my reading list
Life Application Study Bible (NIV)
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Writing Poems by Michelle Boisseau, Robert Wallace, Randall Mann.
Synopsis
The gold standard of poetry writing books, Writing Poems, 7/e is a comprehensive, easy-to-use guide that will help aspiring poets to create meaningful works.
From the Back Cover
The fact that you’re holding this book in your hands means that you have an interest in reading and writing poetry. The authors, themselves published poets, eagerly share their knowledge and love of poetry in this revision of Writing Poems, which introduces you to poetry’s traditions and teaches you the essentials for developing your craft.
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Book Description
WINNER OF THE 2004 T S ELIOT POETRY PRIZE
George Szirtes came to England as an eight-year-old refugee after the Hungarian uprising. His two Bloodaxe selections The Budapest File and An English Apocalypse bring together his poems on Hungarian and English themes. In his new collection, Reel, the exile’s obsessive quest for the nature of humane truth is the focus of poems of visionary sweep which pan out across a life. Memory is film in Reel: a film-crew shoot Budapest for Berlin; faces float like light on the sea; names appear and disappear on a search engine. George Szirtes reconstructs childhood from a confusion of memories, photographs and stories in which men and women change places and fathers multiply. There are sequences on love, desire and illusion, poems about political loyalties, and poems that form ghost texts shadowing other writers.
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The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had by SW Bauer
Product Description
This book is a wonderful resource for anyone wishing to explore and develop the mind’s capacity to read and comprehend the greatest works in fiction, autobiography, history, poetry, and drama. It offers brief, entertaining histories of the five literary genres, accompanied by detailed instructions on how to read each type.
About the Author
Susan Wise Bauer is co-author with her mother, Jessie Wise, of The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, a book which has become an educational standard. Susan teaches literature and writing at The College of William and Mary in Virginia.
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The “Epic of Gilgamesh” (Norton Critical Editions) (Paperback) by BR Foster
Product Description
This edition of one of the world’s greatest epic narratives is accompanied by interpretative headings and explanatory annotations. The book also includes critical essays and two groups of ancient poetry: a collection of older Sumerian poems; and Hittite material about Gilgamesh.
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The New Oxford Guide to Writing by Thomas S. Kane
Product Description
Many books on writing tell you how to think more creatively, conjure up an idea, and how to express it clearly and elegantly. Many handbooks offer reliable advice on the use of commas, semicolons and so forth. But The New Oxford Guide to Writing does all three, so that no matter where you find yourself in the writing process – from the daunting look as a blank page, to the rough draft that needs shaping, to the small but important questions of punctuation – you will find what you need in one handy all-inclusive volume. Highlighted by numerous examples of successful prose – including marvellous brief excerpts from Mark Twain, Joan Didian, H. L. Mencken, E. B. White and Anne Dillard – this stimulating volume covers the entire subject step by step, clearly and authoritatively. It shows: How to use commonplace books and journals to store ideas, how to brainstorm, how to explore potential topics, sound methods of constructing an outline, the best way to open an essay clearly and interestingly, how to select words that convey both information and point of view … and much more.
First Sentence
Often, of course, you are not free to choose at all. Read the first page.
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A Rulebook for Arguments by Anthony Weston
Product Description
Updated examples, streamlined text, and the chapter on definition reworked in a rule-based format strengthen this already strong volume. Readers familiar with the previous edition will find a text that retains all the features that make Rulebook ideally suited for use as a supplementary course book — including its modest price and compact size. Unlike most textbooks on argumentative writing, Rulebook is organised around specific rules, illustrated and explained soundly and briefly. It is not a textbook, but a rulebook, whose goal is to help students get on with writing a paper or assessing an argument.
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Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity (Paperback) by Edward De Bono
Product Description
This book, which is now internationally known and a bestseller, is a textbook of creativity. It shows how the habit of lateral thinking can be encouraged and new ideas generated. The author has worked out special techniques for doing this, in groups or alone, and the result is a triumph of entertaining education.
About the Author
Edward de Bono has had faculty appointments at the universities of Oxford, London, Cambridge and Harvard. He is widely regarded as the leading authority in the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. He originated the concept of lateral thinking and developed formal techniques for deliberate creative thinking. He has written sixty-two books, which have been translated into thirty-seven languages, has made two television series and there are over 4,000,000 references to his work on the Internet.
