With Worn-Out Tools is the story of a fiftyish black call center executive who, at the height of his career, in one year is struck down with a series of serious health issues, a career transition, and a shift in family dynamics. Take his journey with him as he navigates through these midlife rites of passage that challenges his resolve, strains his resources, and reconfigures his paradigm. You will root for him, laugh with him, and cry with him as he works his way through his path which may be much like your path.

Comedian and actor Stephen Fry's witty and practical guide, now in paperback, gives the aspiring poet or student the tools and confidence to write and understand poetry. Stephen Fry believes that if one can speak and read English, one can write poetry. In The Ode Less Travelled, he invites readers to discover the delights of writing poetry for pleasure and provides the tools and confidence to get started. Through enjoyable exercises, witty insights, and simple step-by-step advice, Fry introduces the concepts of Metre, Rhyme, Form, Diction, and Poetics. Most of us have never been taught to read or write poetry, and so it can seem mysterious and intimidating. But Fry, a wonderfully competent, engaging teacher and a writer of poetry himself, sets out to correct this problem by explaining the various elements of poetry in simple terms, without condescension. Fry's method works, and his enthusiasm is contagious as he explores different forms of poetry: the haiku, the ballad, the villanelle, and the sonnet, among many others. Along the way, he introduces us to poets we've heard of but never read. The Ode Less Travelled is not just the survey course you never took in college, it's a lively celebration of poetry that makes even the most reluctant reader want to pick up a pencil and give it a try.

"Management guide that uses Rudyard Kipling's poem "If--" to define leadership qualities. Uses great leaders of the past as examples of these leadership principals"--Provided by publisher.

Beloved for his fanciful and engrossing children’s literature, controversial for his enthusiasm for British imperialism, Rudyard Kipling remains one of the most widely read writers of Victorian and modern English literature. In addition to writing more than two dozen works of fiction, including Kim and The Jungle Book, Kipling was a prolific poet, composing verse in every classical form from the epigram to the ode. Kipling’s most distinctive gift was for ballads and narrative poems in which he drew vivid characters in universal situations, articulating profound truths in plain language. Yet he was also a subtle, affecting anatomist of the human heart, and his deep feeling for the natural world was exquisitely expressed in his verse. He was shattered by World War I, in which he lost his only son, and his work darkened in later years but never lost its extraordinary vitality. All of these aspects of Kipling’s poetry are represented in this selection, which ranges from such well-known compositions as “Mandalay” and “If” to the less-familiar, emotionally powerful, and personal epigrams he wrote in response to the war.

The Book Of Prayer Is A Multi-Faith Collection Of Prayers, Sayings And Devotional Poems, Brought Together As Inspirations And Reflections For Each Day Of The Year. Represented Here Are All The World Major Faiths And Traditions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism And Zoroastrianism. Prophets, Saints, And Ordinary Seekers, Some Known, Many Anonymous, Show Us The Way To A Celebration Of The Divine And A Sacred Connection With All Life. Contained In These Pages Is The Wisdom Of The Great Religious Texts, Among Them The Upanishads, The Bible, The Quran, The Dhammapada And The Adi Granth. There Are Verses By Mystics And Saints-Poets Like Kabir, Bulle Shah, Lal Ded, Meera Bai, Jnaneshwar, Aandal, Mahadeviakka And St. Francis Of Assisi, And Poems By Famous Literary Figures Like John Donne, Christina Rossetti And Gerard Manley Hopkins. Also Included Are Songs Of Hope Composed By People Coping With The Compulsions Of Everyday Life?Farmers, Sailors, Doctors And Students.

This pocket-sized selection of Rudyard Kipling's verse contains not only this classic, but many of his greatest poems, in testimony to a writer who possessed a precocious gift for rhyme and a brilliant ear for language.