What makes one happy? What gives him the everlasting peace of mind? The bliss? These questions have been asked millions of times and many people have attempted to find the answer. For me, when someone knows that he has been making right choice every time, even in the most difficult situation, he experiences the bliss. And what is it that prompts him to make those right choices? His values , the divine wisdom. Is this wisdom a monopoly of any faith, culture, or race? Definitely not. This is...

Step into a series of dazzling, funny, melancholy, and joyous moments with this collection of haiku masterworks. Beloved translator Peter Beilensons goals were twofold: to craft a book of haiku accessible to anyone, and to render his best guess at what the poets would have written in English. His translations preserve the sublime spirit of each verse, conjuring vivid visual and emotional impressions in spare words.Haiku icon Basho is represented amply here, as are imagery-virtuoso Buson and w...

Vivid new translations of Basho's popular haiku, in a selected format ideal for newcomers as well as fans long familiar with the Japanese master.Basho, the famously bohemian traveler through seventeenth-century Japan, is a poet attuned to the natural world as well as humble human doings; "Piles of quilts/ snow on distant mountains/ I watch both," he writes. His work captures both the profound loneliness of one observing mind and the broad-ranging joy he finds in ou...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins comes a twelfth collection of poetry offering over fifty new poems that showcase the generosity, wit, and imaginative play that prompted The Wall Street Journal to call him “America’s favorite poet.”The Rain in Portugal—a title that admits he’s not much of a rhymer—sheds Collins’s ironic light on such subjects as travel and art, cats and dogs, loneliness and love, be...

Step into a series of dazzling, funny, melancholy, and joyous moments with this collection of haiku masterworks. Beloved translator Peter Beilensons goals were twofold: to craft a book of haiku accessible to anyone, and to render his best guess at what the poets would have written in English. His translations preserve the sublime spirit of each verse, conjuring vivid visual and emotional impressions in spare words.Haiku icon Basho is represented amply here, as are imagery-virtuoso Buson and w...

The Japanese poet-recluse Ryokan (1758–1831) is one of the most beloved figures of Asian literature, renowned for his beautiful verse, exquisite calligraphy, and eccentric character. Deceptively simple, Ryokan's poems transcend artifice, presenting spontaneous expressions of pure Zen spirit. Like his contemporary Thoreau, Ryokan celebrates nature and the natural life, but his poems touch the whole range of human experience: joy and sadness, pleasure and pain, enlightenment and illusion, lo...

Step into a series of dazzling, funny, melancholy, and joyous moments with this collection of haiku masterworks. Translators Peter Beilenson and Harry Behn approached this volume with the twofold goal of crafting a book of haiku accessible to anyone and rendering their best guess at what the poets would have written in English. Their translations preserve the sublime spirit of each verse, conjuring vivid visual and emotional impressions in spare words.Haiku icon Basho is represented amply her...

When Oka-san, a brown-and-gold duck, selects the Mitsui Office Park as the perfect spot for her nest, people flock from downtown Tokyo to watch the ducklings hatch. A modern-day Make Way for Ducklings, set in Japan.But can one little duck family survive in the heart of a bustling city?Nature in the City: Follow Oka-san and her ducklings as they navigate skyscrapers, traffic, and the famous Imperial Palace moat.The Smallest Duckling:

Idioms and their Stories is the first of a four volume series, based on the popular column, Know Your English, which has been a regular feature in The Hindu since 1982. Teachers, students, and those who are keen on honing their speaking and writing skills will find the series useful. This volume contains a selection of more than 300 idioms, and each entry gives the meaning of the idiom, provides examples of its use, and wherever possible, traces its origin

Jataka Tales are often short narratives which tell the stories of the lives of the Buddha before he reached Enlightenment. The story of each of these earlier lives, like a fable, is meant to convey the lessons of moral behaviour.

The steam engine shot out of the tunnel, snorting and puffing like a green, black and gold dragon, a beautiful monster out of Ranji's dreams . . .Fascinated by the midday train, Ranji would find himself waiting near the tunnel to catch a glimpse of the engine come roaring out of it. But the tunnel has more surprises for him. From a jungle full of lush green trees comes a timeless tale of unexpected friendship, curiosity, duty and wildlife.Peppered with delightful il...

In this, her first poetry collection since the award-winning Countries of the Body, Tishani Doshi returns to the body as a central theme, but extends beyond the corporeal to challenge the more metaphysical borders of space and time. These new poems are powerful meditations born on the joineries of life and death, union and separation, memory and dream, where lovers speak to each other across the centuries, and daughters wander into their mothers' childhoods. As much about loss as they are ...