| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
books tagged “essays”
books tagged “essays”
›› Find signed collectible books by ''
English
-
9-11by Noam ChomskyISBN 1583224890 (1-58322-489-0)
Softcover, Seven Stories Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: '9-11'Book summary:It is always instructive to read American's premier dissident thinker if only simply to get an alternative take on what constitutes our present day "common sense"--an urgent project he undertakes in 9-11. Chomsky, whose recent hugely prolific political output has made him something of an icon of the American left, began his career as a ground-breaking theoretical linguist. And it is his attention to detail and language which continue to make him such a useful guide through the murky world of power politics and particularly to US Foreign Policy in the Middle East. In grappling with 9-11, a date which has become a noun whose very definition has been consciously moulded by the media and the American establishment, Chomsky is taking on one of the biggest challenges of our time. But this is a very slight book in which to do this. A collection of interviews conducted in the month following the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center Chomsky is here keen to stress the urgency of a response to 9-11 that is not simply reactionary warfaring. It behoves us to discover why 9-11 really happened. In the words of the title of another very useful book: Why Do People Hate America?. In such a small, and sometimes rather repetitive, volume Chomsky can only really encourage us to ask better questions and to seek more carefully and widely for better answers. But if questions are beginning to form then readers could do worse than look to this useful and provocative book. --Mark Thwaite [via]
More editions of 9-11:
-
Acts of Aggression: Policing Rogue Statesby Noam Chomsky, Edward W. SaidISBN 1583225463 (1-58322-546-3)
Softcover, Seven Stories Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Acts of Aggression: Policing Rogue States'Book summary:What constitutes the behavior that gets a nation labeled a "rogue state"? If, Noam Chomsky suggests, we consider a state to be acting in an "outlaw" fashion when it refuses to heed the articles and resolutions of the United Nations, then the United States is as much a "rogue state" as Saddam Hussein's Iraq--if not more. Chomsky presents a brief outline of America's attempts--once the cold war was over--to reconstruct Iraq as an enemy after years of turning a blind eye to Saddam's activities and even supplying him with aid. He also considers how the broader "war" on terrorism fits into this post-cold-war strategy. Noted commentator on Middle Eastern affairs Edward Said supplements Chomsky's argument with a consideration of the severity of U.S. sanctions against Iraq and what he views as a growing disregard for the interests of other Arab nations in the region. And Ramsey Clark offers a brief coda on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Chomsky himself delivers a more elaborate consideration of this theme in another book in the Open Media series, The Umbrella of U.S. Power. --Ron Hogan [via]
More editions of Acts of Aggression: Policing Rogue States:
-
Adventures of Huck Finnby Mark TwainISBN 1580495834 (1-58049-583-4)
Softcover, Prestwick House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Adventures of Huck Finn'Book summary:A seminal work of American Literature that still commands deep praise and still elicits controversy, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is essential to the understanding of the American soul. The recent discovery of the first half of Twain's manuscript, long thought lost, made front-page news. And this unprecedented edition, which contains for the first time omitted episodes and other variations present in the first half of the handwritten manuscript, as well as facsimile reproductions of thirty manuscript pages, is indispensable to a full understanding of the novel. The changes, deletions, and additions made in the first half of the manuscript indicate that Mark Twain frequently checked his impulse to write an even darker, more confrontational book than the one he finally published. [via]
More editions of Adventures of Huck Finn:
-
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnby Mark TwainISBN 1583483403 (1-58348-340-3)
Softcover, Iuniverse Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'Book summary:A seminal work of American Literature that still commands deep praise and still elicits controversy, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is essential to the understanding of the American soul. The recent discovery of the first half of Twain's manuscript, long thought lost, made front-page news. And this unprecedented edition, which contains for the first time omitted episodes and other variations present in the first half of the handwritten manuscript, as well as facsimile reproductions of thirty manuscript pages, is indispensable to a full understanding of the novel. The changes, deletions, and additions made in the first half of the manuscript indicate that Mark Twain frequently checked his impulse to write an even darker, more confrontational book than the one he finally published. [via]
More editions of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 159308000X (1-59308-000-X)
Softcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 159308157X (1-59308-157-X)
Hardcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 1598184911 (1-59818-491-1)
Hardcover, Alan Rodgers Books - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 1583483403 (1-58348-340-3)
Softcover, Iuniverse Inc
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: ISBN 159308000X (1-59308-000-X)
The Afterlifeby Penelope Fitzgerald, Christopher Carduff, Terence Dooley, Mandy Kirkby, Hermione LeeISBN 1582433208 (1-58243-320-8)
Softcover, Counterpoint
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Afterlife'Book summary:From one of the best-loved contemporary novelists, previously uncollected essays on books, writers, places, and the author's own life and works . In this generous, posthumous collection of her literary essays, Penelope Fitzgerald explores what John Milton called the "life beyond life" of writers -their afterlife in the hearts and minds of readers and in the imaginations of their critics and biographers. Here are Fitzgerald's brilliant introductions to Jane Austen's Emma and George Eliot's Middlemarch . Here are a marvelously quick-witted literary journalist's reviews of her fellow fiction writers (Brookner, Ishiguro, Amy Tan) and fellow biographers (Holroyd, Karl, Holmes). Here, especially, are extended explorations of "minor" writers -the authors of modest, overlooked, but fully achieved imaginative works-the celebration of which reveals so much about Penelope Fitzgerald's own literary sensibility: the lyric poet Charlotte Mew, the ghost-story writer M. R. James, and the cartoonists and humorists of Punch. Rounded out by travel pieces, autobiography, and essays on the craft of fiction, The Afterlife is one of the most engaging books about books since Virginia Woolf's The Common Reader . [via]
-
All New Peopleby Anne LamottISBN 1582430543 (1-58243-054-3)
Softcover, Counterpoint
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'All New People'Book summary:"In a novel of great generosity and hilarity, Lamott explores the whole barrage of changes and dislocations that shook the Sixties, following in the wake of one small girl, Nanny Goodman of Marin County, California. [via]
More editions of All New People:
-
Are You Really Going to Eat That?: Reflections of a Culinary Thrill Seekerby Robb WalshISBN 1582432783 (1-58243-278-3)
Hardcover, Counterpoint
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Are You Really Going to Eat That?: Reflections of a Culinary Thrill Seeker'Book summary:From Thailand to Nova Scotia, from Mexico to the American South, two-time James Beard Award-winner Robb Walsh takes a wild and witty journey in the world of adventurous eating. Robb Walsh has traveled the globe with his backpack and palate, taking stock of the world's culinary phenomena, and offering up a few of his own. In this collection of essays and recipes, he recounts his last few years of seeking out savory adventures. But whether dining in the Deep South or amongst "those Cranky Europeans," Walsh finds that understanding the people and culture behind the dishes is often more challenging than simply digesting the food. And as cities across America become increasingly multicultural, one need not even leave town to unearth the most unusual international cuisine. Seasoned by Walsh's open mind and sly wisdom, Are You Really Going to Eat That? is an ode to the definitive power of food--to heal, communicate, and above all, make us swoon. [via]
More editions of Are You Really Going to Eat That?: Reflections of a Culinary Thrill Seeker:
-
Argument & Song: Sources & Silences in Poetryby Stanley PlumlyISBN 1590510763 (1-59051-076-3)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Argument & Song: Sources & Silences in Poetry'Book summary:Stanley Plumly is one of his generation's important poets. He was born in Barnesville, Ohio, in 1939, and grew up in the lumber and farming regions of Virginia and Ohio. Writing in The Atlantic, Peter Davison said of his work, "Plumly's rich, dense poems give off a special fragrance, the incense of the English Romantic movement mingling with forest odors from the Old Northwest Territory between the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Great Lakes."
This volume collects fifteen of Plumly's essays on poetry and art, including the seminal "Chapter and Verse," "Sentimental Forms," and "The Abrupt Edge." Meditating on poems by Keats, Stevens, James Wright, Plath, and Matthews, on Emily Brontes prose, and paintings by Whistler, Plumly returns again and again to essential matters: the impulses, occasions, and places out of which art arises and the forms by which imagination gives it shape.
