"A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum"-- Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother's plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father's life in America was circumscribed by his work...

"Christian Wiman, a thinker "at the very source of theology" (Marilynne Robinson), braids poetry, memoir, and criticism to create an inspired, career-defining work"-- Few contemporary writers ask the questions about faith, morality, and God that Christian Wiman does, and even fewer--perhaps none--do so with his urgency and eloquence. Wiman, an award-winning poet and the author of My Bright Abyss, lays the motion of his mind on the page in this genre-defying...

Acclaimed for centuries as the "Father of English Literature," Geoffrey Chaucer enjoys widespread and effusive praise for his classic Canterbury Tales-and rightfully so. Still, even the greatest of authors cannot claim perfection, and so Bad Chaucer: The Great Poet's Greatest Mistakes in the Canterbury Tales analyzes his various missteps, missed opportunities, and other blunders in this peerless masterpiece. From a vexing catalog of trees in the Knight's...

"Suffused with intoxicating romanticism, History Is Made at Night is a sublime paean to love from Frank Borsage, classic Hollywood's supreme poet of carnal and spiritual desire. On the run through Europe from her wealthy, cruelly possessive husband, an unhappy socialite (Jean Arthur) is thrown together by fate with a suave stranger (Charles Boyer)--and soon the two are bound in a consuming, seemingly impossible affair that stretches across continents...

"Jack Kerouac was one of America's great writers of the latter half of the 20th century, yet he endured a life characterized by persistent hardship and disillusion. Leading Kerouac scholar Paul Maher Jr. targets the writer's embattled insight of self as central to his life and work. He reveals how Kerouac's troubled interactions with alcohol, drugs, and spirituality stamped its importance on his autobiographical prose and poetry and created a singular...

"No ancient poet has a wider following today than Sappho; her status as the most famous woman poet from Greco-Roman antiquity has, down the centuries, ensured a continuing fascination with her work. The ancient edition of her poems, which filled probably nine books and thus over 10,000 lines, did not survive; but the fragments of those poems which have been preserved, both as quotations in authors whose works did outlast antiquity, and on ancient...

"The southerly drive from Austin to Karnes City, Texas, takes about two hours. The first half-hour or so is on Interstate 35, traveling past car dealerships, fast food restaurants, and outlet malls. Leaving I-35 around about San Marcos, you take State Route 123 past front yards, farms, ranches, and "the graveyards of rusted automobiles," as Johnny, Arlo, and Willie sang. Small towns along the way are steeped in Texas history. One of them is Geronimo,...