“Nabokovian in his caustic charm and sexy intelligence, Simic perceives the mythic in the mundane and pinpoints the perpetual suffering that infuses human life with both agony and bliss. . . . And he is the master of juxtaposition, lining up the unlikeliest of pairings and contrasts as he explores the nexuses of madness and prophecy, hell and paradise, lust and death.”—Donna Seaman, Booklist "As one reads the pithy, wise, occasionally cranky epigrams and vignettes that fill this volume, there is the definite sense that we are getting a rare glimpse into several decades worth of private journals--and, by extension are privy to the tickings of an accomplished and introspective literary mind."—Rain Taxi Written over many years, this book is a collection of notebook entries by our current Poet Laureate. Excerpts: Stupidity is the secret spice historians have difficulty identifying in this soup we keep slurping. Ars poetica: trying to make your jailers laugh. American identity is really about having many identities simultaneously. We came to America to escape our old identities, which the multiculturalists now wish to restore to us. Ambiguity is the world’s condition. Poetry flirts with ambiguity. As a “picture of reality” it is truer than any other. This doesn’t mean that you’re supposed to write poems no one understands. The twelve girls in the gospel choir sang as if dogs were biting their asses. What an outrage! This very moment gone forever!

"The Monster Loves His Labyrinth offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind of the poet. Passionate, witty, tender, and curious, these notebook entries range from casual jottings to profound observations. Their subject is the vast array of ways in which we human beings try to make sense of our world."--BOOK JACKET.

When Mike Radley inherited a mysterious house from a long-lost relative, he wasn't sure what to expect.He didn't expect a sexual encounter with the water spirit living in his bathtub.He really didn't expect the rooms to be occupied by other mythical creatures.And he definitely didn't expect to become the target of a secret society bent on stealing the powerful magic within its halls.Welcome to the Radley House. Expect the unexpected.

Offers a guide to monsters of all shapes and sizes, including the minotaur and the kraken, with a review of their menacing homes, stories about them, and the damage they have wrought on humans both on land and by sea.

Commiserating with Devastated Things seeks to understand the place Milan Kundera calls “the universe of the novel.” Working through Kundera’s oeuvre as well as the continental philosophical tradition, Wirth argues that Kundera transforms—not applies—philosophical reflection within literature. Reading between Kundera’s work and his self-avowed tradition, from Kafka to Hermann Broch, Wirth asks what it might mean to insist that philosophy does not have a monopoly on wisdom, that the novel has its own modes of wisdom that challenge philosophy’s.

In Crete during World War II, Alenka, a young woman who fights with the resistance against the brutal Nazi occupation, finds herself caught between her traitor of a brother and the man she loves, an undercover agent working for the Allies. May 1941. German paratroopers launch a blitzkrieg from the air against Crete. They are met with fierce defiance, the Greeks fighting back with daggers, pitchforks, and kitchen knives. During the bloody eleven-day battle, Alenka, a young Greek woman, saves the lives of two Australian soldiers. Jack and Teddy are childhood friends who joined up together to see the world. Both men fall in love with Alenka. They are forced to retreat with the tattered remains of the Allied forces over the towering White Mountains. Both are among the seven thousand Allied soldiers left behind in the desperate evacuation from Crete’s storm-lashed southern coast. Alenka hides Jack and Teddy at great risk to herself. Her brother Axel is a Nazi sympathizer and collaborator and spies on her movements. As Crete suffers under the Nazi jackboot, Alenka is drawn into an intense triangle of conflicting emotions with Jack and Teddy. Their friendship suffers under the strain of months of hiding and their rivalry for her love. Together, they join the resistance and fight to free the island, but all three will find themselves tested to their limits. Alenka must choose whom to trust and whom to love and, in the end, whom to save.

A colorful combination of storytelling, poets, poetry, and railways presented using America's fifty states as a backdrop. 3 men who travel the U.S.A. in the year of 2012... To write a written documentary on Poets and the Railroad in our times... When they sleep they get taken back in time to the 19th Century, when the roads were built, and they have such great experiences, and meet key Poets, and figures... Upon waking they have conversations about Poets from the 20th Century, and RxR events... Then it goes into their written documentary on Poetry and Poets now... Main Characters that Andy and Red and Train Marshal Charlie journey within their Dreams, and they are Alphonso G. Newcomer, Mad Bear, Jung Hem Sing, Mr. Welchberry, Patrick O'Hara, Jimmy New Orleans, and many more