About Stanley Plumly's poetry:
"Reading Stanley Plumly is like having someone whisper unceasingly in your ear, humming of light, trees, sleep, snow."
- The New York Times Book Review
"Plumly&'s landscapes, for all their underpinnings in concrete detail, seem at times like sets in a Fellini movie: softly falling snow, birds, suicides, and blossoming red roses, with flashes of insight that burn the retinas and leave an afterimage even more surreal."
- Kirkus Reviews
"The voice of [his] poems reveals a plaintiveness without sentimentality, weaving poignant stories that transcend mere narrative."
- The Boston Review [via]More editions of Argument & Song: Sources & Silences in Poetry:
-
As Seen on TV: Provocationsby Lucy GrealyISBN 1582341532 (1-58234-153-2)
Softcover, Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'As Seen on TV: Provocations'Book summary:From the author of the unforgettable Autobiography of A Face comes a collection of wonderfully unexpected essays on life, love, sex, God and politics.[via]
Whether she is contemplating promiscuity or The New Testament, lamenting about what she should have said to Oprah, or learning to tango, Grealy seduces and surprises the reader at every turn. With the sheer brilliance of her imagination, Grealy leads us on delightful journeys with her wit, unflinching honesty and peerless intelligence. As Seen On TV breaks the mould of the essay, and is destined, like the memoir that preceded it, to become a modern classic.More editions of As Seen on TV: Provocations:
At Work in Life's Garden: Writers on the Spiritual Adventure of Parentingby Sarah Conover, Tracy SpringberryISBN 159766006X (1-59766-006-X)
Softcover, Eastern Washington Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'At Work in Life's Garden: Writers on the Spiritual Adventure of Parenting'More editions of At Work in Life's Garden: Writers on the Spiritual Adventure of Parenting:
Best American Magazine Writing 2001by Harold EvansISBN 158648088X (1-58648-088-X)
Softcover, Public Affairs
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Best American Magazine Writing 2001'More editions of Best American Magazine Writing 2001:
The Best Buddhist Writing 2005by Melvin McLeodISBN 1590302753 (1-59030-275-3)
Softcover, Shambhala Publications, Incorporated
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Best Buddhist Writing 2005'More editions of The Best Buddhist Writing 2005:
Black Rednecks And White Liberalsby Thomas SowellISBN 1594031436 (1-59403-143-6)
Softcover, Encounter Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Black Rednecks And White Liberals'Book summary:This book presents the kind of eye-opening insights into the history and culture of race for which Sowell has become famous. As late as the 1940s and 1950s, he argues, poor Southern rednecks were regarded by Northern employers and law enforcement officials as lazy, lawless, and sexually immoral. This pattern was repeated by blacks with whom they shared a subculture in the South. Over the last half century poor whites and most blacks have moved up in class and affluence, but the ghetto remains filled with black rednecks. Their attempt to escape, Sowell shows, is hampered by their white liberal friends who turn dysfunctional black redneck culture into a sacrosanct symbol of racial identity. In addition to Black Rednecks and White Liberals, the book takes on subjects ranging from Are Jews Generic? to The Real History of Slavery.[via]More editions of Black Rednecks And White Liberals:
The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter to Themby Roxanne Coady, Joy JohannessenISBN 1592402100 (1-59240-210-0)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter to Them'More editions of The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books That Matter to Them:
-
A Brief History of Everythingby Ken WilberISBN 1590304500 (1-59030-450-0)
Softcover, Shambhala Pubns
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Brief History of Everything'Book summary:This account of men and women's place in a universe of sex and gender, self and society, spirit and soul is written in question-and-answer format, making it both readable and accessible. Wilber offers a series of original views on many topics of current controversy, including the gender wars, multiculturalism, modern liberation movements, and the conflict between various approaches to spirituality. [via]
More editions of A Brief History of Everything:
A Child's Delightby Noel PerrinISBN 1584653523 (1-58465-352-3)
Softcover, Univ Pr of New England
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Child's Delight'More editions of A Child's Delight:
-
Citizen Designer : Perspectives on Design Responsibilityby Steven Heller, Veronique VienneISBN 1581152655 (1-58115-265-5)
Softcover, Allworth Press
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Citizen Designer : Perspectives on Design Responsibility'Book summary:What does it mean to be a designer in todays corporate-driven, overbranded global consumer culture? Citizen Designer attempts to answer this question with more than 70 debate-stirring essays and interviews espousing viewpoints ranging from the cultural and the political to the professional and the social.
Edited by two prominent advocates of socially responsible design, this innovative reference responds to the tough questions todays designers continue to ask themselves: How can a designer affect social or political change? Can design become more than just a service to clients? At what point does a designer have to take responsibility for the clients actions? When should a designer take a stand?
Readers will find dozens of captivating insights and opinions on such important issues as reality branding; game design and school violence; advertising and exploitation; design as an environmental driving force; and much more. This candid guide encourages designers to carefully research their clients; become alert about corporate, political, and social developments; and design responsible products.
" Features an enticing mix of opinions in an appealing format that juxtaposes essays, interviews, and countless illustrations of design citizenship
" Includes insights on such contemporary topics as advertising of harmful products, branding to minors, and violence and game design [via]More editions of Citizen Designer : Perspectives on Design Responsibility:
Cooking and Stealing: The Tin House Nonfiction Readerby Charles D'Ambrosio, Tin House StaffISBN 1582344868 (1-58234-486-8)
Softcover, Bloomsbury Publishing
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Cooking and Stealing: The Tin House Nonfiction Reader'More editions of Cooking and Stealing: The Tin House Nonfiction Reader:
Death of a Hornet: And Other Cape Cod Essaysby Robert FinchISBN 1582431388 (1-58243-138-8)
Softcover, Counterpoint
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Death of a Hornet: And Other Cape Cod Essays'More editions of Death of a Hornet: And Other Cape Cod Essays:
Discourses of President Gordon B. Hinckleyby Gordon Bitner HinckleyISBN 1590384318 (1-59038-431-8)
Hardcover, Deseret Book Co
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Discourses of President Gordon B. Hinckley'More editions of Discourses of President Gordon B. Hinckley:
Dreams: Easyread Large Editionby Olive SchreinerISBN 1589632737 (1-58963-273-7)
Softcover, Fredonia Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Dreams: Easyread Large Edition'More editions of Dreams: Easyread Large Edition:
The Ends Of The Earth: Essaysby W.S. MerwinISBN 159376068X (1-59376-068-X)
Softcover, Shoemaker & Hoard
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ends Of The Earth: Essays'More editions of The Ends Of The Earth: Essays:
-
Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarterby Steven JohnsonISBN 1594481946 (1-59448-194-6)
Softcover, Riverhead Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter'Book summary:In his fourth book, Everything Bad Is Good for You, iconoclastic science writer Steven Johnson (who used himself as a test subject for the latest neurological technology in his last book, Mind Wide Open) takes on one of the most widely held preconceptions of the postmodern world--the belief that video games, television shows, and other forms of popular entertainment are detrimental to Americans' cognitive and moral development. Everything Good builds a case to the contrary that is engaging, thorough, and ultimately convincing.
The heart of Johnson's argument is something called the Sleeper Curve--a universe of popular entertainment that trends, intellectually speaking, ever upward, so that today's pop-culture consumer has to do more "cognitive work"--making snap decisions and coming up with long-term strategies in role-playing video games, for example, or mastering new virtual environments on the Internet-- than ever before. Johnson makes a compelling case that even today's least nutritional TV junk foodthe Joe Millionaires and Survivors so commonly derided as evidence of America's cultural decline--is more complex and stimulating, in terms of plot complexity and the amount of external information viewers need to understand them, than the Love Boats and I Love Lucys that preceded it. When it comes to television, even (perhaps especially) crappy television, Johnson argues, "the content is less interesting than the cognitive work the show elicits from your mind."
