Showing titles in Themes & Styles

In Paradise Lost, Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the fall of man....

Jodie and Bethan are about as different as two young women can be, but growing up they develop a strong bond of friendship in the quiet town of Harmony, North Carolina. As the world plunges into war, though, their friendship is tested by a devastating loss.

Five works in one collection. This audiobook of his treasured poetry collection walks you through a time when the American Experiment came to a new maturity; when the Transcendentalist Movement forever changed life and poetry.

Performance poet Sabrina Benaim presents Depression & Other Magic Tricks, a collection of poems that explores themes of mental health, love, and family. It is a documentation of struggle and triumph, a celebration of daily life and of living.

What matters most in life? For Alexander McCall Smith, it is friendship, love, and travel—the themes found throughout his work that have made him a cherished writer the world over. This first collection of McCall Smith’s poems reflects on these topics with all his characteristic wit and charm.

This collection of aphorisms, poems and parables has been described as the reflections of a philosopher watching from his window and commenting on the scenes passing before him.

In her second poetry collection, Barbara Kingsolver offers reflections on the practical, the spiritual, and the wild. She begins with "how to" poems addressing everyday matters such as being hopeful, married, divorced; shearing a sheep; praying to unreliable gods; doing nothing at all; and of course, flying. Next come rafts of poems about making peace (or not) with the complicated bonds of friendship and family, and making peace (or not) with death, in the many ways it finds us.

Wild Embers explores the fire that lies within every soul, weaving words around ideas of feeling at home in your own skin, allowing yourself to heal, and learning to embrace your uniqueness with love from the universe. Featuring rewritten fairy-tale heroines, goddess wisdom, and poetry that burns with revolution, this collection is an explosion of femininity, empowerment, and personal growth.

The Old English epic poem Beowulf, recorded in its original Saxon dialect for the first time. Performed by Icelandic poet, playwright, professional storyteller and performer Svanur Thorkelsson, Audible’s production gives listeners the opportunity to experience how it might have felt to hear bards recite sections of the 3000-line poem from memory in Anglo Saxon dining halls. Audible’s Beowulf recaptures the heroic style and vast scale of what can be considered ‘England’s first native audiobook’.

From Finnish saunas and soppy otters to grief, grandparents and Kellogg's anti-masturbation pants, Slug is a book which holds a mirror lovingly up to the world, past and present, through Hollie's driving, funny, hopeful poetry and prose. Slug is about the human condition: of birth and death and how we manage the possibilities in between.

The Song of Roland is acknowledged today as the first masterpiece of French vernacular literature and one of the world’s greatest epic poems. Written down around the year 1090, The Song of Roland finely crafted verses tell of the betrayal and defeat of Charlemagne’s beloved nephew at the Pass of Roncevaux in the Pyrenees and of the revenge subsequently sought on his behalf.

Featuring a delightful cast of characters and timeless Buddhist wisdom, and with His Holiness' compassion pervading every chapter, The Dalai Lama's Cat is simply enchanting. Not so much fly-on-the-wall as cat-on-the-sill, this is the warmhearted tale of a small kitten rescued from the slums of New Delhi who finds herself in a beautiful sanctuary with sweeping views of the snowcapped Himalayas.

As you walk with David, the main character, he shares how he is feeling victimized by life. Through serendipity he meets some wise guides, Ted and Sophia, who show David how he can move from feeling like a victim to being a creator of his own life. The Power of TED* offers a powerful alternative to the Karpman Drama Triangle with its roles of victim, persecutor, and rescuer. The Empowerment Dynamic (TED) provides the antidote roles of creator, challenger, and coach - and a more positive approach to life's challenges.

"Thank goodness you're such a plain child. You'll have to rely on your wits." So went the words of Grandma Bebe. And for all of my growing-up years, I scoffed at the beauty of my sister and what I saw as her meaningless existence. But my wits hadn't served me well in this instance, for here I was, in jail. And while I could have seen it as carrying on the family tradition (Grandma Bebe landed in jail for her support of Prohibition), the truth is, my reasons for being here would probably break her heart."

This collection of masterful reinterpretations brilliantly demystifies and breathes new life into Shakespeare's work, demonstrating the continued resonance of a playwright whose popularity remains more than 400 years after his death. Now, the passion, heartbreak, deception, reconciliation, and mortality of Shakespeare’s originals can be understood by all, without the need to cross-reference to an enjoyment-sapping study guide.

Under the order of King Pelias, Jason embarks on a perilous journey to steal the Golden Fleece from the Land of Colchis. Far from heroic, Jason is the typical everyman. Often compared with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Jason and the Argonauts is the only surviving poem from the Hellenistic period and was hugely influential on later literature, especially the Roman poetry of Virgil and Ovid.

Encuentra una pareja que te acepte como eres, pero que también te inspire a evolucionar porque se toma en serio su propio crecimiento. El amor no buscará cambiarte, te aceptará de forma tan incondicional que te sentirás en confianza para sanar lo viejo y esforzarte en lo nuevo. La valentía de ambos para mantener el compromiso de su viaje interior se reflejará de forma brillante en su relación.

Charles Bukowski examines cats and his childhood in You Get So Alone at Times, a book of poetry that reveals his tender side. The iconic tortured artist/everyman delves into his youth to analyze its repercussions.

Delving into the nature of humanity, love, mortality, society, knowledge and the human condition, the incredible poetry collection The Prophet has transcended the ages to resonate in the hearts of people to this day. An inspiring assortment of 28 chapters concerning everything from family and passion to freedom, morality and death, writer and poet Kahlil Gibran takes us on a journey into the fundamental tenants of what it is to be human, offering profound reflections and philosophical musings which challenge and define our beliefs, society, and our very nature.

You Better Be Lightning ranges from close examination of the deeply personal to the vastness of the world, exploring the expansiveness of the human experience from love to illness, from space to climate change, and so much more in between.