The Little Black Book of Business Writing is for everyone who writes for business purposes, in the commercial world, the private sector, the trades and the professions. Mark Tredinnick and Geoff Whyte help readers write the kinds of documents that confront them most days at work – letters, emails, web writing, reports, minutes, tenders, ministerials, board papers, media releases, newsletters, marketing documents, policy proposals, business cards, newsletters, position descriptions...

The Land's Wild Music explores the home terrains and the writing of four great American writers of place—Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, Terry Tempest Williams, and James Galvin. In their work and its relationship with their home places, Tredinnick, an Australian writer, searches for answers to such questions such as whether it’s possible for a writer to make an authentic witness of a place; how one captures the landscape as it truly is; and how one joins the plac...

The author of The Land's Wild Music depicts Australia's Blue Mountains through stories of the land and the lives within it.At the farthest extent of Australia's Blue Mountains, on the threshold of the country's arid interior, the Blue Plateau reveals the vagaries of a hanging climate: the droughts last longer, the seasons change less, and the wildfires burn hotter and more often. In The Blue Plateau, Mark Tredinnick tries to learn what it means to ...

The classic work on the art of fiction by the "refreshingly unpredictable" novelist and literary critic ( Publishers Weekly)In this posthumously published collection of his essays and reviews, acclaimed novelist John Gardner discusses the craft of fiction writing, taking to task some of his best-known contemporaries in the process. Gardner criticizes some for writing disingenuous fiction, and commends others who produce literature that acts as a life-affir...

During recent years, environmental debate worldwide has been dominated by climate change, carbon emissions and the greenhouse effect. But a number of academic, technical, political, business and NGO initiatives indicate the emergence of a new wave of environmental attention focused on “natural capital,†“ecosystem services†and “biodiversity,†things nature does for us. In What Has Nature Ever Done for Us? British environmentalist Tony Juniper points out that as a species we th...

WINNER OF THE 2018 JOHN BURROUGHS MEDAL FOR OUTSTANDING NATURAL HISTORY WRITING“Both a love song to trees, an exploration of their biology, and a wonderfully philosophical analysis of their role they play in human history and in modern culture.” —Science FridayThe author of Sounds Wild and Broken and the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Forest Unseen visits with nature’s most magnificent networkers — trees...

Global sustainability in the 21st century seems to be an elusive goal. There are too many issues, too many problems—and, increasingly, too many people—to make the major changes required in the time various experts tell us we have left before it’s too late.To create a sustainable future, we need to change the game itself. We cannot simply try to solve our problems one at a time. Instead, we need to reimagine sustainability in all its dimensions—social, cultural, environmental and ec...

Charting a new course in the criticism of postwar fiction, Cool Characters examines the changing status of irony in American cultural and political life from World War II to the present, showing how irony migrated from the countercultural margins of the 1950s to the cultural mainstream of the 1980s. Along the way, irony was absorbed into postmodern theory and ultimately became a target of recent writers who have sought to create a practice of “postirony” that might move beyond its...

In a comparative and interdisciplinary analysis of modern and postmodern literature, film, art, and visual culture, Monika Kaup examines the twentieth century's recovery of the baroque within a hemispheric framework embracing North America, Latin America, and U.S. Latino/a culture. As "neobaroque" comes to the forefront of New World studies, attention to transcultural dynamics is overturning the traditional scholarship that confined the baroque to a specific period, class, and ideology in ...

A comprehensive history of the continent, "full of engaging and attention-catching information about North America's geology, climate, and paleontology" ( The Washington Post Book World).Here, "the rock star of modern science" tells the unforgettable story of the geological and biological evolution of the North American continent, from the time of the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago to the present day (Jared Diamond, Pulit...

This collection of specially-commissioned essays by experts in the field explores key dimensions of Edgar Allan Poe's work and life. Contributions provide a series of alternative perspectives on one of the most enigmatic and controversial American writers. The essays, specially tailored to the needs of undergraduates, examine all of Poe's major writings, his poetry, short stories and criticism, and place his work in a variety of literary, cultural and political contexts. They situate his i...

Mary Austin's "The Land of Little Rain" is a lyrical exploration of the natural beauty and stark realities of the high desert of California. Through a series of evocative essays, Austin masterfully intertwines the landscape's physicality with its cultural and spiritual significance to native peoples and settlers alike. Her keen observations render the region's flora and fauna not merely as backdrop but as integral characters in the unfolding narrative, reflecting her empathetic engagement ...