Help readers improve reading skills while stimulating their appreciation and increasing their understanding of great literature. Using a scaffolding approach, this guide leads readers from simple and engaging reads to more challenging texts, and simultaneously cultivates their interest and skills. An invaluable resource for middle and high school, ABE and ESL educators, as well as for readers' advisors. All readers—even those still learning to speak English—can enjoy the delights and benefits of great literature with the help of this motivational and practical book guide. Rosow takes you on a journey through the history of Western literature, beginning with ancient myths and moving to medieval tales and classics of the Renaissance, Romantic Movement, and Modernism. Along the way, she shows you how to give readers easy access to some of the best literature of all time. Scores of collections focus on such ancient and enduring stories as Gilgamesh, Beowulf, the tales of Chaucer; historical masterpieces of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens; and stellar names of more recent times, such as Virginia Woolf, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Each carefully selected collection lists an assortment of titles, ranging in reading level and arranged progressively from simple renditions, such as picture book re-tellings, through more advanced selections and readings where audio versions and simpler formatting support the reader, and on to the most challenging reads. Author profiles and narrative, as well as detailed descriptions of each title provide further insights into the story lines and features of the books; while building a scaffold of reading experience and knowledge to help readers better understand the texts. For example, the Mark Twain collection begins with a brief biographical sketch of the author, followed by descriptions of two illustrated books about the author and two readers' theatre skits based on his work. A collection of Twain's short stories is recommended next, and then several illustrated versions of his novels, and an illustrated edition of Twain's memoir, Life on the Mississippi, which is supported by an audiotape version. Each recommended title is rated as start here, next read, support here, or challenging read; and related reads, and audio and video versions are listed when appropriate. The author also notes author and student favorites, titles with exceptional illustrations, and other features of interest. Focus is on authors and titles of the Western canon that are generally lu2768 le in library collections. Because some of the titles cited are older editions, this is a valuable collection development tool in libraries; as well as an essential resource for readers' advisors, Adult Basic Education, and English as Second Language educators, and young adult educators and librarians. Young adult and adult or Grades 9 and up.

A “splendid” (The Wall Street Journal) account of one of history’s most important and yet little-known wars, the campaign culminating in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, whose outcome determined the future of the Roman Empire. Following Caesar’s assassination and Mark Antony’s defeat of the conspirators who killed Caesar, two powerful men remained in Rome—Antony and Caesar’s chosen heir, young Octavian, the future Augustus. When Antony fell in love with the most powerful woman in the world, Egypt’s ruler Cleopatra, and thwarted Octavian’s ambition to rule the empire, another civil war broke out. In 31 BC one of the largest naval battles in the ancient world took place—more than 600 ships, almost 200,000 men, and one woman—the Battle of Actium. Octavian prevailed over Antony and Cleopatra, who subsequently killed themselves. The Battle of Actium had great consequences for the empire. Had Antony and Cleopatra won, the empire’s capital might have moved from Rome to Alexandria, Cleopatra’s capital, and Latin might have become the empire’s second language after Greek, which was spoken throughout the eastern Mediterranean, including Egypt. In this “superbly recounted” (The National Review) history, Barry Strauss, ancient history authority, describes this consequential battle with the drama and expertise that it deserves. The War That Made the Roman Empire is essential history that features three of the greatest figures of the ancient world.

This book examines selected works in the American literary tradition from an evolutionary perspective. Individual essays address figures ranging from Benjamin Franklin to Billy Collins, targeting a variety of fitness-related issues--courtship, nepotism, competition, cooperation, status, and deception, for example--in the context of both physical and social environment.

This Is a Classic illuminates the overlooked networks that contribute to the making of literary classics through the voices of multiple translators, without whom writers would have a difficult time reaching a global audience. It presents the work of some of today's most accomplished literary translators who translate classics into English or who work closely with translation in the US context and magnifies translators' knowledge, skills, creativity, and relationships with the literary texts they translate, the authors whose works they translate, and the translations they make. The volume presents translators' expertise and insight on how classics get defined according to language pairs and contexts. It advocates for careful attention to the role of translation and translators in reading choices and practices, especially regarding literary classics.

Originally published in 1967. Ludwig Edelstein characterizes the idea of "progress" in Greek and Roman times. He analyzes the ancients' belief in "a tendency inherent in nature or in man to pass through a regular sequence of stages of development in past, present, and future, the latter stages being—with perhaps occasional retardations or minor regressions—superior to the earlier." Edelstein's contemporaries asserted that the Greeks and Romans were entirely ignorant of a belief in progress in this sense of the term. In arguing against this dominant thesis, Edelstein draws from the conclusions of scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and discusses ideas of Auguste Comte and Wilhelm Dilthey.

Because some of the titles cited are older editions, this is a valuable collection development tool in libraries; as well as an essential resource for readers' advisors, Adult Basic Education, and English as Second Language educators, and young adult educators and librarians.

Arranged alphabetically, entries trace the development of the art forms in classical civilizations such as ancient Greece and Rome.