""Any story that starts will also end." As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores "what it means to be seen, to find someone...

"Blending personal reminiscence with folklore from around the world, historical legends, and memorable moments from literature--erotic and otherwise--Allende spices her narrative with equal portions of humor and insight ... A personal ode to the pleasures of food and sex, Aphrodite celebrates the sensual life with joy and imagination."--Jacket. The final third of the book offers recipes for sauces, hors d'oeuvres, soups, appetizers, main courses,...

Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory. This has been the traditional view for centuries. However, recent work is now challenging whether Aristotle focuses on literary theory per se (given that not one poem exists in the treatise) or whether he focuses instead on dramatic musical theory that only has language as one of the elements.

This version of Nature is an 1843 revision to the popular essay written and published in 1836. In the original essay, Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism, and suggested that reality can be understood by studying nature. Within the essay, Emerson divides nature into four usages: Commodity, Beauty, Language and Discipline. These distinctions define how humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication...

"When Silvia and her mother finally land in a place called Island City, after being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-too-distant future, they end up living and working at The Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower where Silvia's aunt, Ena, has been serving as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about the family's past. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to...

Tales of Europe, before and after the war, when lives could change in an instant Fleeing the Cuban revolution, a businessman's return to England is blocked by the secret police of General Franco. In Hungary, a peasant treasures a barrel of wine as a symbol of the world she lost during the war. At a Romanian ball, in the frenzied years that followed the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a British traveler finds himself challenged to a duel....

The promise of escape draws people from all backgrounds to speculative fiction, but when people of color seek passageways into the fantastic the doors are often barred. This problem lies not only with children's publishing, but also with the television and film executives tasked with adapting these stories into a visual world. When characters of color do appear, they are often marginalized or subjected to violence, reinforcing for audiences that not...

Dedications, Titles, Epigraphs, Footnotes, Prefaces, Afterwords, Indexes... These and other "invisible" literary necessities form the skeletons of many a book, yet these unacknowledged and unexamined forms abound in wisdom, curiosities, or eccentricities. With both erudition and wit, and drawing on examples from every part of literature's history, ranging from the greats such as Shakespeare, Beckett, and T. S. Eliot to lesser known writers such...