Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in United States

For decades, a quartet of Chinese women who have emigrated to San Francisco gather to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk—they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Over the years, their stories have informed the lives of four daughters who feel the weight of family and world history on their shoulders. With wit and sensitivity, this novel explores the deep, complicated, and sometimes painful connections between mothers and daughters.

For decades, a quartet of Chinese women who have emigrated to San Francisco gather to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk — they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Over the years, their stories have informed the lives of four daughters who feel the weight of family and world history on their shoulders.

Years after her Chinese half-sister assails her with ghost stories set in the mysterious world of Yin, Olivia — a young woman from San Francisco — finds herself in China. Looking for a way to reconcile her past with dreams for her future, Olivia's American assumptions are shaken by Chinese ghosts, but she also finds reasons to hope.

For decades — in China and in San Francisco — Winnie Louie and Helen Kwong have kept each other's confidences, but those secrets are about to be revealed. Convinced that she is dying, Helen decides to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of hidden truths — not only hers, but those of Winnie and of Winnie's daughter, Pearl.

Drawing upon everyday incidents, common situations, and rural imagery, Robert Frost fashioned poetry of great lyrical beauty and potent symbolism. His language is simple, clear, and colloquial, yet dense with meaning and wider significance. This brilliant collection features some of Frost's greatest works, including "The Road Not Taken," "Asking for Roses," "The Death of the Hired Man," "In the Home Stretch," "Into My Own," "Meeting and Passing," "Mending Wall," and more.

Without bothering to get approval from the President, the State Department, or even the FTC, Dave Barry's publishers sent him to Tokyo. You'd think they would have known better. Now the word is Barry has set back our diplomatic relations with the whole Pacific Rim by a couple of decades. Japanese culture, dining, sport, and industry all come under Barry's relentless scrutiny.

Surrounded by his children, who all seem to be going through life crises, and his wife, who is wrestling with her own demons, small-town Texas local Duane Moore can't seem to make sense of his life anymore. To the perplexity of his family and friends, he ditches his pickup, starts walking everywhere, and moves to a crude shack six miles out of town. But his attempts to go off the grid are far from successful, and he struggles with increasing depression.

For decades — in China and in San Francisco — Winnie Louie and Helen Kwong have kept each other's confidences, but those secrets are about to be revealed. Convinced that she is dying, Helen decides to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of hidden truths — not only hers, but those of Winnie and of Winnie's daughter, Pearl.

Henry Miller's gifts of profundity, humor, and spiritual sensitivity as well as his joy of living are well displayed in this collection of his insights into the human character. The pieces range from the delightfully raucous to the metaphysically illuminating, and include portraits of the famous and less-than-famous people in Miller's life. All human beings become real to the listener under Miller's penetrating mind and loving eye.

In this classic, romantic ghost story, a governess on a remote country estate begins to believe her charges are possessed by the spirits of 2 dead former servants. Are her perceptions simply the fruit of her neuroses - or could they possibly be valid? A foray into the very heart of evil, Henry James's masterful novel is also remarkable for its psychological acuity and evocation of mood.

This profound portrait of family life takes listeners inside the hearts and minds of members of the Quick family, whose raw-edged emotions are stirred up by a visit home. An inexplicably violent death and painful confrontations leave every family member forever changed. Rich in insight and psychological entanglements, A Southern Family is a masterful tale of anger and pain, of love and hatred, and ultimately of healing, understanding, and wisdom.

These passages from the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson on religion and spiritual philosophy reveal a metaphysical thought that is quintessentially American and universally relevant to the spiritual needs of today's world. It is seldom that an American philosopher is found among the gurus, mystics, and masters present in the spiritual milieu. Emerson combined the spiritual intuition of the East with the philosophical acumen of the West.

Lisa Kron invites her audience on a roller coaster ride through the Kron family album in 2.5 Minute Ride. Rising and falling between high hilarity and deep disquiet, Kron demonstrates with disarming simplicity that humor and horror can share the same human moment. Kron's' performance switches back and forth between her journey to Auschwitz with her septuagenarian father, a Holocaust survivor; her Michigan family's annual pilgrimage to a Sandusky, Ohio amusement park, and more.

In this treasury of passionate and humorous encounters with the vibrant world of animals, Stephen Mitchell has collected animal poems from many ages and many cultures. He includes excerpts from ancient masterpieces like, The Hymn to the Sun by Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, The Book of Job, and The Book of Psalms; haiku by Basho, Buson, and Issa; poems by Milton and Smart, Blake and Burns, Whitman and Emily Dickenson, Hardy and Hopkins.

Perhaps the first great and truly "American" poet, Walt Whitman's writing reflected the idealism and turbulence of the mid-19th century. His poetry broke new stylistic ground with its unconventional meter and rhyme schemes, yet celebrated democratic values, the beauty of nature, and the complex variety and vitality of American life.

Although she is most famous for her bestselling fiction, Erica Jong started her publishing career as a poet and has an international reputation for her verse. Becoming Light includes early poems previously uncollected in book form, selections from her previous books and many new poems. Erica Jong's poetry exhibits her rare gifts for inventiveness, wit, vigor, honesty and accessibility.

Bad Dogs Have More Fun is an unforgettable collection of more that 75 newspaper columns by John Grogan, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of Marley & Me. Combining humor, wit, poignancy and affection, these columns provide insight into the intriguing and wonderful world we live in.

Subtitled "512 boorish, insensitive, and socially obnoxious pointers for leading a simple, self-centered life," this little book is a hilarious parody of the best seller with a similar name. Here are just a few of the gems contained within. Number 24: Give little kids clothes for their birthdays. Number 101: Argue with everybody. Number 326: Leave the alarm on when he doesn't have to get up. This guide is bound to bring at least 512 laughs.

Here, in their own words, are seven children who confronted life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, sickle cell anemia, disability, and AIDS. Ranging in age from 7 to 17, these children from different backgrounds and with different personalities, share uncommon courage, a vibrant spirit, and piercing candor and eloquence about how to seize life, to glorify it, and be grateful for its gifts. Through poems written at Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camp and conversations with loved ones, they reveal their attitudes towards life, illness, remission, religion, family, and friends.

In 1832, 18-year-old Frankie Silver was charged with murdering her young husband. In 1833, she became the first woman in the state of North Carolina to be hanged for murder. But was she guilty? More than 100 years later, Tennessee sheriff Spencer Arrowood is determined to reveal the truth behind this unanswered question. A spellbinding story that sweeps from the drawing rooms of early aristocracy to the ruins of a one-room cabin deep in the Appalachian wilderness, The Ballad of Frankie Silver flawlessly weaves past and present, truth and fiction, folklore and legend.