"Life was harsh in the town of Bialystok, particularly for a Jewish boy like Leyzer Zamenhof. But Leyzer thought he knew the reason for the anger and distrust. With every group speaking a different language, how could people understand each other? Without understanding, how could there be peace? Zamenhof had an idea: a "universal" second language everyone could speak. But a language that would be easy to learn was not easy to invent, especially when even his own father stood between him and his dream. Yet when at last in 1887 "Doctor Esperanto" sent his words into the world, a boy's idea became a community that spread across the globe."--Book jacket.

A collection of essays in which Cynthia Ozick examines the works of some of the world's most illustrious writers.

Examines the lives and careers of four distinguished Irish authors and analyzes the connections among them.

"With every step, the Tomb Guards pay homage to America's fallen. Discover their story, and that of the unknown soldiers they honor, through resonant words and illustrations. Keeping vigil at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in Arlington National Cemetery, are the sentinel guards, whose every step, every turn, honors and remembers America's fallen. They protect fellow soldiers who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, making sure they are never alone. To stand there--with absolute precision, in every type of weather, at every moment of the day, one in a line uninterrupted since midnight July 2, 1937--is the ultimate privilege and the most difficult post to earn in the army. Everything these men and women do is in service to the Unknowns. Their standard is perfection. Exactly how the unnamed men came to be entombed at Arlington, and exactly how their fellow soldiers have come to keep vigil over them, is a sobering and powerful tale ... that honors the soldiers who honor the fallen"--Provided by publisher

This wonderfully rich anthology uses the soul-shaping power of story, speech, and song to help Americans realize more deeply—and appreciate more fully—who they are as citizens of the United States. At once inspiring and thought-provoking, What So Proudly We Hail features dozens of selections on American identity, character, and civic life by our countryÆs greatest writers and leaders—from Mark Twain to John Updike, from George Washington to Theodore Roosevelt, from Willa Cather to Flannery OÆConnor, from Benjamin Franklin to Martin Luther King Jr., from Francis Scott Key to Irving Berlin. Developing robust American citizens involves educating the heart as well as the mind. It is not enough to understand our nationÆs lofty principles or know our history; thoughtful and engaged citizens require cultivated moral imaginations and fitting sentiments and attitudes—matters both displayed in and nurtured by our great works of imaginative literature and rhetoric. Featuring the editorsÆ insightful and instructive commentary, What So Proudly We Hail illuminates our national identity, the American creed, the American character, and the virtues and aspirations of active citizenship. This marvelous book will not only be a fixture on bedside tables; it will also spark conversations in homes, schools, colleges, and reading groups everywhere.

In this collection of short meditations on various topics, Hans Blumenberg eschews academic ponderousness and writes in a genre evocative of Montaigne's Essais , Walter Benjamin's Denkbilder , or Adorno's Minima Moralia . Drawing upon an intellectual tradition that ranges from Aesop to Wittgenstein and from medieval theology to astrophysics, he works as a detective of ideas scouring the periphery of intellectual and philosophical history for clues--metaphors, gestures, anecdotes--essential to grasping human finitude. Images of shipwrecks, attempts at ordering the world, and questions of foundations are traced through the work of Goethe, Schopenhauer, Simmel, Husserl, Thomas Mann, and others. The book's reflections culminate in a rereading of the fable "Care Crosses the River" that lies at the center of Heidegger's analysis of Dasein in which the fable's elided Gnostic center is recovered: Care creates the human in its own image, as a reflection of its narcissism. At stake throughout are two inextricable elements of Blumenberg's thought: a theory of nonconceptuality as essential to philosophizing and an exploration of culture understood as humanity's unceasing attempts to relieve itself of the weight of the absolutism of reality.

"Throughout a unparalleled literary career that includes two National Book Awards (Goodbye, Columbus, 1959 and Sabbath's Theater, 1995), the Pulitzer Prize in fiction (American Pastoral, 1997), the National Book Critics Circle Award (The Counterlife, 1986), and the National Humanities Medal (awarded by President Obama in 2011), among many other honors, Philip Roth has produced an extraordinary body of nonfiction writing on a wide range of topics: his own work and that of the writers he admires, the creative process, and the state of American culture. This work is collected for the first time in Why Write?, the tenth and final volume in the Library of America's definitive Philip Roth edition. Here is Roth's selection of the indispensable core of Reading Myself and Others, the entirety of the 2001 book Shop Talk, and "Explanations," a collection of fourteen later pieces brought together here for the first time, six never before published. Among the essays gathered are "My Uchronia," an account of the genesis of The Plot Against America, a novel grounded in the insight that "all the assurances are provisional, even here in a two-hundred-year-old democracy"; "Errata," the unabridged version of the "Open Letter to Wikipedia" published on The New Yorker's website in 2012 to counter the online encyclopedia's egregious errors about his life and work; and "The Ruthless Intimacy of Fiction," a speech delivered on the occasion of his eightieth birthday that celebrates the "refractory way of living" of Sabbath's Theater's Mickey Sabbath. Also included are two lengthy interviews given after Roth's retirement, which take stock of a lifetime of work."--Amazon.

How can you tell your Faulkner from your Franzen if you haven't actually read either? Schwartz expounds on the most important (aka white male) writers of western literature. From Shakespeare's greatest mystery to the true meaning of Kafkaesque, she tests your knowledge of which Jonathan-- Franzen, Lethem, or Safran Foer-- hates Twitter and lives in Brooklyn. So instead of politely nodding along next time you make an acquaintance at a housewarming party in Brooklyn, you can roll up your sleeves and get to work schooling them in character arcs and the experimental form of your next great American novel. -- adapted from back cover

This collection of essays, reviews, diary entries and letters from the late renowned writer includes his thoughts on Salman Rushdie, being spanked by Margaret Thatcher in The House of Lords, and taking his son to the Oscars.

