"The Iraqi poet Nazik al-Mala'ika was one of the most important Arab poets of the twentieth century. Over the course of a four-decade career, her contributions to both the theory and the practice of free verse (or tafʿilah) poetry confirmed her position as a pioneer of Arab modernism. Revolt Against the Sun presents a selection of Nazik al-Mala'ika's poetry in English for the first time. Bringing together poems from each of her published collections,...

Eva Brann, who has taught at St. John's College, Annapolis, for sixty years, wrote these essays largely as clarifying incitements to students who were reading, or ought to have been reading, the works discussed. In her words: The first essay looks at the "Pre-Socratics" Heraclitus and Parmenides. They appear to be in radical opposition, but they are really doing the same, new thing: seeing the world as an intelligible whole. Both observe external...

"It took six novels and nearly thirty years for Cormac McCarthy to find commercial success as a writer with the National Book Award-winning All the Pretty Horses coming twenty-seven years after his debut. The second half of his long career brought major prizes, more bestsellers, and Hollywood adaptations of his work. The sharp upturn in McCarthy's readership, especially with the genre exercises No Country for Old Men and The Road, has obscured his...

"Steely Dan was a somewhat unusual band that still inspires unusually strong devotion in its fans. Formed in the late '60s in New York, they released seven albums between 1971 and 1981, two of which were nominated for a Grammy. Part of what's unusual about them is that each of those albums was made by a different group of musicians -- founding members Walter Becker and Donald Fagen had no issues swapping players from record to record in order to get...

"These two long essays make up a short book, one full of depth and knowledge, in which Eva Brann gets at the roots of our thinking -- without tearing things apart. Then: In the first, Brann parses out the schema and meaning of Herodotus's The History (The Persian Wars). She writes that Herodotus worked by indirection. Giving a full account of the Persians and the peoples who constituted their empire -- and whose empire encircled the Greeks (thus the...

Whether you dream of riding on a dragon's back like Chihiro, catching the Catbus with Mei, or living in a moving castle with the wizard Howl, this books will show you Studio Ghibli's most beloved characters and films. Why not dress up with Kiki and Pazu, cook ramen with Ponyo, or make your very own animated soot sprite? What are you waiting for?

"Trees were central to Henry David Thoreau's creativity as a writer, his work as a naturalist, his thought and his inner life. His portraits of them were so perfect, it was as if he could to see the sap flowing beneath their bark. When Thoreau wrote that the poet loves the pine tree as his own shadow in the air, he was speaking about himself. In short, he spoke their language. In this original book, Richard Higgins explores Thoreau's deep connections...