Karr breaks down the key elements of great literary memoir, opening our concepts of memory and identity, and illuminating the cathartic power of reflecting on the past; anybody with an inner life or complicated history, whether writer or reader, will relate.

Prose, poetry, photographs and drawings contributed by S. Buckley, Denise Cacace, Walter Doerfler, Leah Furnas, Gary Lark, Sharon Lovie, John Noland, Dave Polhamus, Estelle Rivers, Susan Risley, Glenn Rogie, Ashly Salmon, Robert "Black Bear" Scott, Gary Sharp, Ed Woodmansee

Author Mark Kurlansky pleasantly surprised the world with this engaging best-seller that garnered rave reviews from critics and casual readers alike. His subject for this whimsical biography is the codfish, a species remarkable for its influence on humanity. Cod, Kurlansky argues, has driven economic, political, cultural and military thinking for centuries in the lands surrounding the Atlantic Ocean. Nations like England and Germany have waged wars...

Publisher's description: Born the year World War I began, acclaimed poet William Stafford (1914-1993) spent World War II in a camp for conscientious objectors. Throughout a century of conflict he remained convinced that war simply doesn't work. By his writings, Stafford showed that it is possible, and crucial, to think independently when fanatics act, and to speak for reconciliation when nations take sides. He believed it to be a failure of imagination...

"A definitive treasury of peace writings from centuries of American history includes essays, letters, speeches, poems and other literary selections by more than 150 diverse forefront writers, from Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain to Martin Luther King Jr. and Norman Mailer,"--NoveList.