This is a book about books, about the pleasures, passions & rewards of reading, about authors who are dedicated to the act of writing and readers who are devoted to the joys of words in the right order. Funny, moving, and beautiful, it features an eclectic selection from some of the world's finest writers, as well as sixteen full-color paintings by artist and editor Bascove. Book jacket.
The New York Times bestseller with more than 1 million copies sold worldwide | Soon to be a Hulu limited series starring Joey King and Logan Lerman Inspired by the incredible true story of one Jewish family separated at the start of World War II, determined to survive—and to reunite—We Were the Lucky Ones is a tribute to the triumph of hope and love against all odds. “Love in the face of global adversity? It couldn't be more timely.” —Glamour It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety. As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an unwavering will to survive and by the fear that they may never see one another again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere. An extraordinary, propulsive novel, We Were the Lucky Ones demonstrates how in the face of the twentieth century’s darkest moment, the human spirit can endure and even thrive.
This superb collection of new and older work shows James Seay’s sure progress from the reflection of first influences to the strongly individual voice of his later pieces. As always, Seay evokes a profound sense of history and place—the landscape, colors, scents, and musical vocal cadences of his native South and the world at large. Poems like “Where Books Fall Open” reflect a community of souls striving toward what Whittier called “sweetness near”; Seay generously establishes the kinship between such longings, whether rooted in nostalgia or the resonance of the unnameable. The masterly “Said There Was Somebody Talking to Him Through the Air Conditioner” explores the dialectic of storytelling itself, its claim to whatever demands to be “freed from fact.” In this poem the urgency of Seay’s long, knotty lines limn with chilling precision the exact shape and dimension of the rift between the physical act and the story it tells. Yet, though the compulsion to “tell stories, when the truth won’t work” may be our downfall, Seay shows us that stories are also prisms refracting each seemingly simple moment into infinite complexity. The stories in these beautifully wrought poems offer us swift glimpses of grace—when the fragmentary individual memory flares, is transformed, and becomes the story we have all been waiting for, the one that “frees the body from the fact of itself.” Comic, sad, reflective, exuberant—Open Field, Understory glows with the worn, unselfconscious beauty of broken-in leather. This is a marvelous book by an important modern poet.
An NPR Best Book of 2022 One of The Millions' Most Anticipated Books of 2022 A CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of 2022 Selection "Ingenious.…a superb literary suspense novel that calls to mind an earlier such debut, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History." —Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post A contemporary reimagining of the Daphne and Apollo myth, The Latinist is a page-turning exploration of power, ambition, and the intertwining of love and obsession. Tessa Templeton has thrived at Oxford University under the tutelage and praise of esteemed classics professor Christopher Eccles. And now, his support is the one thing she can rely on: her job search has yielded nothing, and her devotion to her work has just cost her her boyfriend, Ben. Yet shortly before her thesis defense, Tessa learns that Chris has sabotaged her career—and realizes their relationship is not at all what she believed. Driven by what he mistakes as love for Tessa, Chris has ensured that no other institution will offer her a position, keeping her at Oxford with him. His tactics grow more invasive as he determines to prove he has her best interests at heart. Meanwhile, Tessa scrambles to undo the damage—and in the process makes a startling discovery about an obscure second-century Latin poet that could launch her into academic stardom, finally freeing her from Chris’s influence. A contemporary reimagining of the Daphne and Apollo myth, The Latinist is a page-turning exploration of power, ambition, and the intertwining of love and obsession.
Introduce children to summertime warmth with this captivating mini-book! Here comes the sun . . . and summer! Put on your sunglasses and enjoy the heat at the beach, where you can dig up the sand with your shovel and pail and see starfish in the sea. And don't forget the seasonal treats like watermelon and ice cream--yum! Each colorful and evocative page features an object, sensation, or experience associated with summer.
