Popular Literature

With remembrances from J. K. Rowling's editors, agents, publicists, fans, and Rowling herself, Melissa Anelli takes us on a personal journey through every aspect of the Harry Potter phenomenon - from his very first spell to his lasting impact on the way we live and dream.

As at home with Galileo and his daughter in Florence as he is with Diderot in Enlightenment France, William and Alice James in fin-de-siècle Boston, or the latest research on the genome, Gerald Weissmann distills the lessons of history to guide us through our troubled age. His message is clear: "Experimental science is our defense-perhaps our best defense-against humbug and the Endarkenment."

We all know how Darth Vader shared his big secret with Luke Skywalker, but what if he had delivered the news in a handwritten note instead? And what if someone found that letter, as well as all of the drafts that landed in the Dark Lord’s trash can? In the riotously funny collection Dear Luke, We Need to Talk. Darth, John Moe finally reveals these lost notes alongside all the imagined letters, e-mails, text messages, and other correspondences your favorite pop culture icons never meant for you to see.

From her well-remembered New Yorker essays about the financial demands of big-city ambition and the ethereal, strangely old-fashioned allure of cyber relationships to her dazzlingly hilarious riff in Harper's about musical passions that give way to middle-brow paraphernalia, Daum delves into the center of things while closely examining the detritus that spills out along the way. With precision and well-balanced irony, Daum implicates herself as readily as she does the targets that fascinate and horrify her.

Martin Suter (Linda Zervakis) und Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre (Caren Miosga) unterhalten sich über: Badehosen, Glitzer, Äähm, Hochzeiten, LSD, Teufel, Gott, Madonna, Arbeit, Ibiza, Kochen, Rechnungen, Siri, Fotos, Mundharmonika, Geldscheine, Verliebtheit, Wiedersehen. Den Schweizer Songtext im Kapitel "Arbeit" liest Stephan Eicher. Die Mundharmonika im Abspann spielt Martin Suter.

A new, expanded collection of both new and previously published essays and articles from one of the mainstays of the Washington, DC underground rock-and-roll scene, The Psychic Soviet is the most complete collection of writings by Ian Svenonius. The selections are written in a scholarly yet engaging style, filled with parody and biting humor that subvert capitalist culture, and cover such topics as the ascent of the DJ as a star, the “cosmic depression” that followed the defeat of the USSR, and the status of rock and roll as a religion.

Сказки "Тысячи и одной ночи" принадлежащие к той или иной группе, родившись в определенной социальной среде, естественно имели в этой среде и наибольшее распространение.

У себя на родине сказки Шахразады в разных социальных слоях издревле встречали разное отношение.

Bobbi’s searching for inspiration at the local chocolate milk shop, heading out to cook up a few new short story ideas with a friend. Unfortunately, this typically productive location has become quite distracting thanks to the seasonal arrival of pumpkin spice lattes, which Bobbi despises. Hoping to seem cool and counteract the extreme basicness of this situation, Bobbi orders a cup of rock milk, but when she spots author Chuck Tingle at one of the café tables, Bobbi starts to wonder if rock milk was the way to go.

Designated the “Queen of Lesbian Pulp” for her series of landmark novels beginning in 1957, Ann Bannon defined lesbian fiction for the pre-Stonewall generation. Following the release of Cleis Press's new editions of Beebo Brinker and Odd Girl Out, Women in the Shadows finds Laura in love among the lesbian bohemia of Greenwich Village. This edition features a new introduction by the author.

Meet Fisher Bas: a 12-year-old, growth-stunted, geeky science genius who is the son of Nobel Prize–winning parents. Despite his outsized IQ, Fisher is far from the most popular kid in his middle school — he’s actually tormented daily by overgrown goons he calls the Vikings. Holed up in his home lab over a long weekend, Fisher uses his mother’s revolutionary Advanced Growth Hormone to clone himself.