A treasury of Yiddish literature features stories that represent Jewish traditions, culture, and history in a volume that includes works from the earliest literary periods through the present-day writings of I.B. Singer

MacKinlay Kantor's book for young readers captures all the emotions and drama of those few days in April 1865: Lee's mingled sorrow and relief, Grant's generosity toward his late opponent and the nearly starving Confederate soldiers; and the two commanders' negotiation of surrender terms intended to help heal the wounds of more than four years of the most violent conflict in American history.

For most people literary criticism is a mystery that often seems inaccessible, written for an in-group. Even worse, a Battle of the Books has broken out between neoconservatives and neoradicals-all the more reason to steer clear of the fray. Geoffrey Hartman argues that ignoring the culture wars would be unwise, for what is at stake is the nature of the arts we prize and our obligation to remain civil and avoid the apocalyptic tone of most political prophecy. Hartman's book is both a survey of the history of modern literary criticism and a strategic intervention. First he presents an account of the culture of criticism in the last one hundred years. He then widens the focus to provide a picture of the critical essay from 1700 to the present in order to show that a major change in style took place after 1950. Two chapters focus on F. R. Leavis and Paul de Man, central-and controversial-figures in academic criticism. Hartman attends to major developments on the continent and in Anglo-American circles that have disrupted the calm of what he calls the friendship or conversational style. On the one hand, critics and thinkers have pursued strange gods in order to enrich and sharpen their critical style. This change Hartman welcomes. On the other hand, along with a renewed interest in politics and historical speculation, a didactic and moralistic tone has again entered the scene. Hartman rejects this new moralism. The author is an eloquent defender of reading the text of criticism as carefully as the text of literature. He argues for a broader conception of critical style, one that would support the open and conversational voice of the public critic as well as the inventive and innovative practice of the technical critic. Hartman sets before us an ideal of literary criticism that can acknowledge theory yet does not shrink from a sustained, text-centered response. Minor Prophecies is a major book by one of our finest critics.

Over the last forty years, Aaron Lansky has jumped into dumpsters, rummaged around musty basements, and crawled through cramped attics. He did all of this in pursuit of a particular kind of treasure, and he's found plenty. Lansky's treasure was any book written in Yiddish, the language of generations of European Jews. When he started looking for Yiddish books, experts estimated there might be about 70,000 still in existence. Since then, the MacArthur Genius Grant recipient has collected close to 1.5 million books, and he's finding more every day.

Peter Dronke illuminates a unique literary tradition: the narrative that mixes prose with verse. Highlighting a wide range of texts, he defines and explores the creative ways in which mixed forms were used in Europe from antiquity through the thirteenth century. Verse with Prose distinguishes for the first time some of the most significant uses of mixed forms. Dronke looks at the way prose and verse elements function in satirical works, beginning in the third century B.C. with Menippus. He examines allegorical techniques in the mixed form, giving especially rewarding attention to Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. His lucid analysis encompasses a feast of medieval sagas and romances, ranging from Iceland to Italy, including vernacular works by Marguerite Porete in France and Mechthild in Germany. A number of the medieval Latin texts presented have remained virtually unknown, but emerge here as narratives with unusual and at times brilliant literary qualities. To enable not only specialists but all who love literature to respond to the works discussed, they are quoted in fresh translations, as well as in the originals.

"Black Bart was not the Old West's only stagecoach robber, but he was the most famous. To many people, he was a folk hero: a robber who didn't threaten or harm passengers. He was a bandit with a sense of humor who wrote poetry. In robbing at least 28 Wells Fargo stagecoaches across northern California between 1875 and 1883, he never fired a shot or injured anyone. His gun, it turned out, was never loaded. Newspaper stories about the poet robber's exploits and about Jim Hume, the unyielding chief detective of Wells Fargo, became popular reading throughout the West. Black Bart seemed to enjoy the chase. During one robbery the driver told him "They'll catch you one of these days." Bart answered, "Perhaps, but in the meantime give my regards to J. B. Hume, will you?" For eight years, each new robbery--and each new story--made Hume even more determined to track him down. Resources include a list of all Bart's robberies, notes, and bibliography, making this a rich resource for all Wild West readers."--Provided by publisher.

Who is the greatest living essayist writing in English? Unquestionably Joseph Epstein. Epstein is penetrating. He is witty. He has a magic touch with words, that hard to define but immediately recognizable quality called style. Above all, he is impossible to put down. How easy it is today to forget the simple delight of reading for no intended purpose. Each of the 39 pieces in this book is a pure pleasure to read

Hyam Maccoby's now classic study focuses on the major Jewish—Christian disputations of medieval Europe: those of Paris (1240), Barcelona (1263), and Tortosa (1413–14). It examines the content of these theological confrontations with a sense of present-day relevance, while also discussing the use made of scriptural proof-texts. Part I provides a general thematic consideration of the three disputations and their social and historical background. Part II is a complete translation of the account of the Barcelona Disputation written by Nahmanides, one of the greatest figures in the history of Jewish learning, and was Jewish spokesman at the disputation. Part III contains Jewish and Christian accounts of the Paris and Tortosa disputations.