa Dickey Euna LeeFor the first time, Euna Lee--the young wife, mother, and film editor detained in North Korea--tells a harrowing, but ultimately inspiring, story of survival and faith in one of the most isolated parts of the world. On March 17, 2009, Lee and her Current TV colleague Laura Ling were working on a documentary about the desperate lives of North Koreans fleeing their homeland for a chance at freedom when they were violently apprehended by North Korean soldiers. For nearly five months they remained detained while friends and family in the United States were given little information about their status or conditions. For Lee, detention would prove especially harrowing. Imprisoned just 112 miles from where she was born and where her parents still live in Seoul, South Korea, she was branded as a betrayer of her Korean blood by her North Korean captors. After representing herself in her trial before North Korea's highest court, she received a sentence of twelve years of hard labor in the country's notorious prison camps, leading her to fear she might not ever see her husband and daughter again.The World Is Bigger Now draws us deep into Euna Lee's life before and after this experience: what led to her arrival in North Korea, her efforts to survive the agonizing months of detainment, and how she and her fellow captive, Ling, were finally released thanks to the efforts of many individuals, including Bill Clinton. Lee explains in unforgettable detail what it was like to lose, and then miraculously regain, life as she knew it.The World Is Bigger Now is the story of faith and love and Euna Lee's personalconviction that God will sustain and protect us, even in our darkest hours.From the Hardcover edition.
Write Your Memoir
by Allan HunterDrawing from more than 25 years of literary know-how and modeled after a 15-week college course, this manual provides guidance for seekers wishing to delve further into self-exploration through writing. Extending beyond the idea that memoir writing intends to put past events into a more understandable current perspective, the guide maintains that keeping a document of one's life is actually the basis of a psychic process called "soul work," which manifests as a desire to experience the state of being alive to the fullest. This unusual approach to memoir writing aims to generate more honest and genuine results that come from inner needs rather than outer expectations. Intended to clarify a writer's developmental path, this resource emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and the need for dealing with difficult material that actually alters the writer in the process, resulting in significant growth of the soul.
Writers and Their Notebooks
by Diana M. RaabPersonal reflections on the vital role of the notebook in creative writing, from Dorianne Laux, Sue Grafton, John Dufresne, Kyoko Mori, and more.This collection of essays by established professional writers explores how their notebooks serve as their studios and workshops—places to collect, to play, and to make new discoveries with language, passions, and curiosities. For these diverse writers, the journal also serves as an ideal forum to develop their writing voice, whether crafting fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Some include sample journal entries that have since developed into published pieces. Through their individual approaches to keeping a notebook, the contributors offer valuable advice, personal recollections, and a hearty endorsement of the value of using notebooks to document, develop, and nurture a writer’s creative spark.
Writers on the Spectrum
by Julie BrownFrom Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale characters to Lewis Carroll's Wonderland and Emily Dickinson's poetic imagery, the writings and lives of some of the world's most celebrated authors indicate signs of autism and Asperger's Syndrome. Through analysis of biographies, autobiographies, letters and diaries, Professor Julie Brown identifies literary talents who display characteristics of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and uncovers the similarities in their writing that suggest atypical, autistic brains. Providing close readings of authors' works, Brown explores writing processes, content, theme, structure and writing style to reveal the underlying autistic traits that have influenced their writing. The book provides an overview of ASD and common threads in autistic writing followed by an illuminating exploration of how these threads are evident in the literature of both well-known and lesser known authors. This groundbreaking study of autism in literature will be of interest to anyone with a professional or personal interest in literature or the autistic mind.
Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Election That Brought on the Civil War
by Douglas R. EgertonAn analysis of the events that led up to the 1860 Presidential election and the machinations that culminated in the Civil War.
