Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Dante Alighieri's poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy , is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise-the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation.

Love That Dog

by Sharon Creech

Jack Room 105 -- Miss Stretchberry September 13 I don't want to because boys don't write poetry. Girls do. Meet Jack, who tells his story with a little help from some paper, a pencil, his teacher, and a dog named Sky.

Beowulf (A Norton Critical Edition)

by Seamus Heaney, Robert Nye, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Burton Raffel, Michael Alexander

Winner of the Whitbread Prize, Seamus Heaney's translation "accomplishes what before now had seemed impossible: a faithful rendering that is simultaneously an original and gripping poem in its own right" ( New York Times Book Review ). The translation that "rides boldly through the reefs of scholarship" ( The Observer ) is combined with first-rate annotation. No reading knowledge of Old English is assumed.... (more)

Rumi: Bridge to the Soul: Journeys into the Music and Silence of the Heart

Rumi: Bridge to the Soul: Journeys into the Music and Silence of the Heart

by Coleman Barks

2007 is the "Year of Rumi," and who better than Coleman Barks, Rumi's unlikely, supremely passionate ambassador, to mark the milestone of this great poet's 800th birthday? Barks, who was recently awarded an honorary doctorate in Persian language and literature by the University of Tehran for his thirty years of translating Rumi, has collected and translated ninety new poems, most of them never published before in... (more)

The Divan of Hafez Pocket Edition

by Hafez

This compact version of the Divan of Hafez is a facsimile illuminated manuscript, complete with beautiful Persian calligraphy and miniature illustrations. The text is mostly in Persian with 67 pages of poetry in English. 566 pages total, including short introductions in both Persian and English.

Masnavi

by Jalaludin Rumi

Rumi's Masnavi is widely recognized as the greatest Sufi poem ever written, and has been called "the Koran in Persian." The thirteenth-century Muslim mystic Rumi composed his work for the benefit of his disciples in the Sufi order named after him, better known as the whirling dervishes. In order to convey his message of divine love and unity he threaded together entertaining stories and penetrating homilies.... (more)

The Tale of Kieu: A bilingual edition of Nguyen Du`s Truyen Kieu

The Tale of Kieu: A bilingual edition of Nguyen Du`s Truyen Kieu

by Du Nguye??n

Text: English, Vietnamese

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

by William Shakespeare

This complete and unabridged edition contains every word that Shakespeare wrote — all 37 tragedies, comedies, and histories, plus the sonnets. You’ll find such classics as The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew . This Library of Literary Classics edition is bound in padded leather with luxurious gold-stamping on the front and spine, satin ribbon marker and gilded edges. Other titles... (more)

A Light in the Attic

by Shel Silverstein

Last night while I lay thinking here Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear And pranced and partied all night long And sang their same old Whatif song: Whatif I flunk that test? Whatif green hair grows on my chest? Whatif nobody likes me? Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?... Here in the attic of Shel Silverstein you will find Backward Bill, Sour Face Ann, the Meehoo with an Exactlywatt, and the Polar Bear... (more)

The Divan of Hafiz

by Hafiz

This facsimile illuminated manuscript of the Divan of Hafez contains 320 pages of English text (translated by Henry Wilberforce Clarke) with 437 pages in calligraphy (also by Falsafi). Also has Persian miniatures. Preface by Pejman Bakhtiari.

Goethe's Faust

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, J. W. VonGoethe

The best translation of Faust available, this volume provides the original German text and its English counterpart on facing pages. Walter Kaufmann's translation conveys the poetic beauty and rhythm as well as the complex depth of Goethe's language. Includes Part One and selections from Part Two.

The Rubayyat of Omar Khayam;: Life and love in one of the world's most famous poems in the classic translation of Edward FitzGeraldOmar Khayyam

The Rubayyat of Omar Khayam;: Life and love in one of the world's most famous poems in the classic translation of Edward FitzGerald

by Omar Khayyam

A Night Without Armor: Poems

by Jewel

I've learned that not all poetry lends itself to music--some thoughts need to be sung only against the silence. These are softer and less tangible parts of ourselves that are so essential to peace, to open-heartedness, to unfolding the vision and the spiritual realm of our lives, to exposing our souls. -- Jewel from the Preface Jewel has been writing poems and keeping journals since childhood. A Night... (more)

The Aeneid

by Virgil

Robert Fagles’s translations of both the Iliad and Odyssey have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and become the standard translations of our era. Now, his stunning modern verse translation of Virgil’s Aeneid is poised to do the same. This beautifully produced edition of the Aeneid will be eagerly sought by readers desiring to complete their Fagles collection—and the attention it receives will... (more)

Shark Girl

by Kelly L. Bingham

One sunny day, at the beach with her mom and brother, fifteen-year-old Jane Arrowood goes for a swim. And then everything -- absolutely everything -- changes. Now she's counting down the days until she returns to school with her fake arm, where she knows kids will whisper, "That's her -- that's Shark Girl," as she passes. In the meantime there are only questions: Why did this happen? Why her? What about... (more)

The Iliad

by Homer

"Each new generation is bound to produce new translations. <Lattimore> has done better with nobility, as well as with accuracy, than any other modern verse translator. <In> our age we do not often find a fine scholar who is also a genuine poet and who takes the greatest pains over the work of translation."--Hugh Lloyd-Jones, New York Review of Books

The Song of Roland

by Anonymous

Presents the classical epic, glorifying the heroism of Charlemagne in the 778 battle between the Franks and the Moors. Bibliogs.

Paradise Lost (A Norton Critical Edition)

Paradise Lost (A Norton Critical Edition)

by John Milton

This Norton Critical Edition is designed to make Paradise Lost accessible for student readers, providing invaluable contextual and biographical information and the tools students need to think critically about this landmark epic. Gordon Teskey's freshly edited text of Milton's masterpiece is accompanied by a new introduction and substantial explanatory annotations. Spelling and punctuation have been modernized,... (more)

Di?va?n. (English.)

by H?a?fiz?

Shamseddin Hafez, although born some six hundred years ago in southern Iran, is a contemporary and universal poet. Wherever Persian is known, he is easily recited by both King and common man. Even illiterates will recite a memorized verse of Hafez. Those uncertain about love, the future or any other situation, open a page of his collection of Poems at random and in it see their dilemmas untangled. His turn of... (more)

Collected Poems of John Donne (Wordsworth Poetry Library)

Collected Poems of John Donne (Wordsworth Poetry Library)

by John Donne

John Donne (1572-1631) is a poet of concerted emotional and intellectual force, whose strenuously original approach to the subject matter, diction and form of verse re-made English poetry. Donne's poetry combines paradoxical wit, scientific and theological learning with the rhythms and diction of spoken language. Crises of love, conscience, and faith are the great concerns of his poetry which is by turns exalted... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: poem

Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso

by Dante Alighieri