Collection: Adult

In The Gateless Gate, one of modern Zen Buddhism's uniquely influential masters offers classic commentaries on the Mumonkan, one of Zen's greatest collections of teaching stories. This translation was compiled with the Western reader in mind, and includes Koan Yamada's clear and penetrating comments on each case. Yamada played a seminal role in bringing Zen Buddhism to the West from Japan, going on to be the head of the Sanbo Kyodan Zen Community.

The Gateless Gate would be invaluable if only for the translation and commentary alone, yet it's loaded with extra material and is a fantastic resource to keep close by:

• An in-depth Introduction to the History of Zen Practice
• Lineage charts
• Japanese-to-Chinese and Chinese-to-Japanese conversion charts for personal names, place names, and names of writings
• Plus front- and back-matter from ancient and modern figures: Mumon, Shuan, Kubota Ji'un, Taizan Maezumi, Hugo Enomiya-Lasalle, and Yamada Roshi's son, Masamichi Yamada.

A wonderful inspiration for the koan practitioner, and for those with a general interest in Zen Buddhism.

This Norton Critical Edition presents the first scrupulously edited text of the novel, collating all manuscript, typescript, and variant printed versions in Ford's lifetime.

Everything necessary for careful study of the novel is here: comprehensive annotation, material on manuscript development and textual variants, a detailed "Note on the Text", and relevant illustrations. Together, these materials present readers with both a freshly edited text and the opportunity to reconstruct alternative readings.

"Contemporary Reviews" includes fifteen important assessments of the work, all of which appeared within four months of the novel's publication.

"Literary Impressionism" collects eight critiques on the technique, including three by Ford and related writings by Henry James and Joseph Conrad, among others.

"Biographical and Critical Commentary" collects seventeen differing assessments of The Good Soldier. Richard Aldington, Samuel Hynes, John A. Meixner, Frank Kermode, Carol Jacobs, Thomas C. Moser, Ann Barr Snitow, Vincent J. Cheng, and Paul B. Armstrong are among the contributors.

A Selected Bibliography is also included.

This edition of A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe is given by Ashed Phoenix - Million Book Edition

In 1790, America was in enormous debt, having depleted what little money and supplies the country had during its victorious fight for independence. Before the nation's greatest asset, the land west of the Ohio River, could be sold it had to be measured out and mapped. And before that could be done, a uniform set of measurements had to be chosen for the new republic out of the morass of roughly 100,000 different units that were in use in daily life.

Measuring America tells the fascinating story of how we ultimately gained the American Customary System--the last traditional system in the world--and how one man's surveying chain indelibly imprinted its dimensions on the land, on cities, and on our culture from coast to coast.

The Duel is one of Chekhov's longest works, skirting the edge between novel and novella. Like many of Chekhov's works, it was first published as a serial. Laevsky is a womanizing drunkard, a slave to life's vices. His wantonness clashes with the moralistic zoologist Von Koren, who grows to despise Laevsky. Their mutual enmity culminates in a duel-though neither they, nor their friends, really want it to happen.

"Like swordplay itself, By the Sword is elegant, accurate, romantic, and full of brio--the definitive study, hugely readable, of man's most deadly art."--Simon Winchester

With a new Preface by the author

Napoleon fenced. So did Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Grace Kelly, and President Truman, who as a schoolboy would practice fencing with Bess--his future wife-- when the two of them returned home from school. Lincoln was a canny dueler. Ignatius Loyola challenged a man to a duel for denying Christ's divinity (and won). Less successful, but no less enthusiastic, was Mussolini, who would tell his wife he was "off to get spaghetti," their code to avoid alarming the children. By the Sword is an epic history of sword fighting--a science, an art, and, for many, a religion that began at the dawn of civilization in ancient Egypt and has been an obsession for mankind ever since. With wit and insight, Richard Cohen gives us an engrossing history of the world via the sword.

Praise for By the Sword

"Touché! While scrupulous and informed about its subject, Richard Cohen's book is about more than swordplay. It reads at times like an alternative social history of the West."--Sebastian Faulks

"In writing By the Sword, [Cohen] has shown that he is as skilled with the pen as he is with the sword."--The New York Times

"Irresistible . . . extraordinary . . . vivid and hugely enjoyable."--The Economist

"A virtual encyclopedia on the subject of sword fighting."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Literate, learned, and, beg pardon, razor-sharp . . . a pleasure for practitioners, and a rewarding entertainment for the armchair swashbuckler."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Acclaimed author Margaret Atwood's definitive look at the role of the writer.