Johnson's work has been controversial, as befits a writer willing to challenge wisdom so conventional it has ossified into accepted truth. But even the most skeptical readers should be captivated by the intriguing questions Johnson raises, whether or not they choose to accept his answers. --Erica C. Barnett [via]More editions of Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter:
-
A Faithful Existence: Reading, Memory, And Transcendenceby Forrest GanderISBN 159376071X (1-59376-071-X)
Hardcover, Shoemaker & Hoard
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Faithful Existence: Reading, Memory, And Transcendence'More editions of A Faithful Existence: Reading, Memory, And Transcendence:
The First Time I Got Paid for It: Writers' Tales from the Hollywood Trenchesby Writers Guild Foundation, Peter Lefcourt, Laura J. Shapiro, William GoldmanISBN 1586480138 (1-58648-013-8)
Hardcover, Perseus Books Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The First Time I Got Paid for It: Writers' Tales from the Hollywood Trenches'More editions of The First Time I Got Paid for It: Writers' Tales from the Hollywood Trenches:
-
Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11by Joan Didion, Frank RichISBN 1590170733 (1-59017-073-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11'Book summary:In Fixed Ideas Joan Didion describes how, since September 11, 2001, there has been a determined effort by the administration to promote an imperial America --a "New Unilateralism"-- and how, in many parts of America, there is now a "disconnect" between the government and citizens.
"[Americans] recognized even then [immediately after 9/11], with flames still visible in lower Manhattan, that the words 'bipartisanship' and 'national unity' had come to mean acquiescence to the administration's preexisting agenda --for example the imperative for further tax cuts, the necessity for Arctic drilling, the systematic elimination of regulatory and union protections, even the funding for the missile shield."
Frank Rich in his preface notes: "The reassuring point of the fixed ideas was to suppress other ideas that might prompt questions or fears about either the logic or hidden political agendas of those conducting what CNN branded as 'America's New War.'"
He adds, "This White House is famously secretive and on-message, but its skills go beyond that. It knows the power of narrative, especially a single narrative with clear-cut heroes and evildoers, and it knows how to drown out any distracting subplots before they undermine the main story."
Book and cover design by Milton Glaser, Inc. [via]More editions of Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11:
George Plimpton On Sportsby George PlimptonISBN 1592286437 (1-59228-643-7)
Softcover, Globe Pequot Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'George Plimpton On Sports'More editions of George Plimpton On Sports:
-
Guns, Germs, and Steel Reader's Companionby Jared DiamondISBN 1586638637 (1-58663-863-7)
Softcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Guns, Germs, and Steel Reader's Companion'Book summary:Scholar and professor Jared Diamond made a huge splash with this fascinating but controversial book, which argues that geography and environment have almost singlehandedly determined the course of human history. Dig deeper into his contentions with the information inside this invaluable reader's handbook:- Why did Europe colonize Africa and Asia rather than the other way around?
- Why is geography the most important factor in human history?
- How has the rest of the scientific community received Diamond's theory?
More editions of Guns, Germs, and Steel Reader's Companion:
The Heart of Darknessby Joseph ConradISBN 1599869500 (1-59986-950-0)
Softcover, Filiquarian Pub Llc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Heart of Darkness'Book summary:JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924) was one of the most remarkable figures in English literature. Born in Poland, and originally named Josef Teodor Konrad Walecz Korzeniowski, he went to sea at the age of seventeen and eventually joined the crew of an English vessel, becoming a British citizen in the process. He retired from the sea in 1894 and took up the pen, writing all his works in English, a language he had only learned as an adult. Despite this, he was a master stylist, both lush and precise. His outsider's eye gave him special insights into the moral dangers of the great age of European empires. The book you hold in your hands -- Conrad's immortal HEART OF DARKNESS -- was the basis for the renowned film, APOCALYPSE NOW. [via]
-
Heart Of Darkness And Selected Short Fictionby Joseph Conrad, George Stade, A. Michael Matin, Michael MatinISBN 1593080212 (1-59308-021-2)
Softcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Heart Of Darkness And Selected Short Fiction'Book summary:Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction, by Joseph Conrad, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influencesbiographical, historical, and literaryto enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.One of the most haunting stories ever written, Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness follows Marlow, a riverboat captain, on a voyage into the African Congo at the height of European colonialism. Astounded by the brutal depravity he witnesses, Marlow becomes obsessed with meeting Kurtz, a famously idealistic and able man stationed farther along the river. What he finally discovers, however, is a horror beyond imagining. Heart of Darkness is widely regarded as a masterpiece for its vivid study of human nature and the greed and ruthlessness of imperialism.[via]
This collection also includes three of Conrads finest short stories: Youth, the authors largely autobiographical tale of a young mans ill-fated sea voyage, in which Marlow makes his first appearance, The Secret Sharer, and Amy Forster.Features a map of the Congo Free State.A. Michael Matin is a professor in the English Department of Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. He has published articles on various twentieth-century British and postcolonial writers.More editions of Heart Of Darkness And Selected Short Fiction:
-
Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind The Rhymeby Chris RobertsISBN 1592402178 (1-59240-217-8)
Softcover, Gotham Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme'Book summary:Was Little Jack Horner a squatter? "Baa Baa Black Sheep" a bleat about taxation? What did Jack and Jill really do on that hill? Chris Roberts reveals the seamy and quirky stories behind our favorite nursery rhymes.
Nursery rhymes are rarely as innocent as they seemthere is a wealth of concealed meaning in our familiar childhood verse. More than a century after Queen Victoria decided that children were better off without the full story, London librarian Chris Roberts brings the truth to light. He traces the origins of the subtle phrases and antiquated references, revealing religious hatred, political subversion, and sexual innuendo.
Roberts reveals that when Jack, nimble and quick, jumped over a candlestick, he was reenacting a popular sport that tested whether a person was lean and healthy. Humpty Dumpty was actually a cannon mounted on the walls of a church in Colchester, blown up during the English Civil War. Few know that the cockles in "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" actually refer to cuckolds in the promiscuous court of Mary Queen of Scots. Or that "Rub-a-dub-dub, three maids in a tub" was inspired by a fairground peepshow.
A fascinating history lesson that makes astonishing connections to contemporary popular culture, Heavy Words Lightly Thrown is for Anglophiles, parents, history buffs, and anyone who has ever wondered about the origins of rhymes. The book features a glossary of slang and historical terms, and spooky silhouettes of nursery-rhyme characters to accompany the rhymes. Mother Goose will never look the same again. [via]
More editions of Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind The Rhyme:
I Have Chosen to Stay And Fightby Margaret ChoISBN 1594482209 (1-59448-220-9)
Softcover, Riverhead Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'I Have Chosen to Stay And Fight'More editions of I Have Chosen to Stay And Fight:
-
The Interpretation of Dreamsby Sigmund Freud, Daniel T. O'Hara, A.A. BrillISBN 1593082983 (1-59308-298-3)
Softcover, Barnes & Noble
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Interpretation of Dreams'Book summary:Whether we love or hate Sigmund Freud, we all have to admit that he revolutionized the way we think about ourselves. Much of this revolution can be traced to The Interpretation of Dreams, the turn-of-the-century tour de force that outlined his theory of unconscious forces in the context of dream analysis. Introducing the id, the superego, and their problem child, the ego, Freud advanced scientific understanding of the mind immeasurably by exposing motivations normally invisible to our consciousness. While there's no question that his own biases and neuroses influenced his observations, the details are less important than the paradigm shift as a whole. After Freud, our interior lives became richer and vastly more mysterious.
These mysteries clearly bothered him--he went to great (often absurd) lengths to explain dream imagery in terms of childhood sexual trauma, a component of his theory jettisoned mid-century, though now popular among recovered-memory therapists. His dispassionate analyses of his own dreams are excellent studies for cognitive scientists wishing to learn how to sacrifice their vanities for the cause of learning. Freud said of the work contained in The Interpretation of Dreams, "Insight such as this falls to one's lot but once in a lifetime." One would have to feel quite fortunate to shake the world even once. --Rob Lightner [via]
More editions of The Interpretation of Dreams:
The Kindness of Strangersby Don GeorgeISBN 1740595904 (1-74059-590-4)
Softcover, Lonely Planet
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Kindness of Strangers'More editions of The Kindness of Strangers:
-
The Knitter's Gift: An Inspirational Bag of Words, Wisdom, and Craftby Bernadette MurphyISBN 1593371004 (1-59337-100-4)
Softcover, Adams Media Corp
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Knitter's Gift: An Inspirational Bag of Words, Wisdom, and Craft'Book summary:Passionate knitters know that knitting is more than just a craft or a hobby. Knitting forms the texture and a background for their lives, binding them to their mothers and grandmothers who shared their great legacies; to friends and family who wear their homemade gifts; and to their fellow knitters. The Knitter's Gift is an inspirational collection just for them.
