When You Are Engulfed in Flames

By David Sedaris

Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him once more. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine. From armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds to the awkwardness of having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a sleeping fellow passenger on a plane, David Sedaris uses life’s most bizarre moments to reach new heights in understanding love and fear, family and strangers. Culminating in a brilliantly funny account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris’s sixth essay collection will be avidly anticipated. Call Number PS3569 .E314 .W2008

Source Barnes&Noble.com

Super Review: English Language

by Research & Education Association

Call# PE1114 .E64 2000

Product Description
REA’s Super Reviews help students brush up on tough subjects. They are more thorough than ordinary subject reviews but less complex than voluminous study guides. Numerous solved problems accompany the review and bring it to life. The English Language Super Review includes an extensive review of grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. A glossary of usage is also included. Exercises and quizzes enable students to check whether they have learned what they need to know, whether they understand the subject and have command of it.

Source Amazon.com

Plagiarism

by Heidi Williams

Call Number: PN167 .P532 2008

Description not available

Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe (and What You Need to Know to End the Madness)

by Arianna Huffington

Call Number: E902 .H844 2008

With her trademark passion, intelligence, and devastating wit, Huffington Post editor in chief Arianna Huffington tackles the issues that are crucial to this year’s presidential election and, even more so, to the fate of the country.

Huffington makes the case that America has been hijacked from within by a radical element—the “lunatic fringe” of the Right that has taken over the Republican Party. Despite holding views at odds with the majority of Americans, these zealots have given us an endless war in Iraq, a sputtering economy, a health care system on life support, a war on science and reason, and an immoral embrace of torture.

But they haven’t done it on their own: they have been enabled by a compliant media that act as if there is no such thing as truth and are more interested in cozying up to those in power than in holding them accountable, and by feckless Democrats who have allowed themselves to be intimidated into backing down again and again.

Both a withering indictment and a hopeful call to arms, Right Is Wrong is an explosive, boldly incisive work that will help set the national agenda. (Description by BarnesandNobles.com)

Um…: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean

By Michael Erard

Call Number: P37.5 .S67 E73 2007

This original, entertaining, and surprising book investigates verbal blunders: what they are, what they say about those who make them, and how and why we’ve come to judge them.

Um… is about how you really speak, and why it’s normal for your everyday speech to be filled with errors—about one in every ten words. In this charming, engaging account of language in the wild, linguist and writer Michael Erard also explains why our attention to some blunders rises and falls. Where did the Freudian slip come from? Why do we prize “umlessness” in speaking—and should we? And how do we explain the American presidents who are famous for their verbal stumbles? Full of entertaining examples, Um… is essential reading for talkers and listeners of all stripes.

barnesandnoble.com

Standard Operating Procedure

By Phillip Gourevitch and Errol Morris

Call Number: DS79.76 .G68 2008

Standard Operating Procedure is a war story that takes its place among the classics. It is the story of American soldiers who were sent to Iraq as liberators only to find themselves working as jailers in Saddam Hussein’s old dungeons, responsible for implementing the sort of policy they were supposed to be fighting against. It is the story of a defining moment in the war, and a defining moment in our understanding of ourselves-the story of the infamous Abu Ghraib photographs of prisoner abuse, as seen through the eyes, and told through the voices, of the soldiers who took them and appeared in them. It is the story of how those soldiers were at once the instruments of a great injustice and the victims of a great injustice.

In a tradition of moral and political reckoning, and all-powerful story-telling, that runs from Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor to Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, Philip Gourevitch has written a relentlessly surprising and perceptive account of the front lines of the war on terror. Drawing on more than two hundred hours of Errol Morris’s startlingly frank and intimate interviews with the soldier-photographers who gave us what have become the iconic images of the Iraq war, Standard Operating Procedure is a book that makes you see, and makes you feel, and above all makes you think about what it means to be human. It is an utterly original book that stands to endure as essential reading long after the current war in Iraq passes from the headlines-a work of searing power from two of our finest masters of nonfiction, working at the peak of their powers.

barnesandnoble.com

Violence in the Media

By Jodie Lynn Boduch (Editor)

Call Number: P96 .V5 V564 2008

Throughout history people have engaged in heated debates over controversial issues. Each title in The History of Issues series shows how the arguments have both changed and remained constant over time, proving the old adage that “the more things change the more they stay the same.” Each anthology in the series contains a wide range of primary documents-including speeches, court cases, personal reflections, and newspaper accounts-that brings controversies from previous eras to life. Essays by historians and modern scholars add background and insight. An annotated table of contents, chronology of key events, and thorough index facilitate quick reference. An extensive bibliography and list of organizations to contact offer avenues for further research. All of these features combine to provide a unique historical perspective on issues that continue to spark intense debate.

barnesandnoble.com

Evocative Objects: Things We Think With

by Sherry Turkle

Call Number: BF175.5 .T73 E96 2007

Autobiographical essays, framed by two interpretive essays by the editor, describe the power of an object to evoke emotion and provoke thought: reflections on a cello, a laptop computer, a 1964 Ford Falcon, an apple, a mummy in a museum, and other “things-to-think-with.” (Description by BarnesandNobles.com)

The Essential Guide: Research Writing Across the Disciplines

By James D. Lester

Call Number: LB2369 .L4 2008

Pocket-sized and inexpensive, The Essential Guide to Writing Research Papers is the ultimate brief research reference. Offers non-intimidating, step-by-step instructions on all aspects of the research process. Explanations of using the Internet discuss finding a topic as well as locating resources. Introductions to the World Wide Web also cover using search engines and directories, Gopher, FTPs, Telnet, listervs, usenet newsgroups, and e-mail. Strategies for developing an argument in a research paper are presented as well as organizational paradigms for other common types of research papers. Complete and up-to-date coverage of four documentation systems-MLA, APA, CBE, and footnote style-also includes coverage of electronic sources according to the latest guidelines. A full chapter on selecting the best source material explains how to evaluate both print and electronic sources. Comprehensive section on avoiding plagiarism features a detailed discussion of common knowledge. For those interested in a brief guide to writing research papers.

barnesandnoble.com

How to Write for a General Audience: A Guide for Academics Who Want to Share Their Knowledge with the World and Have Fun Doing It

By Kathleen A. Kendall-Tackett

Call Number: PN145 .K38 2007

This work shows academics how to communicate their ideas effectively to a wider audience. With humor and personal anecdotes, she provides practical information on coming up with ideas for articles and books, beating procrastination, and writing effective, jargon-free prose. Most academics know little about the business end of publishing. In this book, they’ll find helpful tips on locating a publisher, pitching an idea, working with editors, negotiating a book contract, and promoting one’s finished product.

books-express.co.uk