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 (4.5 / 5.0) <P><I>How to Read a Book, originally published in 1940, has become a rare phenomenon, a living classic. It is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader. And now it has been completely rewritten and updated. <P> You are told about the various levels of reading and how to achieve them -- from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading, you learn how to pigeonhole a book, X-ray it, extract the author's message, criticize. You are taught the different reading techniques for reading practical books, imaginative literature, plays, poetry, history, science and mathematics, philosophy and social science. <P> Finally, the authors offer a recommended reading list and supply reading tests whereby you can measure your own progress in reading skills, comprehension and speed.
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$9.47 |
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(4.5 / 5.0) The culmination of a lifetime of scholarship, The Annotated Alice is a landmark event in the rich history of Lewis Carroll and cause to celebrate the remarkable career of Martin Gardner. For over half a century, Martin Gardner has established himself as one of the world's leading authorities on Lewis Carroll. His Annotated Alice, first published in 1960, has over half a million copies in print around the world and is highly sought after by families and scholars alike--for it was Gardner who first decoded the wordplay and the many mathematical riddles that lie embedded in Carroll's two classic stories: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Forty years after this groundbreaking publication, Norton is proud to publish the Definitive Edition of The Annotated Alice, a work that combines the notes of Gardner's 1960 edition with his 1990 update, More Annotated Alice, as well as additional new discoveries and updates drawn from Gardner's encyclopedic knowledge of the texts. Illustrated with John Tenniel's classic and beloved art--along with many recently discovered Tenniel pencil sketches--The Annotated Alice will be Gardner's most beautiful and enduring tribute to Carroll's masterpieces yet. Celebrating his eighty-fifth birthday in the fall of 1999, the redoubtable Gardner has been called by Douglas Hofstadter "one of the great intellects produced in this country in this century." With The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, we have this remarkable scholar's crowning achievement.
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$19.77 |
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 (3.5 / 5.0) This is a fresh, new edition of one of the most widely-respected sources for introducing future teachers to the wealth of literature available to children. The sixth edition is replete with expanded coverage of key topics, numerous new features, and an enhanced focus on multicultural literature. Its unique two-part genre chapters—one part content, one part methods—once again provide everything instructors need in order to teach the core concepts and knowledge of children's literature content supported by methods to teach it. This book covers what constitutes good use of literature in the classroom and offers readers access to additional material on children's literature and teaching about literature. It covers what to look for in good literature and how to identify the best among what's available. For professionals in the field of teaching or anyone interested in children's literature.
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$101.99 |
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(3.5 / 5.0) America is a nation making itself up as it goes along—a story of discovery and invention unfolding in speeches and images, letters and poetry, unprecedented feats of scholarship and imagination. In these myriad, multiform, endlessly changing expressions of the American experience, the authors and editors of this volume find a new American history. In more than two hundred original essays, A New Literary History of America brings together the nation’s many voices. From the first conception of a New World in the sixteenth century to the latest re-envisioning of that world in cartoons, television, science fiction, and hip hop, the book gives us a new, kaleidoscopic view of what “Made in America” means. Literature, music, film, art, history, science, philosophy, political rhetoric—cultural creations of every kind appear in relation to each other, and to the time and place that give them shape. The meeting of minds is extraordinary as T. J. Clark writes on Jackson Pollock, Paul Muldoon on Carl Sandburg, Camille Paglia on Tennessee Williams, Sarah Vowell on Grant Wood’s <i>American Gothic, Walter Mosley on hard-boiled detective fiction, Jonathan Lethem on Thomas Edison, Gerald Early on Tarzan, Bharati Mukherjee on <i>The Scarlet Letter, Gish Jen on <i>Catcher in the Rye, and Ishmael Reed on Huckleberry Finn. From Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop to Philip Roth and Toni Morrison, from Alexander Graham Bell and Stephen Foster to Alcoholics Anonymous, Life, Chuck Berry, Alfred Hitchcock, and Ronald Reagan, this is America singing, celebrating itself, and becoming something altogether different, plural, singular, new. <p> Please visit www.newliteraryhistory.com for more information. (20090926)
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 (4.0 / 5.0) What does it mean when a fictional hero takes a journey?. Shares a meal? Gets drenched in a sudden rain shower? Often, there is much more going on in a novel or poem than is readily visible on the surface -- a symbol, maybe, that remains elusive, or an unexpected twist on a character -- and there's that sneaking suspicion that the deeper meaning of a literary text keeps escaping you. In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths, and to discover a world where a road leads to a quest; a shared meal may signify a communion; and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just rain. Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form, <i>How to Read Literature Like a Professor is the perfect companion for making your reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.
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$6.50 |
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Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.)(4.0 / 5.0) Long before there were creative-writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose. In Reading Like a Writer, Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters. She reads the work of the very best writers—Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, Chekhov—and discovers why their work has endured. She takes pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's Middlemarch. She looks to John Le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue, to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail, and to James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield for clever examples of how to employ gesture to create character. She cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which literature is crafted. Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, <i>Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.
