Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was lauded as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," and William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature". His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), the latter often called "The Great American Novel".
Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by American poet Walt Whitman. First published in 1855, Whitman spent most of his professional life writing and rewriting Leaves of Grass, revising it multiple times until his death. There have been held to be either six or nine individual editions of Leaves of Grass, the count varying depending on how they are distinguished. This resulted in vastly different editions over four decades—the first edition being a small book of twelve poems, and the last, a compilation of over 400.
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences is a philosophical and autobiographical treatise published by René Descartes in 1637. It is best known as the source of the famous quotation "Je pense, donc je suis", which occurs in Part IV of the work. A similar argument, without this precise wording, is found in Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), and a Latin version of the same statement Cogito, ergo sum is found in Principles of Philosophy (1644).
Scott Nearing was an American radical economist, educator, writer, political activist, pacifist, vegetarian and advocate of simple living.
Conversations with God (CWG) is a sequence of books written by Neale Donald Walsch. It was written as a dialogue in which Walsch asks questions and God answers. The first book of the Conversations with God series, Conversations with God, Book 1: An Uncommon Dialogue, was published in 1995 and became a publishing phenomenon, staying on The New York Times Best Sellers List for 137 weeks.
Wilbur Addison Smith is a Zambian-born South African novelist specialising in historical fiction about the international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries, seen from the viewpoints of both black and white families.
Ruskin Bond is an Indian author of British descent. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1957. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra, his novel in English. Bond has written hundreds of short stories, essays, novels and books for children. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014. He lives with his adopted family in Landour, Mussoorie.
Kenneth Milton Grimwood was an American author, who also published work under the name of Alan Cochran. In his fantasy fiction, Grimwood combined themes of life-affirmation and hope with metaphysical concepts, themes found in his best-known novel, Replay (1986). It won the 1988 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.
Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word consecration literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different groups. The origin of the word comes from the Latin stem consecrat, which means dedicated, devoted, and sacred. A synonym for to consecrate is to sanctify, a distinct antonym is to desecrate.
Wayne Walter Dyer was an American self-help and spiritual author and a motivational speaker. His first book, Your Erroneous Zones (1976), is one of the best-selling books of all time, with an estimated 100 million copies sold to date.
The Khazar Correspondence is a set of documents, which are alleged to date from the 950s or 960s, and to be letters between Hasdai ibn Shaprut, foreign secretary to the Caliph of Cordoba, and Joseph Khagan of the Khazars. The Correspondence is one of only a few documents attributed to a Khazar author, and potentially one of only a small number of primary sources on Khazar history.
Ulf Gunnar Ekberg, also known as Buddha, is a Swedish singer-songwriter, musician, businessman and television and film producer, best known as a founding member of the pop group Ace of Base, along with siblings Jonas Berggren, Linn Berggren and Jenny Berggren.
The Golestān, or Gulistān, is a landmark of Persian literature, perhaps its single most influential work of prose. Written in 1258 CE, it is one of two major works of the Persian poet Sa'di, considered one of the greatest medieval Persian poets. It is also one of his most popular books, and has proved deeply influential in the West as well as the East. The Golestan is a collection of poems and stories, just as a flower-garden is a collection of flowers. It is widely quoted as a source of wisdom. The well-known aphorism still frequently repeated in the western world, about being sad because one has no shoes until one meets the man who has no feet "whereupon I thanked Providence for its bounty to myself" is from the Golestan.
Cunt: A Declaration of Independence is a 1998 feminist book by Inga Muscio that called for a breakdown in the boundaries between women and sexuality. In it, the writer hopes to reverse the negative connotations behind female pejoratives. The books traverses such subjects as menstruation, rape, and competition between women.
Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored is a book written by Richard Cole who was the tour manager for English rock band Led Zeppelin, from their first US tour in 1968 to 1979, when he was replaced by Phil Carlo. The book was co-written with Richard Trubo, a syndicated journalist, and was first published in August 1992.
The nature fakers controversy was an early 20th-century American literary debate highlighting the conflict between science and sentiment in popular nature writing. The debate involved important American literary, environmental and political figures. Dubbed the "War of the Naturalists" by The New York Times, it revealed seemingly irreconcilable contemporary views of the natural world: while some nature writers of the day argued as to the veracity of their examples of anthropomorphic wild animals, others questioned an animal's ability to adapt, learn, teach, and reason.
Spiritual communion is a Christian practice of desiring union with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. It is used as a preparation for Mass and by individuals who cannot receive Holy Communion.
Four Upbuilding Discourses (1844) is the last of the Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses published during the years 1843–1844 by Søren Kierkegaard. He published three more discourses on "crucial situations in life" in 1845, the situations being confession, marriage, and death. These three areas of life require a "decision made in time".
About That is a poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky written during the self-imposed two-months "exile" after a row with Lilya Brik. It was finished on 11 February 1923 and published on 29 March 1923, originally by the LEF magazine. The poem's first separate edition was illustrated by Alexander Rodchenko who in his montages used photographs made by Mayakovsky and Lilya Brik.
The Epistles is one of the Seven Treatises of Manichaeism. It is derived from the Middle Ancient Persian dēwān, which means "Letter Collection". They have been long known among Manichaean scriptures They were originally written during the years of Mani’s public mission in the Sasanian Empire. They were collected together by his followers and became one of the canonical books of the Manichaean community It served a purpose of explaining the doctrine and arguing for the correctness of Manichaeism