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The Origins of Creativity by Karl H. Pfenninger (Editor), Valerie R. Shubik (Editor)
Product Description
After Newton died in 1727, a monument was erected in the Scientist’s Corner of Westminster Abbey. It was decorated with a pile of four books and adorned with cherubs holding a prism, a telescope and newly minted coins. The implication is clear. Newton’s towering intellect and god-given gift for creative thinking was the origin of his inspiration. Not far away, at the front of the monument to Newton, is the tomb of Charles Darwin, who published On the Origin of Species, which first discussed the evolution of man. The proximity of the monuments is telling. If we are to define the single, most unique human attribute evolution has produced, it must be our ability to think creatively. Thinking is the ultimate human resource. Breaking through the barriers posed by dogma, and reaching beyond the limits of established patterns of thinking to discover what is new and useful is the engine that drives society. This book, which had its genesis in a conference organized by Karl Pfenninger, and held at Aspen, Colorado, entitled ‘Higher brain function, art and science: an interdisciplinary examination of the creative process’, brings together articles by thirteen contributors from the fields of science, art and music. Two of the contributors have been awarded Nobel prizes, and all are distinguished representatives of their fields. The Origins of Creativity is organized around four central themes of creativity: the creative experience in art and science; the biological basis of imagination, emotion and reason; creative powers and the environment; and the mind’s perception of patterns. The views of artists, who couch their ideas in more metaphorical language, mingle with the analytical thoughts of scientists who strive to understand how the brain generates images and ideas. The voices of creators – artist, scientist, mathematician – and of those who study creative activity – neuroscientist, psychologist, philosopher – generate a broad spectrum of views on creativity whose integration offers new insights and becomes a creative act in itself. This book offers insights into the origins of human creativity to scientists, artists, and general readers. Its inter-disciplinary authorship presents a uniquely broad perspective on current research, and the style throughout is accessible and engaging.
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Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono
Product Description
SIX THINKING HATS is a de Bono classic, used by businessmen worldwide to develop techniques of creative thinking in the boardroom. The Six Hats method aims to make the fullest use of everyone’s intelligence, experience and information. De Bono has comprehensively updated his bestselling text for this new edition.
About the Author
Edward de Bono was once chosen by a group of professors as one of the 250 people who had contributed most to the whole history of humanity. He is famous for developing the concept of “lateral thinking” and has developed techniques for deliberate creative thinking. He has written 60 books translated into 34 languages, which sell in their thousands. His latest book for Penguin is THE DE BONO CODE, to be published in Aug 2000. He regularly lectures around the world but is based in Central London.
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The Norton Anthology of Poetry (Paperback)
by M Ferguson
Product Description
Offering over one thousand years of verse from the mediaeval period to the present, The Norton Anthology of Poetry is the classroom standard for the study of poetry in English. The fifth edition retains the flexibility and breadth of selection that have defined this classic anthology, while an improved and expanded editorial apparatus makes it an even more useful teaching tool. The fifth edition includes 1,828 poems (191 new) and 334 poets (17 new). No other poetry anthology offers such abundance, which is why students hold on to The Norton Anthology of Poetry long after the course ends-it is their poetry reference book for life.
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Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept (Paperback)
by James W. Sire
About the Book
What is a worldview?
What lies behind your thoughts about almost everything?
For more than thirty years, James W. Sire has grappled with this issue. In this book he offers readers his most mature thought on the concept of a worldview, addressing such questions as
* What is the history of the concept itself?
* What is the first question you should ask in formulating a worldview?
* How are worldviews formed existentially as well as intellectually?
* Is a worldview primarily an intellectual system, a way of life or a story?
* What are the public and private dimensions of a worldview?
* What role can worldview thinking play in assessing your own worldview and those of others, especially in light of the pluralism in today’s world?
In his widely used textbook The Universe Next Door, first published in 1976, Sire offered a succinct definition of a worldview and catalogued in summary fashion seven basic worldview alternatives. Students, critics, new literature and continued reflection have led him to reexamine and refine his definition of a worldview. This companion volume to The Universe Next Door is the fruit of that effort. Here is an excellent resource for exploring more deeply how and why worldview thinking can aid you in navigating your pluralistic universe.