EU PRECISO FAZER UMA CONFISSÃO: nunca foi fácil ser eu. Você pode até pensar, com um quê de impaciência e uma boa dose de deboche (e já digo logo que entendo super, tá?): "Ah! Ser loira, popular, bonita, rica e invejada é realmente péssimo! Ter tudo o que deseja e ainda ser o crush de dez entre dez garotos é, com toda certeza, um martírio... Viajar para o exterior duas vezes por ano e ficar nos melhores hotéis é, sem sombra de dúvida, uma coisa pavorosa. Ó-meu-Deus--coi-ta-di-nha!" Já disse, eu entendo que você pense assim.

budding butch in the Brylcreem era, Lorraine "Lon" Harris fantasizes about a South Pacific island full of women, where everyone will be free and accepting, and she'll never have to wear an eyelet blouse again. Spurned by her high school English teacher, Lon turns to a new friend, the brash, purple-haired Violet, who draws Lon into the lesbian underworld of suburban Los Angeles, to the sordid 28 Percent Club, a private bar where those with "contaminated passions" cling to each other.

Ann Bannon was designated the “Queen of Lesbian Pulp” for authoring several landmark novels in the ’50s. Unlike many writers of the period, however, Bannon broke through the shame and isolation typically portrayed in lesbian pulps, offering instead characters who embraced their sexuality. With Beebo Brinker, Bannon introduces a butch 17-year-old farm girl newly arrived in Beat-era Greenwich Village.

Joshua Goldmann is the perfect student, perfect friend, perfect son—but the pressure of acting perfect all the time gets to him. One night, he finds himself standing on the edge of an abandoned bridge, when a stranger talks him down. The two begin a friendship that eventually deepens into something more, but as Josh deals with his personal and family issues, his new relationship is put at risk.

Against the Written Word is the most important, most revolutionary book produced since the advent of the printing press; the book that will liberate readers from reading, writers from writing, and booksellers from peddling their despicable wares. This book ushers in a new era of freedom from reading and all its attendant bedfellows such as Enlightenment thinking and the mass alienation wrought by the phonetic alphabet. Against the Written Word will be a tremendous best seller and simultaneously the last book that anyone will listen to.

Maddie tries to be nice to everyone. Even weird, chicken-obsessed Tahlia. But she’d way prefer to hang out with the cool K-girls at school. The only problem is that they don’t seem interested in her anymore. And at Year 6 camp, Maddie has a decision to make: How far will she go to be popular? Will she be able to live with the guilt when she finally has everything she’s been hoping for?

Orphaned twelve-year-old Tigg is the Bandicoot Bushranger, the youngest bushranger on the Ballarat goldfields in 1859. When a robbery goes wrong, Tigg must flee in disguise as one of the tens of thousands of Chinese men and boys braving heat, thirst, starvation and murderous attacks on the long road from Robe in South Australia to the goldfields in Victoria.

Amy Tan takes us deep into the illicit world of 1912 Shanghai, where beautiful courtesans mercilessly compete for the patronage of wealthy gentlemen. For the women, the contest is deadly serious, a perilous game of economic survival that, if played well, can set them up for life as mistresses of the rich and prominent. There is no room for error, however: Erotic power is hard to achieve and harder to maintain, especially in the loftiest social circles. Enter veteran seducer, Magic Gourd, formerly one of Shanghai’s “Top Ten Beauties” and now the advisor and attendant of Violet, an aspiring but inexperienced courtesan.

Twenty-five years ago, a group of ninth-graders produced a Saturday Night Live-style videotape to cheer up their ailing friend. The show's running time was only 90 minutes, but it had a lasting impact: Becca laughed her way through recovery, and the group - Jordana, Seth, Holly, and Lex - became her supporting cast for life. On the silver anniversary of Becca Night Live, the friends reunite over the Fourth of July to celebrate Becca's good health - but nothing goes as planned. The happy holiday-card facades everyone's been hiding behind quickly crumble.