“[Mary] Ruefle . . . brings us an often unnerving, but always fresh and exhilarating view of our common experience of the world.”—Charles Simic Fans of Lydia Davis and Miranda July will delight in this short prose from a beloved and cutting-edge poet. Here are thirty stories that deliver the soft touch and the sucker punch with stunning aplomb. Ducks, physicists, detectives, and The New York Times all make appearances. From “The Dart and the Drill”: I do not believe that when my brother pierced my skull with a succession of darts thrown from across our paneled rec room on the night of November 18th in my sixth year on earth, he was trying to transcend the notions of time and space as contained and protected by the human skull. But who can fathom the complexities of the human brain? Ten years later—this would have been in 1967—the New York Times reported a twenty-four year old man, who held an honor degree in law, died in the process of using a dentist’s drill on his own skull, positioned an inch above his right ear, in an attempt to prove that time and space could be conquered . . . Mary Ruefle’s poems and prose have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The Best American Poetry, and The Next American Essay. Her many awards include NEA and Guggenheim fellowships. She is a frequent visiting professor at the University of Iowa, and she lives and teaches in Vermont.

The perfect gift for high school graduates! College is a time when new and exciting horizons stretch out before us. We meet new friends and form relationships that last a lifetime. We discern what’s most important and what our ultimate direction in life will be. For those of us whose college days are in the rearview mirror, we long for recent graduates to love college and to make the most it. Often, we’re at a loss as to what advice to give our friends and family who are heading off to college—even though those years may well be the most consequential years of their lives. From Biola president Barry Corey comes the perfect guide to making the college years count. It touches on everything from college romances to making friends, from getting sleep to embracing boredom, from your inner life to your social life. In this slender volume, Barry Corey gives you wisdom that rings true but is rarely passed on. He serves up tips for survival, virtues to embrace, ideas to think about, and habits to cultivate for an enjoyable and flourishing journey through college. After all, you will remember your college experience for the rest of your life. Make the most of it.

You didn't choose your disability, but you can choose how you live with it - this is the message of Mark E. Smith in Making the Most of It: The 11 Keys to Mastering Disability and Life. In this first of its kind inspirational guidebook to living to our fullest with disability, Mark spells out the eleven keys that move us from merely surviving with disability to truly thriving: Through anecdotes of his own experience, the shared remarkable stories of others, and a clear wisdom, Mark takes you hand-in-hand on an empowered journey, where living is less about what's happened to you, and more about the fulfilling life that you can achieve, truly making the most of it, disability and all. Born with severe cerebral palsy, Mark began turning tragedy into triumph at an early age. Today he is a true disability icon as the most recognized writer in the disability genre, and a true legend within the wheelchair industry, with his website, WheelchairJunkie.com, receiving over three million views per year.

Nina Hallet is a regular schoolgirl just trying to make her way through her teenage years. She goes to school. She does her homework. She swims. One of Nina's dreams is to swim very, very fast. When that dream comes true, Nina Hallet's world is turned upside down. Nothing she has learned - from school, from swimming or from her parents - has prepared her for the role of international sporting celebrity. But as her list of achievements is dwarfed by mounting expectations, Nina funds herself struggling to satisfy, not just herself, but a nation hungry for heroes. When the dream becomes a nightmare, Nina begins to learn the lessons that will truly set her up for life. An exhilarating and joyful novel about finding your place in the world.

Too often students automatically think that an internship is not for them. They seem to believe that internships are just for those students who are in AP or engineering and science programs or for students who know exactly what career they want to pursue. They don’t take internship opportunities offered by their school or college or seek an internship on their own. Internships offer all students a way to find direction for their future. An internship will help them gain experience in the real world, find a career area that they like—or don’t like—get focused on a possible college major, and build those skills critical for success in a career and higher education. This book is a resource for all high school and community college students who want to find, get, and make the most out of an internship. The book gives students a “heads up” on how to: • Use community, school, and college resources to help secure an internship • Get their act together by writing a compelling resume, cover email and elevator speech • Show the skills and attitudes every organization wants to see during the interview • Prepare for an interview by anticipating the typical interview questions • Know what the interviewer is looking for and what to say and do to make the best impression • Take on value added projects once the internship gets going • Deal with the ups and downs • Use the internship experience in their future Get an Internship and Make the Most of It: Practical Information for High School and Community College Students can be a help to every high school and community college student. It follows four students as they find, interview for and complete their internships. If you’re thinking about doing an internship or are well on the way to starting one, this book is for you.

Get it right 'Within' and the world will be better; it starts with us first, then living is enjoyable; there are certain life challenges that we all have to overcome, and these are some of the best ways for adults, teenagers, and young people to handle them; this 'kick start to life gives you the essentials to creating a better future for yourself and others.This is a guide with techniques and methods to help you effectively deal with any situation in life: break-up and loss, self respect, goal getting, positive parenting, good relationships, stress and worry relief, healthy self love and processing emotions effectively.Here's an essential education tool designed to be kept forever; referred back to and altered as our goals change. The 'how's and why's' are clear and simple for readers and space is included for written exercises; Useful in schools and at home for any age

A cultural “biography” of Robert Frost’s beloved poem, arguably the most popular piece of literature written by an American “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .” One hundred years after its first publication in August 1915, Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget that it is, in fact, a poem. Yet poetry it is, and Frost’s immortal lines remain unbelievably popular. And yet in spite of this devotion, almost everyone gets the poem hopelessly wrong. David Orr’s The Road Not Taken dives directly into the controversy, illuminating the poem’s enduring greatness while revealing its mystifying contradictions. Widely admired as the poetry columnist for The New York Times Book Review, Orr is the perfect guide for lay readers and experts alike. Orr offers a lively look at the poem’s cultural influence, its artistic complexity, and its historical journey from the margins of the First World War all the way to its canonical place today as a true masterpiece of American literature. “The Road Not Taken” seems straightforward: a nameless traveler is faced with a choice: two paths forward, with only one to walk. And everyone remembers the traveler taking “the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” But for a century readers and critics have fought bitterly over what the poem really says. Is it a paean to triumphant self-assertion, where an individual boldly chooses to live outside conformity? Or a biting commentary on human self-deception, where a person chooses between identical roads and yet later romanticizes the decision as life altering? What Orr artfully reveals is that the poem speaks to both of these impulses, and all the possibilities that lie between them. The poem gives us a portrait of choice without making a decision itself. And in this, “The Road Not Taken” is distinctively American, for the United States is the country of choice in all its ambiguous splendor. Published for the poem’s centennial—along with a new Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Frost’s poems, edited and introduced by Orr himself—The Road Not Taken is a treasure for all readers, a triumph of artistic exploration and cultural investigation that sings with its own unforgettably poetic voice.