[PDF] Not Quite The Classics eBook

Author : Colin Mochrie
Publisher : Diversion Publishing Corp.
Page : 218 pages
File Size : 20,50 MB
Release : 2013-07-12
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1626811121

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The improv star of Whose Line Is It Anyway? puts his “unique comic vision” to work on a range of literary classics (Toronto Star). Based on the improv game First Line, Last Line, actor and comedian Colin Mochrie puts his own spin on works of classic literature. Taking the first line and last line from classic books and poems, Colin recasts these familiar stories in his own trademark offbeat style. Join in the fun as a rainy day at home becomes a zombie-killing adventure in The Cat and My Dad . . . as well as riffs on everything from A Tale of Two Cities to a classic Sherlock Holmes novel, proving that no literary masterpiece is too big, or too small, for the improvisational comedy treatment. “Colin Mochrie is a comedic and creative force to be reckoned with. Therefore, this book is a literary force to be reckoned with. If you are too lazy for reckoning, just read this book and everything will work out nicely.” —Brad Sherwood “Colin Mochrie is devastatingly handsome, perilously smart, and smells like warm maple syrup. Step inside his hilarious and complex mind, and abandon all hope.” —Aisha Tyler

Author : Colin Mochrie
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 10,27 MB
Release : 2014-10-07
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0143183834

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Colin Mochrie, a man known worldwide for working without a script, tackles the classics in this surprising, delightful collection of stories. Borrowing from a well-known improv game, Mochrie takes the first and last lines from familiar classics and reimagines everything in between. With the same engaging humour he exhibits on stage, television, and film, he takes readers in bizarre and hilarious new directions. Imagine Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick featuring a killer toupée. Imagine Sherlock Holmes doing stand-up and The Night Before Christmas with a time-travelling twist. This inspired collection is comical, quirky, and clever—classic Mochrie.

Author : Jo Walton
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 488 pages
File Size : 22,67 MB
Release : 2014-01-21
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1466844094

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As any reader of Jo Walton's Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re-reader of books. In 2008, then-new science-fiction mega-site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re-reading—about all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com. Now this volumes presents a selection of the best of them, ranging from short essays to long reassessments of some of the field's most ambitious series. Among Walton's many subjects here are the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge; the question of what genre readers mean by "mainstream"; the underappreciated SF adventures of C. J. Cherryh; the field's many approaches to time travel; the masterful science fiction of Samuel R. Delany; Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; the early Hainish novels of Ursula K. Le Guin; and a Robert A. Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read. Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely readable, engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present-day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Author : Italo Calvino
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Page : 291 pages
File Size : 21,61 MB
Release : 2014-12-16
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 0544146379

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A posthumously published collection of thirty-six essays offering Italo Calvino's invigorating and illuminating analysis of his most treasured literary classics.

Author : Kevin Smokler
Publisher :
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 44,13 MB
Release : 2013
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1616146567

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What do the great books of youth have to say about life now? Smokler's essays on the classics--witty, down-to-earth, appreciative, and insightful--are divided into 10 sections, each covering an archetypical stage of life, from youth and first love to family, loss, and the future.

Author : Various
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 461 pages
File Size : 14,45 MB
Release : 2002-10-15
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 0060080949

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From early, beloved classics such as Goodnight Moon and Harold and the Purple Crayon to such recent treasures as If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and Pete's a Pizza, this collection assembles twelve of the greatest picture books ever published. Parents can share the joy of introducing young children to many timeless favorites that have already enchanted millions of readers. This volume offers a wonder-filled opportunity for preschoolers and families to own and share "the best of the best." All royalties for HarperCollins Treasury of Picture Book Classics: A Child's First Collection will be donated to First Book, a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their own new books. The primary goal of First Book is to work with existing literacy programs to distribute new books to children who, for economic reasons, have little or no access to books. In this way, First Book effectively leverages the heroic efforts of local tutoring, mentoring, and family literacy organizations as they work to reach children who need help the most. First Book distributes millions of books to hundreds of thousands of children nationwide each year. For more information on First Book, please visit www.firstbook.org.

Author : Lois Keith
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 20,51 MB
Release : 2001
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780415937399

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Heidi, The Secret Garden, and Pollyanna are all classic "girls' books, " featuring a miracle cure of an invalid character who literally gets up and walks away from illness or paralysis. Such stories were common in Victorian novels and they implicitly conveyed the idea that disability and physical suffering were punishment for wrongdoing: unruly girls could not enter womanhood unless they were tamed, and an accident was the perfect plot device for this transformation. Other characters, like Helen Burns in Jane Eyre or Beth in Little Women, were just too good to live, and died so that another character could be redeemed by their example. Lois Keith points out in this study that the temptation to either cure or kill off disabled characters has surprising tenacity. The widespread belief that a disabled life isn't a full life and that patients can cure themselves through force of will endures to the present day. In Take Up Thy Bed & Walk, Lois Keith brings her lively and observant eye to the classic books of childhood from Jane Eyre, Heidi, and Pollyanna, to modern American classics such as Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie and Judy Blume's Deenie. Keith explores the recurring images of impairment and ill health in literature and asks the reader to reconsider the messages they send to a devoted young audience. This book is also a testament to the singular passion with which these books are read by younger readers and reminds us of the intensity of our own reading experience as children.

Author : Judith Viorst
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 34 pages
File Size : 24,30 MB
Release : 2009-09-22
Category : Juvenile Fiction
ISBN : 1416985956

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Recounts the events of a day when everything goes wrong for Alexander. Suggested level: junior, primary.

Author : Mary Beard
Publisher : Profile Books
Page : 435 pages
File Size : 43,61 MB
Release : 2013-03-07
Category : History
ISBN : 1847658881

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Mary Beard is one of the world's best-known classicists - a brilliant academic, with a rare gift for communicating with a wide audience both though her TV presenting and her books. In a series of sparkling essays, she explores our rich classical heritage - from Greek drama to Roman jokes, introducing some larger-than-life characters of classical history, such as Alexander the Great, Nero and Boudicca. She invites you into the places where Greeks and Romans lived and died, from the palace at Knossos to Cleopatra's Alexandria - and reveals the often hidden world of slaves. She takes a fresh look at both scholarly controversies and popular interpretations of the ancient world, from The Golden Bough to Asterix. The fruit of over thirty years in the world of classical scholarship, Confronting the Classics captures the world of antiquity and its modern significance with wit, verve and scholarly expertise.