Beginner and longtime knitters will rejoice as they read about:- A father who treasures the scarf made by his daughter decades earlier
- A Ph.D. candidate who finds that knitting reduces her stress, and allows her to knit together her higher education with her craft
- A mother-in-law who makes peace with her daughter-in-law by creating a luxurious handmade gift
Written and compiled by this best-selling author, The Knitter's Gift is a timeless work that spans the generations.
[via]More editions of The Knitter's Gift: An Inspirational Bag of Words, Wisdom, and Craft:
-
Knitting Rulesby Stephanie Pearl-McPheeISBN 1580178340 (1-58017-834-0)
Softcover, Storey Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Knitting Rules'Book summary:Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, best-selling author of At Knits End and celebrated blogger and humorist of the knitting world, is back! Funnier than ever, Pearl-McPhee continues her running dialogue with her knitting compatriots cheering them on to ever-greater heights in the climb to make knitting universally recognized as THE peak life experience.
Both a celebration of knitting and a sourcebook for practical information, this book is a collection of useful advice and emotional support for the knitter. Pearl-McPhee examines essential truisms of knitting, side by side with tongue in-cheek warnings, realities, and fantasies about the act of knitting and the people who do it.
In chapters on everything from yarn needles, gauge, and knitting bag essentials to hats, socks, shawls, and sweaters, Pearl-McPhee unravels the mysteries of what it is that makes knitting click, from the inside out. She dares to question longstanding rules and uncover the true essence of what makes a hat a hat, a sock a sock, and so on. Insights into why certain techniques work encourage knitters to take control and knit in the way that works best for them. As she says, There are no knitting police.
The result is an illuminating, liberating (and hilarious!) look at knitting that will comfort the experienced knitter, surprise the mainstream one, and entice the beginner. [via]More editions of Knitting Rules:
Ladies' Own Erotica: Tales, Recipes, and Other Mischiefs by Older Womenby Kensington Ladies' Erotica Societ, Pat AdlerISBN 1580083951 (1-58008-395-1)
Softcover, Ten Speed Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Ladies' Own Erotica: Tales, Recipes, and Other Mischiefs by Older Women'More editions of Ladies' Own Erotica: Tales, Recipes, and Other Mischiefs by Older Women:
-
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comicby Henri BergsonISBN 1596050446 (1-59605-044-6)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic'Book summary:Clem Kadiddlehopper wore a funny hat. Even animals other than humans seem to laugh, because they, too, possess emotions. And sometimes, when you're by yourself, you just start giggling for no reason. But that's not funny. As Henri Bergson, proto-existentialist French philosopher and author of Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, would say, you can stop laughing now. We must rethink what tickles us. For Bergson, laughter is a purely intellectual response that serves the social purpose of assuaging discomfort over the unaccustomed and unexpected. We chuckle at Lucy attempting to wrap the bonbons speeding by on a candy-factory conveyor belt because she's stuck in one place, performing the same task over and over, and failing; we hope that in similar situations we could be more flexible. Bergson recaps: "Rigidity is the comic, and laughter is its corrective."
Bergson's thinking typifies a peculiarly Gallic tendency to rationalize the apparently ephemeral and subjective (in this case, humor), discussing it in exquisitely rarefied language in order to assert that which defies common sense (a funny hat is not funny, laughter expresses no emotion, no one laughs alone) but partakes nonetheless of a logical inevitability. Laughter, first published in 1911, clearly draws upon the early years of European modernism, yet also prefigures the movement in some ways. In recognizing the comic as it embodies itself in a "rigid," absentminded person, locked into repetitious, socially awkward behavior, Bergson--even as he looks backward, primarily to Molière--seems to be spawning the sophisticated visual and physical comedy of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd; the transformation of Léger's figures into anthropoid machines; and Nijinsky's starring role in Stravinsky's satirical clockwork ballet Pétrouchka.
This little book resurrects a British translation that has long been out of print. While Laughter won't quite explain why the French love Jerry Lewis, or keep you in stitches, it's a bracing read that will make you think twice about laughing the next time someone stumbles into a lamppost. --Robert Burns Neveldine [via]
More editions of Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic:
The Leaning Tower of Babelby Richard MitchellISBN 1585790036 (1-58579-003-6)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Leaning Tower of Babel'More editions of The Leaning Tower of Babel:
-
Leaves of Grassby Walt Whitman, Karen KarbienerISBN 1593080832 (1-59308-083-2)
Softcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Leaves of Grass'Book summary:Leaves of Grass (1855) is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman. Among the poems in the collection are "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," and in later editions, Whitman's elegy to the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass, revising it in several editions until his death.
Leaves of Grass has its genesis in an essay called The Poet by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published in 1845, which expressed the need for the United States to have its own new and unique poet to write about the new country's virtues and vices. Whitman, reading the essay, consciously set out to answer Emerson's call as he began work on the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Whitman, however, downplayed Emerson's influence, stating, "I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil".
On May 15, 1855, Whitman registered the title Leaves of Grass with the clerk of the United States District Court, Southern District of New Jersey, and received its copyright. The first edition was published in Brooklyn at the Fulton Street printing shop of two Scottish immigrants, James and Andrew Rome, whom Whitman had known since the 1840s, on July 4, 1855. Whitman paid for and did much of the typesetting for the first edition himself. The book did not include the author's name, instead offering an engraving by Samuel Hollyer depicting the poet in work clothes and a jaunty hat, arms at his side. Early advertisements for the first edition appealed to "lovers of literary curiosities" as an oddity. Sales on the book were few but Whitman was not discouraged.
The first edition was very small, collecting only twelve unnamed poems in 95 pages. Whitman once said he intended the book to be small enough to be carried in a pocket. "That would tend to induce people to take me along with them and read me in the open air: I am nearly always successful with the reader in the open air. "About 800 were printed, though only 200 were bound in its trademark green cloth cover. The only American library known to have purchased a copy of the first edition was in Philadelphia. The poems of the first edition, which were given titles in later issues, were "Song of Myself," "A Song For Occupations," "To Think of Time," "The Sleepers," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Faces," "Song of the Answerer," "Europe: The 72d and 73d Years of These States," "A Boston Ballad," "There Was a Child Went Forth," "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?", and "Great Are the Myths."
The title Leaves of Grass was a pun. "Grass" was a term given by publishers to works of minor value and "leaves" is another name for the pages on which they were printed.
Whitman sent a copy of the first edition of Leaves of Grass to Emerson, the man who had inspired its creation. In a letter to Whitman, Emerson said "I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed." He went on, "I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy." [via] 
Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essaysby Louis Althusser, Ben Brewster, Frederic JamesonISBN 1583670394 (1-58367-039-4)
Softcover, New York Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Lenin and Philosophy, and Other Essays'Book summary:No figure among the western Marxist theoreticians has loomed larger in the postwar period than Louis Althusser. A rebel against the Catholic tradition in which he was raised, Althusser studied philosophy and later joined both the faculty of the Ecole normal superieure and the French Communist Party in 1948. Viewed as a "structuralist Marxist," Althusser was as much admired for his independence of intellect as he was for his rigorous defense of Marx. The latter was best illustrated in For Marx (1965), and Reading Capital (1968). These works, along with Lenin and Philosophy (1971) had an enormous influence on the New Left of the 1960s and continues to influence modern Marxist scholarship.
This classic work, which to date has sold more than 30,000 copies, covers the range of Louis Althusser's interests and contributions in philosophy, economics, psychology, aesthetics, and political science.
