In this classic study, Harvard professor Reuben Brower guides the reader from noticing the alluring details of a well-made poem, novel, or play to attending to the encompassing ways in which the writing achieves its greatness. "Not only does Brower begin his book with a lyric, but he deliberately chooses a very short one indeed, as if to show how much can be said about the smallest of poetic 'figures' looked at closely. The poem is "The Sick Rose", one of William Blake's best-known songs of experience ... Brower's task is to show how the poem is 'imaginatively organized,' by which he means that, to read it, we must sense the 'extraordinary interconnectedness among a relatively large number of different items of experience." -- From the Foreword by William H Pritchard

At issue is what elevates standards. The common opinion seems to be that standards can elevate themselves. The underlying assumption here is that unless you program such activities, professionals won’t develop; they will just teach, a process from which, presumably, nothing of value is to be learned. Mastered or flipped, reinvention of classrooms exacts a high cost, as indeed, does all teaching wherever it is carefully and lovingly taught. I would revise the old adage about teaching: “Those who can, teach; those who either can’t or haven’t shouldn’t.” It takes a lifetime to discover that those in authority may not know what is better, that older need not imply wiser. It is a difficult lesson for a teacher, enthroned with degrees and remuneration, to teach. The irony of the term “empowerment” is that power cannot be taught or acquired as if it were simply some specialized fund of information. Only we have privileged access to the process that shifts and roils inside our own experience. And only we can alter that process once it makes itself known to us. The mind we have is the only one we get: furnished or unfurnished.

You lie awake, needlessly fingering this patchwork guilt. Remorse, a code you live by; distress calls for someone to blame. —from “Threads” Following the deaths of her Mennonite grandparents, Angeline Schellenberg began exploring their influence on her life. Her elegiac love letter to them articulates her grief against the backdrop of their involuntary emigration. She artfully captures the immigrant identity, vital to Canadian culture, in poems that draw on events both personal and global: war and famine, dementia and cancer, hidden sacrifice and secrets. Her poems captivate with themes of ancestry, memory, resilience, and forgiveness. Fields of Light and Stone is a reflection on how family history shapes and moves us.

"In [Black Lab], Young's tenth [book], he's clearly at the top of his game."-The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) --

Winner of the Pushcart Editors' Book Award. Publishers Weekly starred review. Anniversary Edition. Sixteen photographs. In 1993, Joseph Hurka traveled to Prague to walk in the footsteps of his father, a Czech resistance fighter and American spy. The result, FIELDS OF LIGHT: A SON REMEMBERS HIS HEROIC FATHER, won the Pushcart Editors' Book Award (nominated by Andre Dubus), and is now reissued in an anniversary paperback edition. As the son walks through history, he learns that his father, Josef, came of age fighting the Nazis, and later worked in the Underground against the Communist government of Czechoslovakia. He describes in detail--here for the first time--the rescue of the great Czech statesman Dr. Josef Macek and his wife, Bela, on one dangerous night in December, 1949. FIELDS OF LIGHT is also a story of modern Prague and the Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Hurka takes us with him into the heart of Prague, to Prague Castle--home of ancient kings--and into the "Old Town," where Kafka lived and Mozart once performed. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, in giving the book a starred review, has called the book "gripping." BOOKLIST writes, "It's the story of a man who fought for democracy and...the moving account of a son who finally comes to know his father."

In this remarkable tale of hope and survival, Hannah Luce tells how, as the sole survivor of a terrible plane crash, she came to grips with her faith: “a calamitous, fascinating memoir, written with surprising spiritual sophistication” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). On May 11, 2012, a small plane carrying five young adults, en route to a Christian youth rally, crashed in a Kansas field, skidding 200 yards before hitting a tree and bursting into flames. Only two survived the crash: ex-marine Austin Anderson, who would die the next morning from extensive burns, and his friend Hannah Luce, the daughter of Teen Mania founder and influential youth minister Ron Luce. This is Hannah’s story. In Fields of Grace, Hannah details the investigation of her faith, her coming-of-age as the dutiful daughter of Evangelical royalty, her decision to join her father’s ministry outreach to teens, and her miraculous survival and recovery following the accident. It also serves as a tribute and testament to the lives of the dear friends who perished in the catastrophic plane crash and reveals how their memory continues to inspire all that she does. Here is the “riveting personal account” (Booklist) of a girl who grew up as the daughter of one of the most influential evangelical leaders of our time, who questioned her early religious convictions somewhere along the way and who, from the embers of that doomed plane ride, finally found her faith.

Learn about the history of Uluru, also known as Ayres Rock, in Australia with iMinds Travel's insightful fast knowledge series. Uluru is the indigenous Australian name for an enormous rock formation found in central Australia. Made from sandstone, Uluru is a rock monolith or an 'island mountain', a formation that geologists refer to as a monadnock. It stands 318 m (986 ft) high and has a circumference of 8 km (5 miles). It is located 335 km (208 mi) south west of the nearest rural centre, the large town of Alice Springs. The site was first mapped by Europeans in 1872 during the construction of the Australian Overland Telegraph Line that linked the northern settlement of Darwin to Port Augusta in South Australia. Uluru was originally named Mount Olga by Ernest Giles. On a separate expedition in 1870, the explorer William Gosse renamed the formation Ayers Rock in honour of the Chief Secretary of South Australia, Sir Henry Ayers. The name was made official until 1992, when it was renamed Uluru/Ayers Rock as an official dual title, honouring both the European and Aboriginal names. Uluru is, as Ernest Giles referred to it in 1872, the world's "most remarkable pebble." iMinds will tell you the story behind the place with its innovative travel series, transporting the armchair traveller or getting you in the mood for discover on route to your destination. iMinds brings targeted knowledge to your eReading device with short information segments to whet your mental appetite and broaden your mind.