Year of Our Lord: Faith, Hope, and Harmony in the Mississippi Delta
by T. R. Pearson Langdon ClayLucas McCarty lives in the Mississippi Delta. He is the only white congregant in the African-American Trinity House of Prayer Holiness church. Lucas is bereft of the ability to speak due to cerebral palsy, yet he sings there in the church choir. Thus is the subject of Year of Our Lord, a portrait of courage, acceptance and grace, rendered in the lyrical prose of T.R. Pearson and the haunting photographs of Langdon Clay. Year of Our Lord is a visual journey, exploring one of the poorest parts of the American South, a place that economic progress has left behind. And it is a spiritual journey, a revelation of a community that has replaced the hope for earthly prosperity with an abundance of faith in God and the life beyond. The Delta is a culture that can look upon Lucas and say, God don't make mistakes. It is a place that in the face of abject poverty can proclaim, life offers too much joy! Year of Our Lord, then, is an opportunity to see into another's world, and to embrace the best of it.
Yehuda Halevi
by Hillel HalkinA masterful biography of Yehuda Halevi, poet laureate of the Jewish people and a shining example of the synthesis of religion and culture that defined the golden age of Spanish Jewry.
Yo
by Ricky MartinYo, es una autobiografía íntima que narra el viaje espiritual y liberador de una de las estrellas de pop más icónicas de nuestros tiempos. "Escribir este libro me permitió explorar los diferentes caminos y experiencias que me han llevado a ser quien soy hoy. He tenido que atar cabos sueltos que nunca antes había intentado unir y trabajar profundamente en las memorias que ya había borrado de mi mente. Hacer esto no fue fácil, pero una vez empecé, me di cuenta del increíble proceso de cicatrización que había comenzado". Ricky Martin "En el proceso de revelar al ser humano detrás del artista, Ricky Martin nos ofrece un testimonio ejemplar de honestidad y grandeza del alma. Mientras leía me acordé de un verso del poeta persa Hafez, Ni siquiera siete mil años de alegría pueden justificar siete días de represión". Paulo Coelho "Ricky Martin ha escrito un libro de memorias extraordinario, la historia de un alma torturada que se sanó regresando a un estado de inocencia y autenticidad. Su historia te tocará porque en cierta forma es la historia de la humanidad: la historia de lo sagrado y lo profano, de lujuria prohibida y amor incondicional. Hay que ser valiente para ser tan genuinamente honesto y transparente pero sólo este tipo de valentía y de amor pueden sanar el mundo. ¡Bravo!" Deepak Chopra, M. D.
Yo no vengo a decir un discurso
by Gabriel García Márquez¿Qué hago yo encaramado en esta percha de honor, yo que siempre he considerado los discursos como el más terrorífico de los compromisos humanos? Gabriel García Márquez Los textos que Gabriel García Márquez ha reunido en este libro fueron escritos por el autor con la intención de ser leídos por él mismo en público, ante una audiencia, y recorren prácticamente toda su vida, desde el primero, que escribe a los diecisiete años para despedir a sus compañeros del curso superior en Zipaquirá, hasta el que lee ante las Academias de la Lengua y los reyes de España al cumplir ochenta años. Estos discursos del premio Nobel nos ayudan a comprender más profundamente su vida y nos desvelan sus obsesiones fundamentales como escritor y ciudadano: su fervorosa vocación por la literatura, la pasión por el periodismo, su inquietud ante el desastre ecológico que se avecina, su propuesta de simplificar la gramática, los problemas de su tierra colombiana o el recuerdo emocionado de amigos escritores como Julio Cortázar o Álvaro Mutis, entre otros muchos. El lector tiene entra sus manos el complemento indispensable a una obra narrativa que nos seguirá hablando en un largo porvenir. **** What am I doing here on this perch of honor, when I have always considered speeches the most terrifying of human obligations? The speeches that Gabriel García Márquez has gathered in this collection were written by the author with the intention of being read by him before an audience, and span the course of nearly his entire life; from the first, a farewell written at seventeen to his fellow students at Zipaquirá, to his appearance before the Spanish-language Academies and the kings of Spain on his eightieth birthday. Combined, these speeches provide a more profound understanding of the life of this Nobel Prize winner, revealing his fundamental creative and civil obsessions: his intense aptitude for literature and writing; his passion for journalism; his concerns over looming environmental dangers; his proposal for the simplification of grammar; the problems facing his beloved Colombian homeland; and the loving memory of fellow writers like Julio Cortázar and Álvaro Mutis, among many others. In Yo no vengo a decir un discurso (I did not come to give a speech), the reader holds in his/her hands the essential complement to a body of work that will continue speaking to us for a long time to come.
