Winter Diary

This remarkable edition of 150 numbered copies collects the best work of a leading contemporary Hungarian poet. Designed by the author, with full-color illustrations, French flaps, colored endpapers, and high-quality paper.

Reading Jazz

An unusual source book of jazz history, Reading Jazz (companion to Writing Jazz ) examines its roots and future, as well as its links to and influence on other forms of modern cultural expression. David Meltzer artfully juxtaposes a variety of texts to explore the paradox of jazz as an art fom preceived as both primative and modern, to consider the use of jazz as a metaphor for new attitudes, to show how it was mythopoeticized and demonized, to view jazz as a focus for a variety of cultural attitudes, and to probe its relation to other aspects of modern culture.

Arranged historically, both literary and popular texts are included, reflecting the interplay of jazz with both high and low culture, from such contributors as Hoagy Carmichael, Artie Shaw, Norman Mailer, Art Pepper, Simone de Beauvoir, Julio Cortázar, William Carlos Williams, Robert Creeley, and many more. Reading Jazz will be indispensible not only for jazz enthusiasts but also for anyone interested in the evolution of modern culture.

Writing Jazz

A companion volume to the critically acclaimed Reading Jazz, Writing Jazz is the first comprehensive historical anthology of writings on jazz by African-American musicians, critics, writers, and poets. Arranged historically with equal attention paid to both essay and lyric, this collection encompasses voices from the Spirituals and the Blues to Free Jazz and the Black Arts Movement. It includes selections from Louis Armstrong, Amiri Baraka, Sidney Bechet, Miles Davis, Ralph Ellison, Dizzie Gillespie, Nikki Giovanni, Billie Holiday, Son House, Langston Hughes, Furry Lewis, Albert Murray, Ishmael Reed, Sonia Sanchez, Willie “The Lion” Smith, Wole Soyinka, Ethel Waters, Booker White, Richard Wright, and others. Challenging and no doubt controversial, Writing Jazz, like its companion, is a valuable historical sourcebook and a provocative read. will be indispensible not only for jazz enthusiasts but also for anyone interested in the evolution of modern culture.

Red Diaper Baby

Three comic autobiographical monologues by performer Josh Kornbluth: "The Mathematics of Change," "Haiku Tunnel," and the title piece. Kornbluth shows a deep affection for the wild, eccentric characters who people his universe. With a few deft strokes he paints unforgettable portraits, as true as they are funny. Together the monologues achieve real literary form and depth, as we witness a young man coming of age in a world that is anything but conventional.

A Girl with a Monkey

Dangerous, compulsive, and deranged relationships define this celebrated compliation of Michaels' work. Perhaps best phrased in the New York Times, "For the characters in Leonard Michaels's short stories, marginality has its privileges."

No Pictures in my Grave

The story of a woman’s journey to self-realization by means of the rituals and legends of Sicily. Lloyd travels to the spiritual landmarks of Sicily — primitive cave drawings of fertility goddesses, the Madonna Nera of Tindari, and sanctuaries and temples dedicated to Demeter — searching for the secrets of these powerful female symbols. As she journeys alone into the heart of Sicily, tensions between this quest for feminine strength and historical validation and the male-dominated society escalate. As Lloyd conquers her fears, she successfully navigates through the strict cultural mores of a patriarchal society. In a climactic ending, she returns to the Procession of the Mysteries armed with inner strength and power.

Without Force or Lies

A collection of essays, speeches, and eyewitness accounts from those directly involved in the events of 1989 in Central Europe.

Contributors include Andrei Sakharov, Václav Havel, Alfred Herrhausen, Reiner Kunze, Edith Anderson, Eric Gabriel, Günther Grass, Ewa Kuryluk, Leszek Balcerowicz, Adam Michnik, Josef Skvorecký, Tamas Aczel, George Paul Csicsery, Norman Manea, Thomas A. Oleszczuk, John Jekabson, William M. Brinton, Z (anonymous), and Mikhail Gorbachev.

The Wig

"... explodes with the crazy laughter of a man past caring.... His style, as mean and vicious a weapon as a rusty hacksaw, is the perfect vehicle for his zany pessimism.... 'The Wig' is a brutal, exciting, and necessary book."  — The New York Times

Green Essentials:

"In this age of well-financed public relations efforts, sound-bites, and disinformation campaigns by those who would despoil the environment, Green Essentials provides a concise, informative voice of reason for the concerned layperson."  — Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund

Earth Keepers:

The hosts of the nationally syndicated radio program "Earth Watch" have devised an invaluable guide to environmental theory and action — one that explains the root causes of the earth's problems at the same time that it illuminates the path toward solving them.

The Green Reader:

This international anthology on Green thought provides a thorough introduction to the different approaches environmental visionaries cover in examining our lives as social beings in the natural world.

Pharmako/Gnosis, Pharmako/Dynamis, and Pharmako/Poeia

An encyclopedic study of the history and uses of psychoactive plants and related synthetics, the trilogy forms an interrelated suite of works that provide a unique immersion in this medically, culturally, and spiritually fascinating subject.

Lao-tzu's Taoteching

The Taoteching, written some 2,500 years ago by a man known only as Lao-tzu ("the Old Master"), encapsulates the wisdom of Taoism. This revered text, published bilingually, recreates the ancient poetry that has made the Taoteching the most quoted book in the Chinese language.

Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom

This ancient text aims not at technical artistic training but at the training of artistic perception: not how to hold a brush, but rather how to really see a plum blossom. First published in 1238 CE, this may be the world’s first printed book of art and literature.

Road to Heaven:

"This fascinating book combines first-person accounts of meetings with modern-day Chinese hermits with a wealth of historical information." — Yoga Journal

The Harp and the Shadow

"An extraordinary display of historical inquisitiveness and stylistic maturity, a book that dares to awaken Columbus from his glorious eternal rest to denounce his foolishness, his mendacity, his insatiable greed for gold."   — New York Times Book Review

The Origin of the World

"A slender book in length, but not in style and language.... Michon's short fable obliges us to recognize, within and beyond sexual fantasy, strains of cruelty directed toward beauty."  — Harper's

Masters and Servants

"Michon offers a brilliant tour de force of five pieces about art and artists: an often indescribably eloquent modern taking up where Vasari, say, might have left off.... Stylistically demanding, but a book often as passionate, beautiful, and skilled as the paintings it springs from." — Kirkus Reviews

Camille Claudel: Une Femme

A fictionalized biography of the great nineteenth-century sculptor. Anne Delbée’s sensitive and sympathetic portrayal of Camille Claudel spotlights the life of both an exceptional woman and an extraordinary artist.

Thirst: the Desert Trilogy

Esteemed Israeli writer Shulamith Hareven completes her greatest project with this trilogy, a collection of three linked novellas set in the biblical era. "First-rate fiction, beautifully translated, by one of the world's great contemporary women writers."  — Publishers Weekly

The Temple of Iconolasts

"Compellingly whimsical, alienated, pseudo-scientific, bizarre: all these adjectives describe this fiction in the form of a short reference work, the first book by admired Argentinian-Italian novelist Wilcock to be published in English."   — Publishers Weekly

Tantra: the Art of Conscious Loving

"With easy-to-follow exercises, this provocative and timely book offers modern couples ancient Tantric secrets for deepening relationships, intimacy and passion."   — Yoga Journal