What is the role of the writer? Prophet? High Priest of Art? Court Jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and the development of her writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors that writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain -- or excuse -- their activities, looking at what roles they have chosen to play.

Margaret Atwood's wide and eclectic reference to other writers, living and dead, is balanced by personal anecdotes from her own experiences as a writer. The lightness of her touch is offset by a seriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing, and by a deep familiarity with the myths and traditions of western literature.

'The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses' is a historical examination of the importance of these two ancient texts. Davies gives us an insightful look at ancient history in his 'The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses' and shows us why these two ancient writings should be considered together as important historical artifacts.

Anatural evolution from the earlier, much-acclaimed collection In Love
& Trouble, these fourteen provocative and often humorous stories show
women oppressed but not defeated.These are hopeful stories about love,
lust, fame, and cultural thievery, the delight of new lovers, and the
rediscovery of old friends, affirmed even across self-imposed color lines.

How did an unschooled career politician named Abraham Lincoln, from the raw frontier villages of early-nineteenth-century Illinois, become one of the most revered of our national icons? This is the question that William Lee Miller explores and answers, in fascinating detail, in "Lincoln's Virtues."
Lincoln, Miller says, was a great man who was also a good man. It is the central thrust of this "ethical biography" to reveal how he became both, to trace his moral and intellectual development in the context of his times and in confrontation with the leading issues of the day--most notably, of course, that of slavery.
Following the rough chronology of Lincoln's life up to the crucial decisions in the winter of secession, the narrative portrays his conscious shaping of himself as a writer, speaker, moral agent, politician, and statesman. Miller shows us a man who educated himself through reading, had a mind inclined to plow down to first principles and hold to them, and combined clarity of thought with firmness of will and power of expression, a man whose conduct rose to a higher moral standard the higher his office and the greater his power. The author takes us into the pivotal moments of "moral escalation" in Lincoln's political life, allowing us to see him come gradually to the point at which he was compelled to say, "Hold fast with a chain of steel." Miller makes clear throughout that Lincoln never left behind or "rose above" the role of "politician," but rather fulfilled the highest possibilities of this peculiarly honorable democratic vocation.
"Lincoln's Virtues" approaches this much-written-about figure from a wholly new standpoint. As a biography uniquely revealing of its subject's heart and mind, it represents a major contribution to the current and perennial American discussion of national moral conduct, and of the relationship between politics and morality.

This is the Spanish edition of the world's best-selling art therapy book for grieving children. This book was designed to teach basic concepts of death and help children understand and express the many feelings they have when someone dies.

The history of the Confederate submarine "H. L. Hunley" is as astonishing as its disappearance. On February 17, 1864, after a legendary encounter with a Union battleship, the iron "fish boat" vanished without a trace somewhere off the coast of South Carolina. For more than a century the fate of the "Hunley" remained one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Civil War. Then, on August 8, 2000, with thousands of spectators crowding Charleston Harbor, the "Hunley" was raised from the bottom of the sea and towed ashore. Now, award-winning journalists Brian Hicks and Schuyler Kropf offer new insights into the "Hunley"'s final hours and recount the amazing true story of its rescue.
The brainchild of wealthy New Orleans planter and lawyer Horace Lawson Hunley, the "Hunley" inspired tremendous hopes of breaking the Union's naval blockade of Charleston, only to drown two crews on disastrous test runs. But on the night of February 17, 1864, the "Hunley" finally made good on its promise. Under the command of the heroic Lieutenant George E. Dixon, the sub rammed a spar torpedo into the Union sloop "Housatonic" and sank the ship within minutes, accomplishing a feat of stealth technology that would not be repeated for half a century.
And then, shortly after its stunning success, the "Hunley" vanished.
This book is an extraordinary true story peopled with a fascinating cast of characters, including Horace Hunley himself, the Union officers and crew who went down with the "Housatonic," P. T. Barnum, who offered $100,000 for its recovery, and novelist Clive Cussler, who spearheaded the mission that finally succeeded in finding the "Hunley." The drama of salvaging the sub is only the prelude to a page-turning account of how scientists unsealed this archaeological treasure chest and discovered the inner-workings of a submarine more technologically advanced than anyone expected, as well as numerous, priceless artifacts.
Hicks and Kropf have crafted a spellbinding adventure story that spans over a century of American history. Dramatically told, filled with historical details and contemporary color, illustrated with breathtaking original photographs, "Raising the Hunley "is one of the most fascinating Civil War books to appear in years.