Marx, in Althusser's view, was subject in his earlier writings to the ruling ideology of his day. Thus for Althusser, the interpretation of Marx involves a repudiation of all efforts to draw from Marx's early writings a view of Marx as a "humanist" and "historicist."
Lenin and Philosophy also contains Althusser's essay on Lenin's study of Hegel; a major essay on the state, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," "Freud and Lacan: A letter on Art in Reply to André Daspre," and "Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract." The book opens with a 1968 interview in which Althusser discusses his personal, political, and intellectual history.
[via]More editions of Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays:
The Life Of The Beeby Maurice MaeterlinckISBN 159605039X (1-59605-039-X)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Life Of The Bee'More editions of The Life Of The Bee:
Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Manby Marshall McLuhan, Philip B. MeggsISBN 1584230509 (1-58423-050-9)
Hardcover, Gingko Pr Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man'More editions of Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man:
-
The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effectsby Marshall McLuhan, Quentin FioreISBN 1584230703 (1-58423-070-3)
Softcover, Gingko Pr Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects'Book summary:The medium used to be the message. But in the "collide-oscopic" barrage of image and text that resulted from Marshall McLuhan's 1967 collaboration with graphic designer Quentin Fiore, the medium becomes the massage. The basic premise of this playful popularization of McLuhan's theories of the electronic revolution will be familiar to readers of his other works: "Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments." But more than McLuhan's other work, The Medium Is the Massage also reflects the tumultuous decade in which it was produced, the 60s. It was a time when existentialism, the theatrr of the absurd, "happenings," and Eastern religions were all the rage in academic circles. Massage adds to that mix traces of utopianism ("We have now become aware of the possibility of arranging the entire human environment as a work of art"; a hint of radicalism (of electronic circuitry McLuhan says: "Its message is Total Change, ending psychic, social, economic, and political parochialism. The old civic, state, and national groupings have become unworkable."); and a bracing pinch of paranoia ("Electrical information devices for universal, tyrannical womb-to-tomb surveillance" have brought us "to a point where remedial control, born out of knowledge of media and their total effects on all of us, must be exerted."). True to its observation that "information pours upon us, instantaneously and continuously," McLuhan and Fiore shower us with photographs, cartoons, newspaper headlines, backwards and upside-down writing, and other graphical innovations. The book is also packed with quotations from a motley collection of savants (in addition to McLuhan himself, of course): Alfred North Whitehead, James Joyce, Lao Tsu, John Dewey, John Cage, and Bob Dylan. The book's design and content aptly, and palpably, demonstrate the insights that have caused many highly stimulated readers to pronounce McLuhan a visionary, a veritable "oracle of the electronic age." --Russell Prather [via]
More editions of The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects:
Men Fake Foreplay.... and Other Lies That Are Trueby Mike DuganISBN 1594860742 (1-59486-074-2)
Hardcover, Rodale Press, Incorporated
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Men Fake Foreplay.... and Other Lies That Are True'More editions of Men Fake Foreplay.... and Other Lies That Are True:
-
Metamorphosisby Franz Kafka, David Farr, Gisliorn GardarssonISBN 184002688X (1-84002-688-X)
Softcover, Oberon Books Ltd
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Metamorphosis'Book summary:Beginning with one of the most shocking first sentences in all of literature, Franz Kafka details the horrific tale of an absurd life. Virtually imprisoned in his room, Gregor Samsa discovers that every aspect of his existence has amounted to nothing. Even the struggling, dysfunctional family he has sacrificed to support is thriving without his financial assistance. Slowly stripped of every bit of his humanity, Gregor realizes that no mans life, especially his, actually matters.
First published in 1915, Kafkas surreal novel about living in an indifferent universe has long been considered a seminal work of Existentialist literature.
All of the humor, zest, and richness of languageso often lost in other editions resonate in this new and exciting Prestwick House Literary Touchstone translation by M. A. Roberts.
The Metamorphosis includes a glossary and readers notes to help the modern reader more fully appreciate Kafkas complex approach to the human condition. [via]
A Mind Apart: Travels in a Neurodiverse Worldby Susanne AntonettaISBN 1585425184 (1-58542-518-4)
Softcover, J P Tarcher
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Mind Apart: Travels in a Neurodiverse World'Book summary:In A Mind Apart, Susanne Antonetta draws on her personal experience with manic depression, as well as interviews with people with multiple personality disorder, autism, schizophrenia, and other "neuroatypical" conditions, to construct a fascinating portrait of how the world shapes itself in minds that are profoundly different from the norm. As with her previous book, which Michael Pollan praised in the New York Times Book Review as "a challenge to our prevailing notions of science and journalism and even literary narrative," A Mind Apart employs a unique fusion of literary genres to draw readers into the experience of people with neurological conditions and to consider what their alternate ways of perceiving may, in fact, have to teach us.
According to the United States Department of Health the number of people being diagnosed with autism has been increasing by approximately twenty percent a year over the last decade. AD/HD, Tourette's, and chronic depression have been spreading at commensurate rates. Sifting through the many abilities that underlie these and other mental "disabilities"- the "visual consciousness" of an autistic or the "metaphoric consciousness" of a manic-depressive-Antonetta reveals just how much "normally" functioning people can learn from those with neurological disorders. This fascinating blend of memoir, journalism, and science will be of deep interest to readers of Temple Grandin's Thinking in Pictures or Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon. [via]More editions of A Mind Apart: Travels in a Neurodiverse World:
-
Misadventuresby Sylvia SmithISBN 1841950955 (1-84195-095-5)
Softcover, Canongate Books Ltd
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Misadventures'Book summary:Sylvia Smith's first book is something of an enigma. Smith, born at the close of the Second World War in East London to working-class parents, is an unmarried, career secretary who has chosen to write her memoirs. Curiously nothing of note has happened to Smith to encourage the belief that her reminiscences might be of interest to the general reader but, fantastically, this only makes the book both more of a curiosity and more of a compelling read. In a series of short, deadpan, dated chapters Sylvia records a series of vignettes that each encapsulate the mostly lows and sometimes highs of the quotidian. Her life has not been without incident--it is just that not many of us would consider incidents such as being stood up on a second date, witnessing a non-fatal, non-serious car crash or the low-level embarrassment of being drunk worth recording. Smith's genius, or that of her publishers (it is difficult to know at what level of irony we are dealing here, on whom the joke actually is) is to understand that these moments are indeed worth recording because they are moments we all share. Most lives are ordinary lives, ordinary lives are the lives most of us live. And Smith's biography, which is hilarious in its mundanity, glorious in its saturating bathos, validates the day to day. All great stories are the embellishment of the ordinary, but here something special has been created precisely because of its seeming lack of affectation, its flat directness feeling like a wonderful antidote to the overwritten, stylised recording endemic to biography. A triumph and a real treat. --Mark Thwaite [via]
More editions of Misadventures:
Miscellaneous Essays And Lays of Ancient Romeby Thomas Babington MacAulayISBN 1596050985 (1-59605-098-5)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Miscellaneous Essays And Lays of Ancient Rome'More editions of Miscellaneous Essays And Lays of Ancient Rome:
-
My Correct Views on Everythingby Leszek Kolakowski, Zbigniew Janowski, Leszek KoakowskiISBN 1587315254 (1-58731-525-4)
Hardcover, St Augustine Pr Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'My Correct Views on Everything'Book summary:Very few academic philosophers can write about philosophy in a way that attracts the attention of those outside academia; even fewer can write with equal scholarly competence about something that transcends their narrow academic concerns; much less to have written about philosophy in such a way that it gave such a headache to Communist authorities or the leaders of the Western Left, as Leszek Kolakowski. In his title essay, "My Correct Views on Everything" (Kolakowski's famous rejoinder to E. P. Thompson's "Open Letter to L. Kolakowski"), the former Communist "High Priest" accounts for his apostasy from communism and explains why communism had to fail. Next, in a number of scholarly articles, he explains why communism assumed the pernicious form it had. There are two other sections, on Christianity and Liberal ideologies. Included are also two interviews with the author.
