Not Quite The Classics

Download or read book Not Quite the Classics written by Colin Mochrie and published by Diversion Publishing Corp.. This book was released on 2013-07-12 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The improv star of Whose Line Is It Anyway? puts his “unique comic vision” to work on a range of literary classics (Toronto Star). Based on the improv game First Line, Last Line, actor and comedian Colin Mochrie puts his own spin on works of classic literature. Taking the first line and last line from classic books and poems, Colin recasts these familiar stories in his own trademark offbeat style. Join in the fun as a rainy day at home becomes a zombie-killing adventure in The Cat and My Dad . . . as well as riffs on everything from A Tale of Two Cities to a classic Sherlock Holmes novel, proving that no literary masterpiece is too big, or too small, for the improvisational comedy treatment. “Colin Mochrie is a comedic and creative force to be reckoned with. Therefore, this book is a literary force to be reckoned with. If you are too lazy for reckoning, just read this book and everything will work out nicely.” —Brad Sherwood “Colin Mochrie is devastatingly handsome, perilously smart, and smells like warm maple syrup. Step inside his hilarious and complex mind, and abandon all hope.” —Aisha Tyler

Download or read book What Makes This Book So Great written by Jo Walton and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A remarkable guided tour through the field—a kind of nonfiction companion to Among Others. It’s very good. It’s great.” —Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing As any reader of Jo Walton’s Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re-reader of books. In 2008, then-new science-fiction mega-site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re-reading—about all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com. Now this volumes presents a selection of the best of them, ranging from short essays to long reassessments of some of the field’s most ambitious series. Among Walton’s many subjects here are the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge; the question of what genre readers mean by “mainstream”; the underappreciated SF adventures of C. J. Cherryh; the field’s many approaches to time travel; the masterful science fiction of Samuel R. Delany; Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children; the early Hainish novels of Ursula K. Le Guin; and a Robert A. Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read. Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely readable, engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present-day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers. “For readers unschooled in the history of SF/F, this book is a treasure trove.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Download or read book Practical Classics written by Kevin Smokler and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do the great books of youth have to say about life now? Smokler's essays on the classics--witty, down-to-earth, appreciative, and insightful--are divided into 10 sections, each covering an archetypical stage of life, from youth and first love to family, loss, and the future.

Download or read book Not All Dead White Men written by Donna Zuckerberg and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Times Higher Education Book of the Week A virulent strain of antifeminism is thriving online that treats women’s empowerment as a mortal threat to men and to the integrity of Western civilization. Its proponents cite ancient Greek and Latin texts to support their claims—from Ovid’s Ars Amatoria to Seneca and Marcus Aurelius—arguing that they articulate a model of masculinity that sustained generations but is now under siege. Not All Dead White Men reveals that some of the most controversial and consequential debates about the legacy of the ancients are raging not in universities but online. “A chilling account of trolling, misogyny, racism, and bad history proliferated online by the Alt-Right... Zuckerberg makes a persuasive case for why we need a new, more critical, and less comfortable relationship between the ancient and modern worlds in this important and very timely book.” —Emily Wilson, translator of The Odyssey “Explores how ideas about Ancient Greece and Rome are used and misused by antifeminist thinkers today.” —Time “Zuckerberg presciently analyzes these communities’...embrace of stoicism as a self-help tool to gain confidence, jobs, and girlfriends. Their adoration of men like Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Ovid...is founded in a limited and distorted interpretation of ancient philosophy...lending heft and authority to sexism and abuse.” —The Nation “Traces the application—and misapplication—of classical authors and texts in online communities that see feminism as a threat.” —Bitch Media

Download or read book The Pearl written by John Steinbeck and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1994-10-01 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “There it lay, the great pearl, perfect as the moon.” Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the Kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then, on a day like any other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a sea gull's egg, as "perfect as the moon." With the pearl comes hope, the promise of comfort and of security.... A story of classic simplicity, based on a Mexican folk tale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man's nature, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Download or read book HarperCollins Treasury of Picture Book Classics written by Various and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2002-10-15 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From early, beloved classics such as Goodnight Moon and Harold and the Purple Crayon to such recent treasures as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and Pete's a Pizza, this collection assembles twelve of the greatest picture books ever published. Parents can share the joy of introducing young children to many timeless favorites that have already enchanted millions of readers. This volume offers a wonder-filled opportunity for preschoolers and families to own and share "the best of the best." All royalties for HarperCollins Treasury of Picture Book Classics: A Child's First Collection will be donated to First Book, a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their own new books. The primary goal of First Book is to work with existing literacy programs to distribute new books to children who, for economic reasons, have little or no access to books. In this way, First Book effectively leverages the heroic efforts of local tutoring, mentoring, and family literacy organizations as they work to reach children who need help the most. First Book distributes millions of books to hundreds of thousands of children nationwide each year. For more information on First Book, please visit www.firstbook.org.

Download or read book The Little Book of Perfumes written by Luca Turin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-10-27 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The quintessential guide to the one hundred most glorious perfumes in the world. When Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez published Perfumes: The Guide in 2008, it was hailed as "ravishingly entertaining" by John Lanchester in The New Yorker, "witty and knowledgeable" on Style.com, and "provocative and hugely entertaining" by the Times Literary Supplement. The Little Book of Perfumes focuses on just one hundred masterpieces of perfume: ninety-six five-star perfumes from the original book, as well as four "museum" perfumes-legendary scents that are preserved in the Versailles Osmothèque. This stunningly produced petite volume offers lovers of perfume the best of the best-a perfect gift book for anyone looking either for a brilliant fragrance or an intelligent, witty read.