This exciting collection of traditional African folk tales introduces you to a host of interesting people and unusual animals. Eighteen authentic fables, recorded as they were told by tribal members of Nigerian and other cultures, range from the imaginative «Story of a Farmer and Four Hyenas» to an entertaining account of «The Man with Seven Dogs.»In «The Magic Crocodile,» you'll meet a reptile with very strange powers, while «The Boy in the Drum» teaches a valuable lesson in the importance...
What is music? «God's best gift to man,» as Walter Savage Landor said? «The moonlight in the gloomy night of life,» as Jean Paul Richter put it? Or perhaps—as Carl Maria von Weber and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow agree —"the universal language of mankind"? Whatever it is, it certainly «hath charms to soothe the savage breast,» as William Congreve famously observed. And it «expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent» (Victor Hugo).These...
"Let blockheads read what blockheads write," suggested Lord Chesterfield. W. H. Auden once said, «Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.» And TV celebrity Jerry Seinfeld noted: «The big advantage of a book is that it's very easy to rewind. Close it and you're right back at the beginning.» Over 450 memorable quotes about books and reading fill these pages—with provocative declarations from Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, Andrew Carnegie,...
A special edition of Bengal Lights, Bangladesh's leading English language literary journal, guest-edited by the editors of the Unnamed Press and Phoneme Media. A liberal exploration of the concept of “the guest” featuring Etgar Keret, Mario Bellatin, Sesshu Foster, Ben Ehrenreich, Stacy Hardy, Douglas Kearney, Amjad Nasser, Rita Indiana, Pavel Šrut, Inongo-vi-Makomè, Angie Cruz, Antonella Anedda, Sharbari Z. Ahmed, Paul Holzman, Carly J. Hallman,...
"I know only two tunes," said Ulysses S. Grant. «One of them is Yankee Doodle and the other isn't.» Jimmy Carter observed: «Whatever starts in California unfortunately has an inclination to spread.» And Warren Harding complained: «The White House is a prison. I can't get away from the men who dog my footsteps. I am in jail.»This entertaining, handy little book includes over 400 other memorable quotes, expressed by America's chief executives over the past two centuries, among...
Never give all the heart, for loveWill hardly seem worth thinking ofTo passionate women if it seemCertain, and they never dreamThat it fades out from kiss to kiss;For everything that's lovely isBut a brief, dreamy, kind delight. — W. B. YeatsDown through the millennia the emotion of love has inspired countless poets to great heights of lyrical expression. In this volume readers can sample more than 150 great love poems by English and American poets. Spanning over four centuries of...
This concise anthology presents a broad selection of writings by the world’s leading revolutionary figures. Spanning three centuries, the works include such milestone documents as the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789), and the Communist Manifesto (1848). It also features writings by the Russian revolutionaries Lenin and Trotsky; Marat and Danton of the French Revolution; and selections by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emma Goldman, Mohandas...
The great documents in this important collection helped form the foundation of American democratic government. Compelling, influential, and often inspirational, they range from Patrick Henry's dramatic «Give me liberty or give me death» speech at the start of the American Revolution to Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, issued in the closing weeks of the Civil War. Also included are the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson's classic rationale for rejecting...