Far from believing that the author has "correct views on everything," the reader is likely to be convinced that Kolakowski is right on more than one point. One's rejection of Marxist ideology does not have to lead, Kolakowski implicitly suggests, to the dismissal of the Marxist dream of a world without greed. Being critical of this or that item in the Church's politics should not have to make one reject Jesus's teaching. Finally, being concerned with liberalism's inability to generate moral values should not lead us past the compelling reasons to accept the liberal state as the only viable political alternative both to the follies of the movement in the twentieth century and the dangers of religious theocratic temptations.
What Kolakowski offers in his new collection of essays is, in short, a "catechism" for non-ideological Marxists, Catholic Christians, liberals and conservatives alike. Once again, Kolakowski offers his readers pleasure without equal. [via]
More editions of My Correct Views on Everything:
-
My Mother's Wedding Dress: The Life and Afterlife of Clothesby Justine PicardieISBN 1596911492 (1-59691-149-2)
Hardcover, Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'My Mother's Wedding Dress: The Life and Afterlife of Clothes'Book summary:A glorious meditation on why clothes matter.[via]
Beginning with the story of her mother's wedding dress, a perfect black French cocktail dress bought in 1960, writer and former Vogue editor Justine Picardie affirms what all of us may have suspected: that the real value of our wardrobes lies in the history and associations woven into our clothes. Combining tales of her own family and friends, intimate stories from the fashion business, and reflections on clothes in literature and pop culture, Picardie uncovers the truths that lie underneath what we wear. She reflects on the strange disappearance of garments we love; the allure of uniforms; the house that Chanel built; the bridal and ghostly qualities of women in white; the fate of a ring belonging to Charlotte Brontë; the power of scarlet clothing; how Donatella Versace, Karl Lagerfeld, and Claude Montana dress themselves; and how the clothes we inherit from loved ones link us to the departed. Rich with fascinating stories from the public and private worlds of fashion, My Mother's Wedding Dress is a gorgeously written book about what clothes cover up, and what they reveal.More editions of My Mother's Wedding Dress: The Life and Afterlife of Clothes:
Nature and Other Writingsby Ralph Waldo EmersonISBN 1590300998 (1-59030-099-8)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Nature and Other Writings'More editions of Nature and Other Writings:
-
Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemiesby Ian Buruma, Avishai MargalitISBN 1594200084 (1-59420-008-4)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies'Book summary:A pioneering investigation of the lineage of anti-Western stereotypes that traces them back to the West itself.
Twenty-five years ago, Edward Said's Orientalism spawned a generation of scholarship on the denigrating and dangerous mirage of "the East" in the Western colonial mind. But "the West" is the more dangerous mirage of our own time, Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit argue, and the idea of "the West" in the minds of its self-proclaimed enemies remains largely unexamined and woefully misunderstood. Occidentalism is their groundbreaking investigation of the demonizing fantasies and stereotypes about the Western world that fuel such hatred in the hearts of others.
We generally understand "radical Islam" as a purely Islamic phenomenon, but Buruma and Margalit show that while the Islamic part of radical Islam certainly is, the radical part owes a primary debt of inheritance to the West. Whatever else they are, al Qaeda and its ilk are revolutionary anti-Western political movements, and Buruma and Margalit show us that the bogeyman of the West who stalks their thinking is the same one who has haunted the thoughts of many other revolutionary groups, going back to the early nineteenth century. In this genealogy of the components of the anti-Western worldview, the same oppositions appear again and again: the heroic revolutionary versus the timid, soft bourgeois; the rootless, deracinated cosmopolitan living in the Western city, cut off from the roots of a spiritually healthy society; the sterile Western mind, all reason and no soul; the machine society, controlled from the center by a cabal of insiders-often Jews-pulling the hidden levers of power versus an organically knit-together one, a society of "blood and soil." The anti-Western virus has found a ready host in the Islamic world for a number of legitimate reasons, they argue, but in no way does that make it an exclusively Islamic matter.
A work of extraordinary range and erudition, Occidentalism will permanently enlarge our collective frame of vision. [via]More editions of Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies:
-
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Mealsby Michael PollanISBN 1594200823 (1-59420-082-3)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals'Book summary:Make this your next book club selection and everyone saves.[via]
Get 15% off when you order 5 or more of this title for your book club.
Simply enter the coupon code POLLANOMNIVORE at checkout.
This offer does not apply to eBook purchases. This offer applies to only one downloadable audio per purchase.
What should we have for dinner?" To one degree or another this simple question assails any creature faced with a wide choice of things to eat. Anthropologists call it the omnivore's dilemma. Choosing from among the countless potential foods nature offers, humans have had to learn what is safe, and what isn'twhich mushrooms should be avoided, for example, and which berries we can enjoy. Today, as America confronts what can only be described as a national eating disorder, the omnivore's dilemma has returned with an atavistic vengeance. The cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet has thrown us back on a bewildering landscape where we once again have to worry about which of those tasty-looking morsels might kill us. At the same time we're realizing that our food choices also have profound implications for the health of our environment. The Omnivore's Dilemma is bestselling author Michael Pollan's brilliant and eye-opening exploration of these little-known but vitally important dimensions of eating in America.
Pollan has divided The Omnivore's Dilemma into three parts, one for each of the food chains that sustain us: industrialized food, alternative or "organic" food, and food people obtain by dint of their own hunting, gathering, or gardening. Pollan follows each food chain literally from the ground up to the table, emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the species we depend on. He concludes each section by sitting down to a mealat McDonald's, at home with his family sharing a dinner from Whole Foods, and in a revolutionary "beyond organic" farm in Virginia. For each meal he traces the provenance of everything consumed, revealing the hidden components we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods reflects our environmental and biological inheritance.
We are indeed what we eat-and what we eat remakes the world. A society of voracious and increasingly confused omnivores, we are just beginning to recognize the profound consequences of the simplest everyday food choices, both for ourselves and for the natural world. The Omnivore's Dilemma is a long-overdue book and one that will become known for bringing a completely fresh perspective to a question as ordinary and yet momentous as What shall we have for dinner?
A few facts and figures from The Omnivore's Dilemma:
- Of the 38 ingredients it takes to make a McNugget, there are at least 13 that are derived from corn. 45 different menu items at Mcdonalds are made from corn.
- One in every three American children eats fast food every day.
- One in every five American meals today is eaten in the car.
- The food industry burns nearly a fifth of all the petroleum consumed in the United Statesmore than we burn with our cars and more than any other industry consumes.
- It takes ten calories of fossil fuel energy to deliver one calorie of food energy to an American plate.
- A single strawberry contains about five calories. To get that strawberry from a field in California to a plate on the east coast requires 435 calories of energy.
- Industrial fertilizer and industrial pesticides both owe their existence to the conversion of the World War II munitions industry to civilian usesnerve gases became pesticides, and ammonium nitrate explosives became nitrogen fertilizers.
- ...
