Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson (Modern Library Paperbacks)

My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson (Modern Library Paperbacks)

by Alfred Habegger

Emily Dickinson, probably the most loved and certainly the greatest of American poets, continues to be seen as the most elusive. One reason she has become a timeless icon of mystery for many readers is that her developmental phases have not been clarified. In this exhaustively researched biography, Alfred Habegger presents the first thorough account of Dickinson’s growth–a richly contextualized story of genius... (more)

Into Africa: A Journey Through the Ancient Empires

Into Africa: A Journey Through the Ancient Empires

by Marq De Villiers

A brilliant picture of a rich, exotic, complex and fascinating continent in the style of Bruce Chatwin. Verbal snapshots, images, anecdotes, legends, tales, gossip, illustrations, photographs, art and maps lend insight and depth to this multi-layered portrait of a continent. Into Africa uses the ancient empires and trading patterns of prehistory as the primary framework, to explain how Africa was and is today. The... (more)

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (P.S.)

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (P.S.)

by Loung Ung

One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the... (more)

Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play

Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play

by James S. Shapiro

The Bavarian village of Oberammergau has staged the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ nearly every decade since 1634. Each production of the Passion Play attracts hundreds of thousands, many drawn by the spiritual benefits it promises. Yet Hitler called it a convincing portrayal of the menace of Jewry, and in 1970 a group of international luminaries boycotted the play for its anti-Semitism. As the... (more)

Foreskin's Lament: A Memoir

by Shalom Auslander

Shalom Auslander was raised with a terrified respect for God. Even as he grew up and was estranged from his community, his religion and its traditions, he could not find his way to a life where he didn't struggle against God daily. Foreskin's Lament reveals Auslander's youth in a strict, socially isolated Orthodox community, and recounts his rebellion and efforts to make a new life apart from it. Auslander... (more)

Lives of the Poets

by Michael Schmidt

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist In this stunning volume of epic breadth, Michael Schmidt connects the lives and works of more than 300 poets over the last 700 years--spanning distant shores from Scotland to Australia to the Caribbean, all sharing the English language. Schmidt reveals how each poet has transformed "a common language of poetry" into the rustic rhythms and elegiac ballads, love... (more)

Isabella

by ALISON WEIR

Fault Lines: A Memoir (2nd Edition) (The Cross-Cultural Memoir Series)

Fault Lines: A Memoir (2nd Edition) (The Cross-Cultural Memoir Series)

by Meena Alexander

Passionate, fierce, and lyrical, Meena Alexander’s memoir traces her evolution as a postcolonial writer from a privileged childhood in India to a turbulent adolescence in the Sudan and then to England and New York City. In this tenth-anniversary edition of Fault Lines , this Alexander challenges the assumptions of life as a South Asian American woman writer in a post-9-11 world. With poetic insight and an honesty... (more)