In this rollicking romp through the bountiful world of words (Minneapolis Star), the bestselling author of Crazy English and More Anguished English takes readers on a logoleptic thrill ride through the beauties and perplexities of the language, spiking the text with irresistible mind scramblers.

A master film critic is at her witty, exhilarating, and opinionated best in this career-spanning collection featuring pieces on Bonnie and Clyde , The Godfather , and other modern movie classics “Film criticism is exciting just because there is no formula to apply,” Pauline Kael once observed, “just because you must use everything you are and everything you know.” Between 1968 and 1991, as regular film reviewer for The New Yorker , Kael used those formidable tools to shape the tastes of a generation. She had a gift for capturing, with force and fluency, the essence of an actor’s gesture or the full implication of a cinematic image. Kael called movies “the most total and encompassing art form we have,” and her reviews became a platform for considering both film and the worlds it engages, crafting in the process a prose style of extraordinary wit, precision, and improvisatory grace. Her ability to evoke the essence of a great artist—an Orson Welles or a Robert Altman—or to celebrate the way even seeming trash could tap deeply into our emotions was matched by her unwavering eye for the scams and self-deceptions of a corrupt movie industry. Here are her appraisals of era-defining films such as Breathless , Bonnie and Clyde , The Leopard , The Godfather , Last Tango in Paris , Nashville , along with many others, some awaiting rediscovery—all providing the occasion for masterpieces of observation and insight, alive on every page.

Etymologicum Magnum Romaniae Dictionarul Limbei Istorice si Poporane De B. Petriceicu-Hasdeu Pre-cuvintare Aveam in cuget de a da in fruntea tomului IV al Etimologicului o introducere de vreo trei-patru cole de tipar dupe mustra tomurilor trecute. O intelegere luata in sinul Academiei Romane, in sedintele din 27 si 29 martie 1897, pune capat lucrarii mele ingaduindu mi urmarea numai pina la anul 1898. Fata cu acesta urmare, adeca curmare din partea doctului corp, de vreme ce nu voiu mai pasi iainte, m'am hotarit de a ma executa pe mine insumi print un nec-plus-ultra dupa mesura mijlocelor mele. Iata de ce "Negru voda" este asa cum este. Este o datoria a mea de inima si de minte de a rosti aci o adanca, o nemarginita, o adeverata recunoscinta Maicslalii Salc Regelui, care singur m'a indemnat la munca si mi-a inlesnit'o astfel ca Intemeiatorului Regatului Romanilor i se inchina studiul meu despre Intemeiatorii Statului Terei-Romanesci. Si ispravind, mandur de cate am facut, facand ceea ce am voit eu a face, las Etimologicului un maret vesnic adio, mangaindu-me cu vorba Stapanului meu: "sint multe lacase." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Windham Press is committed to bringing the lost cultural heritage of ages past into the 21st century through high-quality reproductions of original, classic printed works at affordable prices. This book has been carefully crafted to utilize the original images of antique books rather than error-prone OCR text. This also preserves the work of the original typesetters of these classics, unknown craftsmen who laid out the text, often by hand, of each and every page you will read. Their subtle art involving judgment and interaction with the text is in many ways superior and more human than the mechanical methods utilized today, and gave each book a unique, hand-crafted feel in its text that connected the reader organically to the art of bindery and book-making. We think these benefits are worth the occasional imperfection resulting from the age of these books at the time of scanning, and their vintage feel provides a connection to the past that goes beyond the mere words of the text.