More editions of The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals:
-
On Snooker: The Game and the Characters Who Play Itby Mordecai RichlerISBN 1585741795 (1-58574-179-5)
Hardcover, Globe Pequot Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'On Snooker: The Game and the Characters Who Play It'More editions of On Snooker: The Game and the Characters Who Play It:
-
On the Origin of Inequalityby Jean-Jacques RousseauISBN 1596055480 (1-59605-548-0)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'On the Origin of Inequality'Book summary:If we look at human society with a calm and disinterested eye, it seems, at first, to show us only the violence of the powerful and the oppression of the weak. The mind is shocked at the cruelty of the one, or is induced to lament the blindness of the other... -from the Preface Are such concepts of race, class, and wealth inherent to the human condition, or are they results of the development of "civilization"? One of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment, which laid the groundwork for the modern mind-set, argues that it is only with the creation of agriculture and urban society that inequalities formed. Controversy swirls around the text-some of today's thinkers continue to consider it profound; others contend that it relies on an unsupportable "noble savage" foundation. In either case, this 1752 is one of the greatest works of 18th-century philosophy. Swiss philosopher JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU (1712-1778) was a dramatic influence on the French revolution, 19th-century communism, and much modern political thought. His works include Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750), Discourse on Political Economy (1755), and The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right (1762). [via]
More editions of On the Origin of Inequality:
The Pluralist Paradigm: Democracy And Religion in the 21st Centuryby Sondra Myers, Patrice BrodeurISBN 1589661516 (1-58966-151-6)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pluralist Paradigm: Democracy And Religion in the 21st Century'More editions of The Pluralist Paradigm: Democracy And Religion in the 21st Century:
Revieweryby Christopher RicksISBN 1590510194 (1-59051-019-4)
Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Reviewery'More editions of Reviewery:
-
The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Lifeby Julia CameronISBN 1585420093 (1-58542-009-3)
Softcover, J P Tarcher
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life'Book summary:Writing, for Julia Cameron, is neither solely vocation nor avocation: it is a way of life. It comes first thing in the morning, while the horses are waiting to be fed; it happens at the kitchen counter, while the onions are sautéing; it takes place on "dates" at café tables shared with likeminded friends; it unfurls in the mind as the '65 pickup "bucks over the rutted dirt roads like a stiff-legged bronco." The more than 40 brief personal essays that make up The Right to Write are an unyielding affirmation of the writing life and a denigration of all that gets in the way: busy schedules, procrastination, insecurity, lack of writing space, a day job--you get the point. Cameron's commonsense advice is liberating to anyone who has felt hampered by making a big deal out of writing (this "tends to make writing difficult. Keeping writing casual tends to keep it possible"), by not having the time to write ("Get aggressive. Steal time"), or the like. If you find a spirit that compares writing to revelation, prayer, and Zen pursuits, that might just attribute misguided communication to Mercury retrograde simpatico, then you will find much to embrace here. And you will never, never again dream of waiting for that commitment-free sabbatical in the south of France to get your writing project under way. --Jane Steinberg [via]
More editions of The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life:
The Rising Gorgeby PerelmanISBN 1585741728 (1-58574-172-8)
Softcover, Globe Pequot Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rising Gorge'More editions of The Rising Gorge:
Running After Antelopeby Scott CarrierISBN 1582431795 (1-58243-179-5)
Softcover, Counterpoint
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Running After Antelope'Book summary:The signs that Scott Carrier was a writer and not an athlete showed up early. At the age of 12, Carrier was the free safety and captain of the defense on his football team. During one game he got his teammates into a huddle and told them he was going to do something different:
We're going to line up in a six-three, but as they get set I'm going to say a haiku, and I want you guys to start moving around, dance around, stand on your head, do whatever you want. We'll kill them. Ready, break!
When the quarterback started his count, Carrier shouted, "The wind brings dry leaves enough to start a fire!" and his teammates froze. When asked by his coach what on earth he'd been doing, Carrier calmly replied, "We're running a haiku." When pressed for a rationale, he said simply, "It was just an idea. It didn't really work out like I thought it would. I'm ready to move on, if you are."
And move on he did, crisscrossing the country as a contributor for NPR for nearly two decades. Some of his radio pieces (as well as longer essays written for Esquire and Harper's) have been collected in Running After Antelope. Sometimes sad, sometimes haunting, often funny, Carrier writes about travels to war-torn areas, personal relationship crises, and, of course, his quest to chase down an antelope--thus perhaps validating his vertebrate-morphologist brother's so-called running hypothesis: that humans became upright in order to breathe better.
In the book's final essay, Carrier is chasing after an antelope he calls the Lone Male. His friends have kept the animal running for almost an hour when it crosses Carrier's path. Relatively fresh, he takes off after it, "And I laugh. I laugh and I run and it is, for sure, the best thing I've ever done. I have everything I need, the wilderness is unfolding in front of me."
In the end, little is resolved--the wars and relationships continue, the thesis remains unproven. But Carrier would be the first to remind us that the pursuit--be it for peace, love, or science--has a purpose unto itself. Running After Antelope celebrates that pursuit in engaging fashion. --Sunny Delaney [via]
More editions of Running After Antelope:
-
Secrets Of Angels & Demons: The Unauthorized Guide To The Bestselling Novelby Arne De Keijzer, Dan Burstein, David A. ShugartsISBN 1593151403 (1-59315-140-3)
Hardcover, Vanguard Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Secrets Of Angels & Demons: The Unauthorized Guide To The Bestselling Novel'Book summary:Angels & Demons Guide Book [via]
More editions of Secrets Of Angels & Demons: The Unauthorized Guide To The Bestselling Novel:
-
Sesame and Lillies: Three Lecturesby John RuskinISBN 1602060010 (1-60206-001-0)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Sesame and Lillies: Three Lectures'Book summary:As a vocal critic of art on the whole, British writer JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900) was a profoundly influential voice upon European painting, architecture, aesthetics of the 19th and 20th centuries. This 1865 collection of three lectures-"Of Kings' Treasures," "Of Queens' Gardens," and "Of the Mysteries of Life"-offers an intimate look at his thoughts on culture and humanity's nurturing of its own education. He discusses: . the importance of "valuable books" . the nature of "a civilized country" . the necessity of educating women . advice for living a plain but noble life . and more. Students of art history will in particular find this an enlightening read. [via]
More editions of Sesame and Lillies: Three Lectures:
-
A Short History of Mythby Karen ArmstrongISBN 1841956449 (1-84195-644-9)
Hardcover, Canongate
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Short History of Myth'Book summary:We want to tell the story again. This book details about major international marketing and PR campaign at publication, including a national newspaper partner, events at the Royal Festival Hall and blanket review and feature coverage. Karen Armstrong is one of Britain's most renowned religious and social commentators. "Human beings have always been mythmakers." What are myths? How have they evolved? And, why do we still so desperately need them? The history of myth is the history of humanity; our stories and beliefs, our curiosity and attempts to understand the world, link us to our ancestors and each other. Myths help us make sense of the universe. Armstrong takes us from the Palaeolithic period and the myths of the hunters right up to the 'Great Western Transformation' of the last 500 years and the discrediting of myth by science. Heralding a major series of retellings of international myths by authors from around the world, Armstrong's characteristically insightful and eloquent book serves as a brilliant and thought-provoking introduction to myth in the broadest sense - and why we dismiss it only at our peril. [via]
More editions of A Short History of Myth:
Show and Tell: New Yorker Profilesby John LahrISBN 1585670626 (1-58567-062-6)
Hardcover, Penguin USA
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles'More editions of Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles:
Sincerely, Andy Rooneyby Andrew A. RooneyISBN 1586480456 (1-58648-045-6)
Softcover, Public Affairs
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Sincerely, Andy Rooney'More editions of Sincerely, Andy Rooney:
-
The Slate Diariesby Judith Shulevitz, Jodi Kantor, Cyrus KrohnISBN 1586480073 (1-58648-007-3)
Softcover, Public Affairs
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Slate Diaries'Book summary:One of the most popular features in the pioneering online magazine Slate (edited by Michael Kinsley) is the "Diary"--an actual daily diary written by an interesting person and published in real time. The Slate Diaries collects several dozen of the best. It's impossible to describe their marvelous eclecticism, except perhaps by sharing a few highlights. Tucker Carlson, a writer for The Weekly Standard:
Had the sort of day that gives magazine writers the reputation--entirely deserved--for being lazy and overfed: Played with the kids in the backyard after breakfast, wrote at home till noon, had an enormous lunch at the Palm, returned a few calls, then sat around the office to gossip, telling stories, and trading theories about Clinton's sex life.
Larry Doyle, a producer for The Simpsons:I have not seen Beauregard [his dog] in nine weeks, though I have been kept abreast of his bowel movements. I told Becky [his wife] yesterday in a way I missed Beauregard more than I missed her, because, after all, I got to talk to her on the phone every day and--well, I was trying to make the very interesting point that the bond between man and wife is essentially a higher meeting of the minds while the bond between man and dog is a more primal, physical one, but Becky didn't find this very interesting.
Untenured, "an assistant professor at a well-known private American university":Let me assure you that I love my job. This is no mean feat given some of the drawbacks of academic life. Academic survival requires that you endure a Darwinian test that selects for a peculiar cocktail of masochism, sadism, perversity, and the ability to withstand large quantities of institutionalized torture over long periods of time with few measurable rewards.
