The rich popular tradition of India's women writers is finally available in this collection of short stories translated from seven of the country's languages. The writers and their heroines reflect the complex mosaic of Indian life-they are old and young, rural and urban, rich and poor. Here we meet Muniyakka, called "walkie-talkie" because she mutters to herself; Shakun, the dollmaker, an exploited artist who needs to feel that others depend on her; and Jashoda, professional mother to children of the rich, from Mahasveta Devi's acknowledged masterpiece "The Wet Nurse." These stories "are dense with thsoe customs, manners, and objects that usually remain locked within regional languages," wrote Anita Desai in the New York Review ofBooks . Meena Alexander's thoughtful introduction places the stories and the writers in the context of modern India.

Winner of the 2003 Trillium Book Award "Stories are wondrous things," award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. "And they are dangerous." Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples. Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America. With keen perception and wit, King illustrates that stories are the key to, and only hope for, human understanding. He compels us to listen well.

A witty, insightful, and delightfully snarky blend of pop culture meets memoir meets real-life Devil Wears Prada as readers learn the stories behind twenty-five years at Vanity Fair from the magazine’s former deputy editor “Dilettante offers the best seat in the house into the workings of one of the great cultural institutions of our time.”—Buzz Bissinger, New York Times bestselling author of Friday Night Lights Dana Brown was a twenty-one-year-old college dropout playing in punk bands and partying his way through downtown New York’s early-nineties milieu when he first encountered Graydon Carter, the legendary editor of Vanity Fair. After the two had a handful of brief interactions (mostly with Brown in the role of cater waiter at Carter’s famous cultural salons he hosted at his home), Carter saw what he believed to be Brown’s untapped potential, and on a whim, hired him as his assistant. Brown instantly became a trusted confidante and witness to all of the biggest parties, blowups, and takedowns. From inside the famed Vanity Fair Oscar parties to the emerging world of the tech elite, Brown’s job offered him access to some of the most exclusive gatherings and powerful people in the world, and the chance to learn in real time what exactly a magazine editor does—all while trying to stay sober enough from the required party scene attendance to get the job done. Against all odds, he rose up the ranks to eventually become the magazine’s deputy editor, spending a quarter century curating tastes at one of the most storied cultural shops ever assembled. Dilettante reveals Brown’s most memorable moments from the halcyon days of the magazine business, explores his own journey as an unpedigreed outsider to established editor, and shares glimpses of some of the famous and infamous stories (and people) that tracked the magazine’s extraordinary run all keenly observed by Brown. He recounts tales from the trenches, including encounters with everyone from Anna Wintour, Lee Radziwill, and Condé Nast owner Si Newhouse, to Seth Rogen, Caitlyn Jenner, and acclaimed journalists Dominick Dunne and Christopher Hitchens. Written with equal parts affection, cultural exploration, and nostalgia, Dilettante is a defining story within that most magical time and place in the culture of media. It is also a highly readable memoir that skillfully delivers a universal coming-of-age story about growing up and finding your place in the world.

Twelve stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, nine of them never before published in English. Of these twelve short stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, only three have previously appeared in English, making this the first "new" book of fiction by Lem since the late 1980s. The stories display the full range of Lem's intense curiosity about scientific ideas as well as his sardonic approach to human nature, presenting as multifarious a collection of mad scientists as any reader could wish for. Many of these stories feature artificial intelligences or artificial life forms, long a Lem preoccupation; some feature quite insane theories of cosmology or evolution. All are thought provoking and scathingly funny. Written from 1956 to 1993, the stories are arranged in chronological order. In the title story, "The Truth," a scientist in an insane asylum theorizes that the sun is alive; "The Journal" appears to be an account by an omnipotent being describing the creation of infinite universes--until, in a classic Lem twist, it turns out to be no such thing; in "An Enigma," beings debate whether offspring can be created without advanced degrees and design templates. Other stories feature a computer that can predict the future by 137 seconds, matter-destroying spores, a hunt in which the prey is a robot, and an electronic brain eager to go on the lam. These stories are peak Lem, exploring ideas and themes that resonate throughout his writing.

Merges keen observation with astute interviews and storytelling in the search for an authentic modern Mexico, finding it in part with emigrants.

"Born to an artistocratic Catholic family, Hermynia zur Mèuhlen became a prolific writer and translator, sometimes called the Red Countess for her left-wing ideas and revolutionary spirit. She began to write during the several years she spent in a sanitorium for tuberculosis, a disease she battled for the rest of her life. Exiled from Germany in the 1930s for her anti-Nazi convictions and her relationship with the German Jewish translator Stefan Klein, she eventually fled to England, where she spent her final years. The 17 fairy tales selected for this book were written primarily during her radical Weimar years and demonstrate the innovative techniques she used to raise the political consciousness of readers young and old. In contrast to the classical fairy tales of Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen, Zur Mèuhlen's focus was on the plight of the working class and the cause of social justice"--

A ninth-grader's suspension for singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" during homeroom becomes a national news story.