Sue and Johnsy are two girlfriends who live together in New York City. When Johnsy becomes sick one winter, she makes up her mind to die when the last leaf falls from the ivy plant growing outside her…
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a…
One of the earliest great stories of English literature after Beowulf, Sir Gawain is the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse, who rudely interrupts King Arthur's Round Table festivities on…
The sixties and seventies witnessed the emergence of Joyce Carol Oates as one of America's foremost writers of the short story. In 1962, 'The Fine White Mist of Winter, ' composed when the author was …
What is an individual's responsibility to nature? Does our desire to understand the world give us the right to dominate plant and animal life? Should human relationships take precedence over relations…
From beloved, award-winning poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil comes a debut work of nonfiction--a collection of essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us.…
Remember—words are your weapons, they’re your tools, your currency: a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of truth and power from a "powerful new voice in British Literature” (The Sunday Times)…
A beautiful, arresting short story by Toni Morrison—the only one she ever wrote—about race and the relationships that shape us through life, with an introduction by Zadie Smith.
Maya Angelou's poetry - lyrical and dramatic, exuberant and playful - speaks of love, longing, partings; of Saturday night partying, and the smells and sounds of Southern cities; of freedom and shatte…
