"Silvia Ferrara leads a code cracking mission to decipher the hidden truths and histories of our greatest invention--the art of writing"-- Provided by publisher. Ferrara takes a profound look at how-- and how many times-- human beings have managed to produce the miracle of written language around the world. Readers will examine the enigmas of undeciphered scripts; study the turtle shells and ox scapulae that bear the earliest Chinese inscriptions,...

"Keiko Furukura had always been considered a strange child, and her parents always worried how she would get on in the real world, so when she takes on a job in a convenience store while at university, they are delighted for her. For her part, in the convenience store she finds a predictable world mandated by the store manual, which dictates how the workers should act and what they should say, and she copies her coworkers' style of dress and speech...

"A prolific and award-winning writer, Lee Martin has put pen to paper to offer his wisdom, honed during thirty years of teaching the oh-so-elusive art of writing. Telling Stories is intended for anyone interested in thinking more about the elements of storytelling in short stories, novels, and memoirs. Martin clearly delineates helpful and practical techniques for demystifying the writing process and provides tools for perfecting the art of the scene,...

"From NPR veteran Celeste Headlee, an informative, timely, and practical guide to the lost art of conversation"-- Provided by publisher.

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893—4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon, and stood in stark contrast both to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert...

First published in English by Edward Fitzgerald in 1859 from its original Farsi, "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" is a collection of quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyam, a Persian astronomer and mathematician born in the later part of the 11th century. Omar Khayyam's poetry, which received very little international notoriety in its own day, achieved classic status when it was discovered and rendered into English verse by Edward Fitzgerald over seven...

This classic short story of a Southern plantation owner facing execution by Union soldiers is "a flawless example of American genius" (Kurt Vonnegut). Alabama planter Peyton Farquhar was loyal to the Confederate cause. Now, as the Union Army overtakes the South, he is brought to the edge of a railroad bridge-hands tied behind his back-sentenced to hang for attempting to burn down the bridge on which he stands. As he ponders the events both large...

"The King of the Golden River," which Ruskin wrote in 1841 (it was not published until 1851) for nineteen-year-old Euphenia Chalmers Gray, whom he married in 1848. The story is set in the ancient country of Stiria, in a beautiful and fertile valley called Treasure Valley, owned by brothers Schwartz, Hans and Gluck. When the cruel Hans and Schwartz turn an important stranger away from their home, the valley turns to desert, leaving them penniless and...

The road novel that gave Sonoma Valley its nickname from the renowned nineteenth-century American author of The Call of the Wild and White Fang. In Oakland, California, former boxer Billy Roberts and his wife, Saxon, have a turbulent marriage, disrupted by the social issues of turn-of-the-century urban California-including labor strikes and violence. So Billy and Saxon embark on a quest through the rural countryside, encountering a Portuguese settlement...

A deluxe Harper Perennial Legacy Edition, with an introduction from Simon Van Booy, nationally best-selling author of Father's Day and The Illusion of SeparatenessA compelling historical novel of a young man's rise from poverty to wealth in a small provincial town during the Industrial Revolution, now available in a Legacy Edition from Harper Perennial Modern Classics. Like Charles Dickens's beloved David Copperfield, John Halifax is an orphan, determined...