Also, find out where Bill Gates says he "must have met more famous people in one place ... than anywhere I've been," what Karenna Gore Schiff (daughter of Al Gore) thinks of her Secret Service codename "Smurfette," and how federal judge Alex Kozinski handles writing a tricky dissenting opinion: "I really want to say that my colleagues are out to lunch, but in a way that won't tick them off." Other contributors include former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, film critic Roger Ebert, memoirist Dave Eggers, writer Malcolm Gladwell, author Michael Lewis, and novelist Cynthia Ozick. The Slate Diaries is a surprising, inspired, and wonderful anthology. --John J. Miller [via]
More editions of The Slate Diaries:
-
SM Classicsby Susan WrightISBN 1584190035 (1-58419-003-5)
Hardcover, Masquerade Books, Incorporated
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'SM Classics'Book summary:A collection of the most important SM nonfiction of the past two decades, edited by a prominent "scene" personality with extensive editorial and writing experience. Features work by a veritable who's who of contemporary SM, including Larry Townsend, John Warren, John Preston, Laura Antoniou, Pat Califia, Joseph W. Bean Fakir Musafar, and many others. [via]
More editions of SM Classics:
Style and Faithby Geoffrey HillISBN 1582431078 (1-58243-107-8)
Hardcover, Counterpoint
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Style and Faith'More editions of Style and Faith:
-
The Swiss Family Perelmanby Al Hirschfeld, PerelmanISBN 1585741817 (1-58574-181-7)
Softcover, Globe Pequot Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Swiss Family Perelman'Book summary:The Swiss Family Perelman is the hilarious and unforgettable account of the master humorist Perelman's trip around the world with his wife, son, daughter, and a cello. This collection of stories, originally published in Holiday in the late 1940s, is jam-packed with Perelman's signature wit and extraordinary prose style. (6 X 9, 224 pages, illustrations) [via]
More editions of The Swiss Family Perelman:
-
Texts on Type: Critical Writings on Typographyby Steven Heller, Philip B. MeggsISBN 1581150822 (1-58115-082-2)
Softcover, Allworth Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Texts on Type: Critical Writings on Typography'Book summary:Spanning the 20th century, with emphasis on the 1940s to the present, this collection will be necessary reading for all design students and faculty.
Students and teachers of graphic design will enrich their understanding of 20th century type design and typography with this unique anthology. Contained in this volume are more than 50 important, known and rare texts by critics, historians, and type designers about the history, aesthetics, and practice of type design and typography. An invaluable addition to any school course on type theory and practice, the book contains heretofore unprinted essays by major type masters, including W.A. Dwiggins, Hermann Zapf, and Paul Rand, as well as critical analyses of vintage and contemporary type and type design. A supplement to the successful Looking Closer series, the book specifically pinpoints those texts that will increase the common knowledge of typographic history and criticism. 25 B&W Illustrations [via]More editions of Texts on Type: Critical Writings on Typography:
-
The Things They Carriedby Tim O'Brien, SparkNotes StaffISBN 1586638270 (1-58663-827-0)
Softcover, Spark Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Things They Carried'Book summary:Featuring explanation of key themes, motifs, and symbols including: Isolation the dead soldiers Shame Emotional burdens Truth in story telling Moral ambiguities And detailed analysis of these important characters: Tim O'Brien Jimmy Cross Mitchell Sanders Kiowa [via]
More editions of The Things They Carried:
The Unmasking of Oscar Wildeby Joseph PearceISBN 1586170260 (1-58617-026-0)
Hardcover, Ignatius Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde'More editions of The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde:
-
Unto This Lastby John RuskinISBN 1602060355 (1-60206-035-5)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Unto This Last'Book summary:One of the most astonishingly versatile British writers of the 19th century, art critic JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900) held a profound sway on European painting and architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries...but he was also a vital influence on the ideals of the later British Labour party, on Gandhi's peaceful revolution, and on our modern notions of charity and charitable organizations. In this 1862 collection of essays, Ruskin lays out his humanist theory of economics and calls for government intervention in the economy to serve values of social justice, of morality, and of higher aesthetics. Ahead of its time and still of great significance today, this is an inspiring vision of how government and culture might work together for the betterment of all. _______________________ ALSO FROM COSIMO Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies: Three Lectures [via]
More editions of Unto This Last:
-
Varieties of Religious Experienceby William James, George Stade, Wayne ProudfootISBN 1593080727 (1-59308-072-7)
Softcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Varieties of Religious Experience'Book summary:"I am neither a theologian, nor a scholar learned in the history of religions, nor an anthropologist. Psychology is the only branch of learning in which I am particularly versed. To the psychologist the religious propensities of man must be at least as interesting as any other of the facts pertaining to his mental constitution. It would seem, therefore, as a psychologist, the natural thing for me would be to invite you to a descriptive survey of those religious propensities."
When William James went to the University of Edinburgh in 1901 to deliver a series of lectures on "natural religion," he defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." Considering religion, then, not as it is defined by--or takes place in--the churches, but as it is felt in everyday life, he undertook a project that, upon completion, stands not only as one of the most important texts on psychology ever written, not only as a vitally serious contemplation of spirituality, but for many critics one of the best works of nonfiction written in the 20th century. Reading The Varieties of Religious Experience, it is easy to see why. Applying his analytic clarity to religious accounts from a variety of sources, James elaborates a pluralistic framework in which "the divine can mean no single quality, it must mean a group of qualities, by being champions of which in alternation, different men may all find worthy missions." It's an intellectual call for serious religious tolerance--indeed, respect--the vitality of which has not diminished through the subsequent decades. [via]
More editions of Varieties of Religious Experience:
What's Worth Knowingby Wendy LustbaderISBN 1585423726 (1-58542-372-6)
Softcover, J P Tarcher
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'What's Worth Knowing'More editions of What's Worth Knowing:
Why We Garden: Cultivating a Sense of Placeby Jim NollmanISBN 1591810256 (1-59181-025-6)
Softcover, Sentient Pubns
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Why We Garden: Cultivating a Sense of Place'More editions of Why We Garden: Cultivating a Sense of Place:
Zen and the Art of Knitting : Exploring the Links Between Knitting, Spirituality, and Creativityby Bernadette MurphyISBN 1580626548 (1-58062-654-8)
Hardcover, Adams Media Corporation
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Zen and the Art of Knitting : Exploring the Links Between Knitting, Spirituality, and Creativity'More editions of Zen and the Art of Knitting : Exploring the Links Between Knitting, Spirituality, and Creativity:
Spanish
-
11 De Septiembreby Noam ChompskyISBN 158322565X (1-58322-565-X)
Softcover, Seven Stories Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: '11 De Septiembre'Book summary:It is always instructive to read American's premier dissident thinker if only simply to get an alternative take on what constitutes our present day "common sense"--an urgent project he undertakes in 9-11. Chomsky, whose recent hugely prolific political output has made him something of an icon of the American left, began his career as a ground-breaking theoretical linguist. And it is his attention to detail and language which continue to make him such a useful guide through the murky world of power politics and particularly to US Foreign Policy in the Middle East. In grappling with 9-11, a date which has become a noun whose very definition has been consciously moulded by the media and the American establishment, Chomsky is taking on one of the biggest challenges of our time. But this is a very slight book in which to do this. A collection of interviews conducted in the month following the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center Chomsky is here keen to stress the urgency of a response to 9-11 that is not simply reactionary warfaring. It behoves us to discover why 9-11 really happened. In the words of the title of another very useful book: Why Do People Hate America?. In such a small, and sometimes rather repetitive, volume Chomsky can only really encourage us to ask better questions and to seek more carefully and widely for better answers. But if questions are beginning to form then readers could do worse than look to this useful and provocative book. --Mark Thwaite [via]
More editions of 11 De Septiembre:
Cuentos De La Alhambraby Washington IrvingISBN 1583488367 (1-58348-836-7)
Softcover, Iuniverse Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Cuentos De La Alhambra'More editions of Cuentos De La Alhambra:
Results page: PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101-200 201-250 NEXT
![[powered by Muze Inc.]](http://i.bookfinder.com/images/site/muze/powered_by_muze.gif){kind=small}