This is the story of Azar Nafisi's dream and of the nightmare that made it come true. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. They were unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about...

Champions the lifelong benefits of reading aloud to children and offers book lists, strategies, and tools parents can use to form deep and lasting connections with their kids.

Professor Fears presents his choices from some of the most essential writings in history, ranging in time from the 3rd millennium B.C. to the 20th century, and in locale from Mesopotamia and China to Europe and America. He focuses on intellectual history and ethics, taking underlying ideas of each great work and revealing how these ideas can be put to use in a moral and ethical life.

In this collection of essays, Patchett turns her writer's eye on her own experiences and transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew.

Explains the basic concepts of the Chinese philosophy of Taoism through a discussion of how Winnie-the-Pooh lives by its principles.

"For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tale of displacement and assimilation woven together with poignant themes from beloved works of classic literature. In 1975, during the fall of Saigon, Phuc Tran immigrates to America along with his family. By sheer chance they land in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a small town where the Trans struggle to assimilate into their new life. In this coming-of-age...