Other books that might interest you

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  Diary of an Old Soul

  George MacDonald

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  George MacDonald, a Scottish pastor, wrote these short poems, one for each day of the year, to help him with the severer misfortune he was experiencing. The poems are filled with hope and promises of Christ, yet, he also writes about his doubts. These poems are wonderful to listen to for people of any religion. (Summary by Alisson Veldhuis)

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  Shakespeare's Philosophy -...

  Colin McGinn

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  Shakespeare’s plays are usually studied by literary scholars and historians and the books about him from those perspectives are legion. It is most unusual for a trained philosopher to give us his insight, as Colin McGinn does here, into six of Shakespeare’s greatest plays–A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, and The Tempest.  In his brilliant commentary, McGinn explores Shakespeare’s philosophy of life and illustrates how he was influenced, for example, by the essays of Montaigne that were translated into English while Shakespeare was writing. In addition to chapters on the great plays, there are also essays on Shakespeare and gender and his plays from the aspects of psychology, ethics, and tragedy.As McGinn says about Shakespeare, “There is not a sentimental bone in his body. He has the curiosity of a scientist, the judgment of a philosopher, and the soul of a poet.” McGinn relates the ideas in the plays to the later philosophers such as David Hume and the modern commentaries of critics such as Harold Bloom. The book is an exhilarating reading experience, especially for students who are discovering the greatest writer in English.

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  Bewilderment - New Poems and...

  David Ferry

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  Winner of the National Book Award for Poetry. “This is one of the great books of poetry of this young century.”—Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker   To read David Ferry’s Bewilderment is to be reminded that poetry of the highest order can be made by the subtlest of means. The passionate nature and originality of Ferry’s prosodic daring works astonishing transformations that take your breath away. In poem after poem, his diction modulates beautifully between plainspoken high eloquence and colloquial vigor, making his distinctive speech one of the most interesting and ravishing achievements of the past half century.   Most poets write inside a very narrow range of experience and feeling, whether in free or metered verse. But Ferry’s use of meter tends to enhance the colloquial nature of his writing, while giving him access to an immense variety of feeling. Sometimes that feeling is so powerful it’s like witnessing a volcanologist taking measurements in the midst of an eruption.      Ferry’s translations, meanwhile, are amazingly acclimated English poems. Once his voice takes hold of them they are as bred in the bone as all his other work. And the translations in this book are vitally related to the original poems around them.   “These poems highlight an age-old quest for truth that leads the speaker to consider his present and past, and to translate works by Horace, Virgil, Catullus and others . . . vivid and sometimes heartbreaking.”—The Washington Post “Astonishing—a haunted book where ghosts prove that the haunted are still alive and allow for the continuing company of literature.”—Slate   “A necessary book . . . shocking and heartbreaking.”—The Rumpus

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  As the Sky Begins to Change

  Kim Stafford

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  In his third poetry collection from Red Hen Press, Kim Stafford gathers poems that sing with empathy, humor, witness, and story. Poems in this book have been set to music, quoted in the New York Times, posted online in the Academy of American Poets poem-a-day series, gathered in a chapbook sold to benefit Ukrainian refugees, posted online in response to Supreme Court decisions, composed for a painter’s gallery opening, and in other ways engaged a world at war with itself, testifying for the human project hungry for kinship, exiled from bounty, and otherwise thirsting for the oxygen of healing song.

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  15 Minutes Of Love Poems -...

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning,...

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  Love. What is love? 
   
  The question is asked by each of us but the answer remains elusive. 
   
  Dictionaries summon up many words but none fulfill. Love itself is often ethereal, felt but only seen in a glance, a look, a fleeting touch. Part of Love’s beauty is perhaps in the fact that the question never can be adequately answered; its ephemeral, a chimera of the heart and only felt. 
   
  Our own experiences are unique and personal to ourselves and of little help defining it for another. 
   
  Love is perhaps best expressed through poetry. As Plato said 2500 years ago “At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet”. Writing a love poem for ones’ partner is seen as the most romantic of gestures. It opens our hearts to another's. Lovers love. 
   
  Here, in this volume history’s greatest poets convey thoughts, feelings and sentiments of love to you in quick (or bite-size) conversations of verse that can slip into your day and your partner's heart. 
   
  01 - Fifteen Minutes of Love - Volume 1 - How Do I Love Thee & Other Poems 
  02 - How Do I Love Thee by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 
  03 - First Love by John Clare 
  04 - Go Lovely Rose by Edmund Waller 
  05 - An April Love by Alfred Austin 
  06 - The Sad Shepherd's Passion of Love by George Peele 
  07 - To His Coy Love by Michael Drayton 
  08 - Modern Love I by George Meredith 
  09 - Unbosoming by Michael Field aka Katherine Bradley & Edith Cooper 
  10 - Unending Love by Tagore 
  11 - To The Beloved by Alice Meynell 
  12 - When You Are Old by W B Yeats 
  13 - Sweet Evenings Come And Go Love by George Eliot

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  The Collector (NHB Modern Plays)

  Henry Naylor

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  2003. Mazrat Prison, Iraq. Previously one of Saddam's most notorious torture houses, where more than 10,000 people died, it is now under Allied command.
  Nassir works here, translating for the American interrogators. He's local, pro-Western, determined to bring liberal values to his country and is about to get married to Zoya, his sweetheart. But when he is recognised by Faisal, new prisoner and psychotic supporter of the old regime, his life becomes a living hell.
  Born out of Henry Naylor's own experiences of a visit to Bagram Airbase in 2003, The Collector is a compelling tale of murder, evil and betrayal set in occupied Iraq, part of the Arabian Nightmares trilogy. One of the most highly-acclaimed shows at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival, it won a Scotsman Fringe First Award, which was followed by a sold-out run at the Arcola Theatre.
  'tells the tragedy of a part of recent history we would rather leave behind but have to hear – an Arabian nightmare that is gripping to the last moment' - A Younger Theatre
  'Outstanding new writing… first class' - Scotsman

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