Showing results by publisher "Phoenix BookS" in World Literature

Subtitled "512 boorish, insensitive, and socially obnoxious pointers for leading a simple, self-centered life," this little book is a hilarious parody of the best seller with a similar name. Here are just a few of the gems contained within. Number 24: Give little kids clothes for their birthdays. Number 101: Argue with everybody. Number 326: Leave the alarm on when he doesn't have to get up. This guide is bound to bring at least 512 laughs.

Connor McKnight, former acolyte of film, Zen, and Japanese literature, is not unaware that these avocations are wildly different from his present occupation as a fledgling celebrity journalist. Meanwhile, his longtime girlfriend, the fashion model Philomena, seems curiously remote and soon decamps for the West Coast. Then there's the sister with whom he shared a flamboyantly addled childhood and his best friend, a monkishly neurotic and militantly vegetarian writer.

In 1832, 18-year-old Frankie Silver was charged with murdering her young husband. In 1833, she became the first woman in the state of North Carolina to be hanged for murder. But was she guilty? More than 100 years later, Tennessee sheriff Spencer Arrowood is determined to reveal the truth behind this unanswered question. A spellbinding story that sweeps from the drawing rooms of early aristocracy to the ruins of a one-room cabin deep in the Appalachian wilderness, The Ballad of Frankie Silver flawlessly weaves past and present, truth and fiction, folklore and legend.

A masterful portrait of desire and betrayal that takes place during the sumptuous Gilded Age, The Age of Innocence questions the morals and assumptions of elite 1870s New York society when "scandal was more dreaded than disease." Newland Archer, gentleman lawyer and heir to one of New York City's best families, is happily anticipating a highly desirable marriage to the beautiful but conventional May Welland—until May's exotic European cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York society.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays and epigrams have influenced generations of writers and thinkers around the world. Emerson's ideologies combined the spiritual intuition of the East with the philosophical acumen of the West. In this compilation of his writings are passages on religion and spiritual philosophy, which reveal a metaphysical thought that is quintessentially American and universally relevant to the spiritual needs of today's world.

Amidst the upheaval of the French Revolution, former aristocrat Charles Darnay becomes wrongly tangled in unfortunate events, endangering his freedom and family. Sidney Carton, a cynical lawyer who squandered his life away, seeks to redress his unhappiness through Darnay's beautiful wife, Lucie. A work of historical fiction by one of the world's greatest writers, A Tale of Two Cities is a story about love, chaos, sacrifice, and redemption.

This award-winning anthology of poetry and prose takes a new look at being a woman - particularly an aging woman - in a society that prizes and glorifies youth. The works are by both younger writers looking forward in time and writers who have experienced the joys and challenges of growing older. This international best seller was put together by editor Sandra Martz who selected the collection's pieces from thousands of submitted manuscripts.

Perhaps the first great and truly "American" poet, Walt Whitman's writing reflected the idealism and turbulence of the mid-19th century. His poetry broke new stylistic ground with its unconventional meter and rhyme schemes, yet celebrated democratic values, the beauty of nature, and the complex variety and vitality of American life.

Henry Miller's gifts of profundity, humor, and spiritual sensitivity are well displayed in this collection of insights into the human character. The pieces range from the delightfully raucous to the metaphysically illuminating. The pieces range from the delightfully raucous to the metaphysically illuminating. Included here are mini-portraits of the renowned—Swiss astrologer Conrad Moricand, collage artist Jean Varda, Swiss-French novelist Blaise Cendrars, and American painter Beauford Delaney—as well as the anonymous figures who crossed Miller's path, including his first high school romance…

The Canterbury Tales & Paradise Lost are two epic works that have been entertaining—and sometimes exasperating—readers for centuries. In a series of lectures, literary scholar Elizabeth McNamer provides engaging insights into these two iconic works of British literature. Geoffrey Chaucer's merry charm and John Milton's high seriousness become relatable to modern minds when explored by Dr. McNamer. Chaucer's lively, lusty, and never boring Pilgrims have tales to tell that for six centuries have delighted the hearts of readers and listeners.

Fresh from solving the mystery of who killed Michael Collins in Irish Gold, Dermot Michael Coyne and Nuala Anne McGrail are reunited in Chicago. An accountant by day, Nuala sings in a local pub at night, while dreaming of making it big. Dermot compares Nuala to Irish lace-"thin and delicate and pretty, and just a little bit complicated."But their courtship in once again interrupted, this time by one of Nuala's "spells". Nuala is fey, as they say in the Old Country, and she occasionally has visions from the past.

Shipwrecked on an unknown island, Lemuel Gulliver finds himself not merely a fish out of water, but a very big fish in a small pond. He awakens to find himself tied to the ground by the natives of Lilliput—tiny people small enough to fit in his pocket and play hide and seek in his hair!

In short stories, poems, and monumental novels, James Joyce set out to discover the meaning of his nationality, simultaneously celebrating and ridiculing the history of Ireland in the brilliant style that has made him the most towering figure in the literary landscape of the early 20th century. In this audio, Dublin-born Gabriel Byrne brings to life Joyce's short stories from Dubliners, as well as selections from the brilliant A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and the dream-like Chamber Music.