You Can't Always Get What You Want: My Life with the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead and Other Wonderful Reprobates
by Sam CutlerA &“straight-dope, tell-all account&” of touring with two of the world&’s greatest bands of the 60s and 70s—A &“fast-moving narrative of rock-n-roll excess&” (Publishers Weekly). In this all-access memoir of the psychedelic era, Sam Cutler recounts his life as tour manager for the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead—whom he calls the yin and yang of bands. After working with the Rolling Stones at their historic Hyde Park concert in 1969, Sam managed their American tour later that year, when he famously dubbed them &“The Greatest Rock Band in the World.&” And he was caught in the middle as their triumph took a tragic turn during a free concert at the Altamont Speedway in California, where a man in the crowd was killed by the Hell&’s Angels. After that, Sam took up with the fun-loving Grateful Dead, managing their tours and finances, and taking part in their endless hijinks on the road. With intimate portraits of other stars of the time—including Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Band, the Allman Brothers, Pink Floyd, and Eric Clapton—this memoir is a treasure trove of insights and anecdotes that bring some of rock&’s greatest legends to life.
You Couldn't Make It Up
by Jeremy KyleThe follow up to the top five Sunday Times bestseller I'm Only Being Honest reveals Jeremy Kyle's lighter side as he opens up on topics such as celebrity, middle age, parenting and Gordon Brown.Love him or loathe him, you can't ignore Jeremy Kyle...Is he the most opinionated man on television or the only man who has the balls to say what we're all thinking? He pulls no punches on stage but when the studio lights are turned down and the cameras stop rolling, what is it really like being Jeremy Kyle, one of the nation's most controversial celebrities? Moreover, how would he cope if the focus of his famed straight-talking was... himself?In You Couldn't Make It Up Jeremy tells us exactly what life is like inside the 'crazy celebrity circus', complete with the rollercoaster ride of his accidental TV career and all the highs and lows of his personal life. Read how he really feels about his fellow celebrities; how he's coping with the minefield that is middle age and being a modern dad; uncover what Jeremy thinks about the true state of the nation and what he'd really like to do to our politicians!Funny, self-deprecating and bursting with his trademark honesty, You Couldn't Make It Up shows us the Jeremy Kyle 'not seen on TV', and it's as entertaining and outspoken as the man who is.
You Couldn't Make It Up
by Jeremy KyleThe follow up to the top five Sunday Times bestseller I'm Only Being Honest reveals Jeremy Kyle's lighter side as he opens up on topics such as celebrity, middle age, parenting and Gordon Brown.Love him or loathe him, you can't ignore Jeremy Kyle...Is he the most opinionated man on television or the only man who has the balls to say what we're all thinking? He pulls no punches on stage but when the studio lights are turned down and the cameras stop rolling, what is it really like being Jeremy Kyle, one of the nation's most controversial celebrities? Moreover, how would he cope if the focus of his famed straight-talking was... himself?In You Couldn't Make It Up Jeremy tells us exactly what life is like inside the 'crazy celebrity circus', complete with the rollercoaster ride of his accidental TV career and all the highs and lows of his personal life. Read how he really feels about his fellow celebrities; how he's coping with the minefield that is middle age and being a modern dad; uncover what Jeremy thinks about the true state of the nation and what he'd really like to do to our politicians!Funny, self-deprecating and bursting with his trademark honesty, You Couldn't Make It Up shows us the Jeremy Kyle 'not seen on TV', and it's as entertaining and outspoken as the man who is.