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$7.48 |
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(4.0 / 5.0) "John Gardner was famous for his generosity to young writers, and (this book) is his . . . gift to them. The Art of Fiction will fascinate anyone interested in how fiction gets put together. For the young writer, it will become a necessary handbook, a stern judge, an encouraging friend."--The New York Times Book Review.
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$7.51 |
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(4.0 / 5.0) For so many of us a Jane Austen novel is much more than the epitome of a great read. It is a delight and a solace, a challenge and a reward, and perhaps even an obsession. For two centuries Austen has enthralled readers. Few other authors can claim as many fans or as much devotion. So why are we so fascinated with her novels? What is it about her prose that has made Jane Austen so universally beloved?
In essays culled from the last one hundred years of criticism juxtaposed with new pieces by some of today’s most popular novelists and essayists, Jane Austen’s writing is examined and discussed, from her witty dialogue to the arc and sweep of her story lines. Great authors and literary critics of the past offer insights into the timelessness of her moral truths while highlighting the unique confines of the society in which she composed her novels. Virginia Woolf examines Austen’s maturation as an artist and speculates on how her writing would have changed if she’d lived twenty more years, while C. S. Lewis celebrates Austen’s mirthful, ironic take on traditional values. Modern voices celebrate Austen’s amazing legacy with an equal amount of eloquence and enthusiasm. Fay Weldon reads Mansfield Park as an interpretation of Austen’s own struggle to be as “good” as Fanny Price. Anna Quindlen examines the enduring issues of social pressure and gender politics that make <i>Pride and Prejudice as vital today as ever. Alain de Botton praises Mansfield Park for the way it turns Austen’s societal hierarchy on its head. Amy Bloom finds parallels between the world of <i>Persuasion and Austen’s own life. And Amy Heckerling reveals how she transformed the characters of Emma into denizens of 1990s Beverly Hills for her comedy Clueless. From Harold Bloom to Martin Amis, Somerset Maugham to Jay McInerney, Eudora Welty to Margot Livesey, each writer here reflects on Austen’s place in both the literary canon and our cultural imagination.<br><br>We read, and then reread, our favorite Austen novels to connect with both her world and our own. Because, as <b>A Truth Universally Acknowledged so eloquently demonstrates, the only thing better than reading a Jane Austen novel is finding in our own lives her humor, emotion, and love.
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$13.50 |
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(4.5 / 5.0) The definitive reference for reading and literacy from kindergarten through college
This comprehensive fifth edition of a bestselling classic offers an unparalleled source of timely, practical information on all aspects of reading instruction. Ready for immediate use, it offers over 190 up-to-date lists for developing instructional materials and lesson planning. The book is organized into 15 convenient sections full of practical examples, key words, teaching ideas, and activities that can be used as is or adapted to meet students’ diverse needs. New topical areas include: ideas for non-narrative reading; word walls; graphic organizer and concept development software; new literacies, such as ’zines, Internet terms, emoticons, e-mail, and chat; as well as weekly writing prompts. Edward Bernard Fry, PhD (Laguna Beach, CA), is Professor Emeritus of Education at Rutgers University and internationally renowned inventor of his eponymous Readability Graph. Jacqueline E. Kress, EdD (Elizabeth, NJ), is Dean of Education at New York Institute of Technology.
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$18.29 |
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(4.0 / 5.0) Rich in world history and political power, veiled in secrecy, and rife with rituals and arcane symbols -- from art and architecture to the images that adorn our currency -- the Freemasons arose from ambiguous origins centuries ago to play a major role in drafting the initial documents of the United States, and even in constructing the intricate landscape of Washington, D.C., itself a virtual mystery by design. These puzzles lay the foundation for Dan Brown's serpentine thriller, The Lost Symbol, and also raise provocative questions. Why do some Masonic symbols remain obscured, while others are hidden in plain sight? Which presidents were the embodiments of Masonic ideals? What is the significance of the construction of the Library of Congress, Washington National Cathedral, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, and the physical layout of Washington, D.C.'s roadways and cul-de-sacs? And to what secretive end do they all lead?
Now millions of curious fans can follow Robert Langdon step-by-step, and discover for themselves the answers to the absorbing conundrums posed by <I>The Lost Symbol in this comprehensive, fully illustrated, and intricately detailed tour of the arcana of Washington, D.C. It takes readers through the enigmatic codes, captivating trivia, unfathomable riddles, intriguing records, historic maps, ciphers, and conspiracies of the phenomenal bestseller. What's more, it reveals the fascinating details of a world of unknown locales, mysticism, intrigue, and secret societies -- all of which lie in the shadow of The Lost Symbol.
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$10.79 |