Compiled by the award-winning poet and author of children's books, Donald Hall, this delightful anthology follows in the tradition of Iona and Peter Opie's classic Oxford Book of Children's Verse. Hall brings together poems written specifically for children and also those written for anyone and enjoyed by children and adults alike. He presents over two hundred fifty poems written by over one hundred different American poets--including anonymous works, ballads, and recitation pieces--that range from the Calvinist verses of the seventeenth century to the fabulous nonsense poems of the present. Drawing on literally thousands of sources--including Sunday School magazines, Christmas annuals for children, and such wonderful children's periodicals as St. Nicholas and Youth's Companion--Hall gives the modern reader a rich sampling of many poems never before anthologized. He includes everyone's favorites, from Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (a.k.a. "The Night Before Christmas") to the classic lines of Longfellow and Whittier. Along with Sarah Josepha Hale's famous poem, "Mary's Lamb," we find poetry by Emily Dickinson, Mary Mapes Dodge, Palmer Cox, Sarah Orne Jewett, Laura E. Richards, and Gelett Burgess. He also covers the twentieth-century with verse by T.S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Langston Hughes, Ogden Nash, Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel), and Randall Jarrell, just to name a few. Hall concludes with the poetry of present-day writers such as Shel Silverstein and Nancy Willard. A testament to a captivating tradition in American literature, this anthology will encourage many hours of nostalgic browsing and reading aloud to children.
James Seay's essays reflect a poet's eye for detail and a seeker's wrestling with life's big questions and experiences: what it means to be a parent, losing a child, confronting mental illness, observing and living through the collision of cultures, finding the universal in the particularity of every day. We share moments with Seay that stay with us, dipping in and out of his life and our own collective experience, as he reflects on childhood memories of his grandmother wringing chicken necks for Sunday dinner, reads his way through Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha, processes 9/11, watches The Sopranos, and ponders the American obsession with guns. These essays transport readers—from the South to the Southwest, from the former Soviet Union to France, and beyond—while exploring disparate topics, often using literature as a means of understanding culture and place. Seay offers few easy answers for the big questions he explores. But walking with him on his journeys will open eyes to the possibilities, tenderness, and mysteries that surround us, hidden among everyday things.
Seventy-five years following the internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry, an elderly Nisei hires Ava Rome to find out how his best friend, a Japanese-American Buddhist priest, died in the Tule Lake Internment Camp. In the course of her investigation she uncovers another cold case, the rape and murder of a Japanese-American teenager on the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack. Was the same person responsible for both crimes? Ava suspects so. She travels to the Tule Lake site in Northern California where an attack on her life proves that the cold cases are deadly hot. Other people close to the case are murdered on orders from a powerful individual, whose reach stretches from Hawaii to halfway across the continental United States, and who will kill to keep the past secret. Returning to Honolulu, Ava experiences a devastating act of betrayal before solving the murders and revealing a seven decades-long history of evil. Praise for SPLINTERED LOYALTY: “What happened decades ago that WH Global will kill to cover up? Former Army MP Ava Rome is determined to find out. A non-stop thriller with a strong back story of people caught up in the World War II internment of Americans of Japanese descent in Hawaii.” —Terry Shames, Macavity Award-winning author of the Samuel Craddock mysteries “Splintered Loyalty is an exhilarating plunge into a dark past. Mark Troy’s heroine, Ava Rome, is tough, talented and tenacious and riveting to watch! Bravo!” —Matt Coyle, author of the Shamus, Anthony and Lefty Award-winning Rick Cahill crime series “Long one of my favorite short-story writers, Mark Troy proves himself equally deft as a novelist. Splintered Loyalty, the latest in the Ava Rome private eye series, finds Rome digging deep into the past to investigate the death of a Buddhist priest during WWII. The tension slowly builds as Rome uncovers long-hidden secrets that lead to an explosive conclusion. I highly recommend Splintered Loyalty.” —Michael Bracken, Anthony-, Edgar-, and Shamus-Award nominee “Ava Rome is a great protagonist—hard-boiled and humane—who tackles historical injustice with style in this multifaceted thriller. A gripping and satisfying read.” —Tom Mead, author of Death and the Conjuror “Mark Troy’s Splintered Loyalty is one part Cold Case Files mixed with two parts Magnum, PI. Ava Rome is sexy, tough and enjoys a good vodka (or three.) If I’m ever in trouble in Honolulu, she’s my first phone call.” —Tim O’Mara, author of the Raymond Donne series “Ultra-tough protector of the weak, Ava Rome works out of the island of Oahu where during World War II, a Japanese priest died in an incarceration camp. Ava promises to look into how the man died 77 years before. She doesn’t know what to expect, but it isn’t exactly what she finds, nor is it what she anticipates being of such current importance. Author Mark Troy surprises his readers and makes a true heroine of his smart and powerful protagonist.” —G. Miki Hayden, teaching Writing the Thriller and Writing the Mystery at Writer’s Digest University online