You Don't Know Me
by Mary Jane Ross Ray Charles RobinsonA deeply personal memoir of the private Ray Charles - the man behind the legend - by his eldest son.Ray Charles is an American music legend. A multiple Grammy Award-winning composer, pianist, and singer with an inimitable vocal style and a catalog of hits including "What I Say," "Georgia on My Mind," "Unchain My Heart," "I Can't Stop Loving You," and "America the Beautiful," Ray Charles's music is loved by fans around the world.Now his eldest son, Ray Charles Robinson Jr., shares an intimate glimpse of the man behind the music, with never-before-told stories. Going beyond the fame, the concerts, and the tours, Ray Jr. opens the doors of his family home and reveals their private lives with fondness and frankness.He shares his father's grief and guilt over his little brother's death at the age of five -- as well of moments of personal joy, like watching his father run his hands over the Christmas presents under their tree while singing softly to himself. He tells of how Ray overcame the challenges of being blind, even driving cars, riding a Vespa, and flying his own plane. And, in gripping detail, he reveals how as a six-year-old boy he saved his father's life one harrowing night.Ray Jr. writes honestly about the painful facts of the addiction that nearly destroyed his father's life. His father's struggles with heroin addiction, his arrests, and how he ultimately kicked the drug cold turkey are presented in unflinching detail. Ray Jr. also shares openly about how, as an adult, he fell victim to the same temptations that plagued his father.He paints a compassionate portrait of his mother, Della, whose amazing voice as a gospel singer first attracted Ray Charles. Though her husband's drug use, his womanizing, and the paternity suits leveled against him constantly threatened the stability of the Robinson home, Della exhibited incredible resilience and inner strength.Told with deep love and fearless candor, You Don't Know Me is the powerful and poignant story of the Ray Charles the public never saw -- the father and husband and fascinating human being who also happened to be one of the greatest musicians of all time.From the Hardcover edition.
You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know
by Heather SellersAn unusual and uncommonly moving family memoir, with a twist that give new meaning to hindsight, insight, and forgiveness. Heather Sellers is face-blind-that is, she has prosopagnosia, a rare neurological condition that prevents her from reliably recognizing people's faces. Growing up, unaware of the reason for her perpetual confusion and anxiety, she took what cues she could from speech, hairstyle, and gait. But she sometimes kissed a stranger, thinking he was her boyfriend, or failed to recognize even her own father and mother. She feared she must be crazy. Yet it was her mother who nailed windows shut and covered them with blankets, made her daughter walk on her knees to spare the carpeting, had her practice secret words to use in the likely event of abduction. Her father went on weeklong "fishing trips" (aka benders), took in drifters, wore panty hose and bras under his regular clothes. Heather clung to a barely coherent story of a "normal" childhood in order to survive the one she had. That fairy tale unraveled two decades later when Heather took the man she would marry home to meet her parents and began to discover the truth about her family and about herself. As she came at last to trust her own perceptions, she learned the gift of perspective: that embracing the past as it is allows us to let it go. And she illuminated a deeper truth-that even in the most flawed circumstances, love may be seen and felt. Watch a Video .
You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness
by Julie KlamThe secrets of love, health, and happiness gleaned from a life lived with dogs. <P> Julie Klam was thirty, single, and working as a part-time clerk in an insurance company, unable to meet a man she could spend her life with. And then it happened: she had a dream about a Boston terrier- a dream that practically hit her over the head. The companion she needed was not necessarily the one she'd had in mind.<P> As fate would have it, a dog is exactly the thing that she needed. The New York Times bestselling You Had Me at Woof is the often-hilarious and always charming story of one woman's discovery of all she really needed to learn about life through her relationships with her canine companions. Klam shares how her love for dogs and the lessons she's learned caring for them has shaped her heart. This is a funny, earnest, and emotionally compelling look at the surprises, pleasures, and revelations that happen when you let any mutt, beagle, terrier, or bulldog go charging through your world.
You Have Given Me a Country: A Memoir
by Neela Vaswani2010 ForeWord Book of the Year, Essay"Vaswani is a confident writer whose unflinching eye shows the reader the beauty grounded in the mundane."San Francisco Chronicle"Vaswani's voice is witty, sharp, innovative, unique."Chitra BanerjeeYou Have Given Me a Country is an emotionally powerful exploration of blurred borders, identity, and what it means to be multicultural. Combining memoir, history, and fiction, the book follows the paths of the author's Irish-Catholic mother and Sindhi-Indian father on their journey toward each other and the biracial child they create. Neela Vaswani's second full-length work thematically echoes such books as The Color of Water, Running in the Family, or Motiba's Tatoos, but it is entirely unique in approach, voice, and story. The book reveals the self as a culmination of all that went before it, a brilliant new weave of two varied, yet ultimately universal backgrounds that spans continents, generations, languages, wars, and, at the center of it all, family.Neela Vaswani is the author of the short story collection Where the Long Grass Bends (Sarabande Books, 2004). Recipient of a 2006 O. Henry Prize, her fiction and nonfiction have been widely anthologized and published in journals such as Epoch, Shenandoah, and Prairie Schooner. She lives in New York City.
You, Me & The US Economy
by Stacy CarlsonThis groundbreaking title is an insider's account of the 2008 financial crisis written specifically for Main Street. Stacy Carlson, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's speechwriter, takes you inside the Treasury Department and explains the events and issues in a wry, personal narrative. You want to understand what brought us to the brink of collapse? After reading You, Me & the U.S. Economy, you will. With clarity and humor, Stacy explains the multiple causes of our financial, housing and economic troubles and the multiple attempts to solve them. She isn't a financial wizard and writes so other non-wizards can understand, too. Wrapped within is her story of faith and persistence in a new, mid-life career and as a silent witness to tremendous turmoil, You, Me & the U.S. Economy tells Main Street what really happened and why. Finally.
You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up: A Love Story
by Annabelle Gurwitch Jeff KahnIn this hilarious and ultimately moving memoir, comedians and real-life married couple Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn prove that in marriage, all you need is love-and a healthy dose of complaining, codependence, and pinot noir. After thirteen years of being married, Annabelle and Jeff have found "We're just not that into us. " Instead of giving up, they've held their relationship together by ignoring conventional wisdom and fostering a lack of intimacy, by using parenting as a competitive sport, and by dropping out of couples therapy. The he-said/she-said chronicle of their intense but loving marriage includes an unsentimental account of the medical odyssey that their family embarked upon after their infant son was diagnosed with VACTERL, a very rare series of birth defects. Annabelle and Jeff's unforgivingly raw, uproariously funny story is sure to strike both laughter and terror in the hearts of all couples (not to mention every single man or woman who is contemplating the connubial state). Serving up equal parts sincerity and cynicism, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up is a laugh-out-loud must-read for everyone who has come to realize that being "in love" can only get you so far. On Cohabitation He says: "Within days of Annabelle's arrival, I became very aware that she demanded solitude and had the housekeeping habits of a feral animal. " She says: "The guy had some sort of nudity radar. When I would take my clothes off for even a second, Jeff would be in front of me cheering as if he'd scored box seats at Fenway Park. " On Sex He says: "I want to have sex every day, but Annabelle only wants to do it once a week. So we compromise: we have sex once a week. " She says: "Jeff says talking about money before you have sex is a turnoff, but it's only a turnoff if you're talking about not having money. Talking about money before you have sex when you have money is actually a turn-on. " On Pregnancy He says: "For God's sake, all I wanted to do was have sex without a condom for a little while; now we were moments from bringing a new life into the world!" She says: "My ass was expanding so fast it was like a Starbucks franchise. On every corner of my ass there was a new branch of ass opening up. "
You'll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again: One Woman's Painfully Funny Quest to Give It Up
by Heather McDonaldNew York Times bestselling author, comedian, and Chelsea Lately writer Heather McDonald’s hilarious true story of finding herself in the predicament of being an unwilling virgin at the age of twenty-seven.Can’t a girl dress like a hooker, dance like a stripper, and kiss like a porn star and still be a nineteen-year-old virgin?You’ll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again is the laugh-out-loud story of an attractive Los Angeles woman who found herself in the predicament of being an unwilling virgin. As an actress, writer, and stand-up comedienne, Heather McDonald passed up ample opportunities to have her V-card revoked by handsome, rich, and sometimes even fabulously famous men, but she could not bring herself to do “it” until well after her friends had been deflowered.As Chelsea Handler so lovingly puts it, “Thank God Heather waited twenty-seven years to lose her virginity or she wouldn’t have any material for this book.” Whether in a backseat, a community pool, or a sports stadium, with a frat boy, a doctor, or an A-list celebrity, Heather McDonald knew how to turn those boys blue. Unlike “putting out,” blue balling might not have paid her rent or landed her free trips to Hawaii, but it did provide her with hilarious stories and adventures in her search for true love—and, ultimately, her very own happy ending. Now, Heather McDonald will never blue ball in this town again.
Young Mandela: The Revolutionary Years
by David James SmithNelson Mandela is well-known throughout the world as a heroic leader who symbolizes freedom and moral authority. He is fixed in the public mind as the world's elder statesman--the gray-haired man with a kindly smile who spent 27 years in prison before becoming the first black president in South Africa. But Nelson Mandela was not always elderly or benign. And, in YOUNG MANDELA, award-winning journalist and author David James Smith takes us deep into the heart of racist South Africa to paint a portrait of the Mandela that many have forgotten: the committed revolutionary who left his family behind to live on the run, adopting false names and disguises and organizing the first strikes to overthrow the apartheid state. YOUNG MANDELA lifts the curtain on an icon's first steps to greatness.
Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine—A Biography
by John T. SpikeTruly in a class of its own, Young Michelangelo is the most definitive and eye-opening study of the artist’s early life to come along in a generation. In this compelling account, renowned art historian John Spike paints a vivid portrait of one of the world’s greatest artists and the places and people—Lorenzo de’ Medici, Leonardo, Machiavelli—that inspired and defined his early life and career. Spike’s masterful text probes the thinking, evolution, and desires of a young man whose awareness of his exceptional talent never wavered. Michelangelo’s complex personality is revealed through lively examinations of the Pietà, the David, and all other major works. Drawing on a rich background of Italian Renaissance politics and culture, Spike deftly navigates the fiery Florentine master’s struggle to surpass da Vinci’s artistic mastery, and his troubled relationships with Julius II and other key figures of the era.
Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron, and Other Tangled Lives
by Daisy HayYoung Romantics tells the story of the interlinked lives of the young English Romantic poets from an entirely fresh perspective—celebrating their extreme youth and outsize yearning for friendship as well as their individuality and political radicalism. The book focuses on the network of writers and readers who gathered around Percy Bysshe Shelley and the campaigning journalist Leigh Hunt. They included Lord Byron, John Keats, and Mary Shelley, as well as a host of fascinating lesser-known figures: Mary Shelley's stepsister and Byron's mistress, Claire Clairmont; Hunt's botanist sister-in-law, Elizabeth Kent; the musician Vincent Novello; the painters Benjamin Haydon and Joseph Severn; and writers such as Charles and Mary Lamb, Thomas Love Peacock, and William Hazlitt. They were characterized by talent, idealism, and youthful ardor, and these qualities shaped and informed their politically oppositional stances—as did their chaotic family arrangements, which often left the young women, despite their talents, facing the consequences of the men's philosophies.In Young Romantics, Daisy Hay follows the group's exploits, from its inception in Hunt's prison cell in 1813 to its disintegration after Shelley's premature death in 1822. It is an enthralling tale of love, betrayal, sacrifice, and friendship, all of which were played out against a background of political turbulence and intense literary creativity.