A deeply humane new collection by a luminary of Bengali literatureA radiant collection of poetry about womanhood, intimacy, and the body politic that together evokes the arc of an ordinary life. Nabaneeta Dev Sen's rhythmic lines explore the joys and agonies of first love, childbirth, and decay with a restless, tactile imagination, both picking apart and celebrating the rituals that make us human. When she warns, "know that blood can be easily drawn by lips," her w...

I wasn’t trying to discover new places. I wasn’t going to break or create a record. I was going only on an impulse, entirely my own, just out of the natural curiosity that life brings, the delight of living. Was this not a valid enough reason? With curiosity in her heart and a prayer on her lips, Nabaneeta hauled herself on to a truck and set off on a journey to fill her unfilled bag of stories. Sacks, paper cartons, steel cupboards, wicker furniture, baskets of angry, clucking chickens, a...

Set in New York City in the 1990’s, when Rudy Giuliani was Mayor and Bill Clinton was President, Looking for an Address explores the lives of Bengali men and women from both Bangladesh and India. Jhilli has come to New York for a few months from Kolkata for training at the School of Social Sciences, staying with her childhood friend Shipra in Queens. Through Jhilli’s eyes, we see the wonders of New York, meet their Bengali friends, and experience their friendships and romances wit...

A deeply humane new collection by a luminary of Bengali literatureA radiant collection of poetry about womanhood, intimacy, and the body politic that together evokes the arc of an ordinary life. Nabaneeta Dev Sen's rhythmic lines explore the joys and agonies of first love, childbirth, and decay with a restless, tactile imagination, both picking apart and celebrating the rituals that make us human. When she warns, "know that blood can be easily drawn by lips," her w...

"Within every woman there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman, but she is an endangered species. Though the gifts of wildish nature come to us at birth, society's attempt to 'civilize' us into rigid roles has plundered this treasure, and muffled deep, life-giving messages of our own souls. Without Wild Woman, we become overdomesticated, fearful, uncreative, trapped."In her n...

"A masterpiece of women’s wisdom."—Christiane Northrup, M.D."The journey to capture her feminine soul and live authentically . . . makes a fascinating, well-researched and well-written story."—Publishers WeeklyIn celebration of the twentieth anniversary of its publication, a newly reissued edition of the bestselling author’s classic memoir of feminine spiritual discovery, with a new introduction by the author."I was ama...

"A soaring, eloquent meditation on the art of living . . . a treasury for readers of all faiths . . . his book itself is a profound, healing prayer." — Publishers WeeklyThere is a divine restlessness in the human heart, our eternal echo of longing that lives deep within us and never lets us settle for what we have or where we are. In this exquisitely crafted and inspirational book, John O'Donohue, author of the bestseller Anam Cara, explores the mo...

Over 200 of the best haiku poems from Japanese literature, translated by one of America’s premier poet-translators and now in one giftable volumeThe haiku is one of the most popular and widely recognized poetic forms in the world. In just three lines a great haiku presents a crystalline moment of image, emotion, and awareness. This illustrated collection includes haiku by the great masters from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, including works by Bash...

“Ruth Ozeki, a Zen Buddhist priest, sets herself the task of staring at her face in a mirror for three full, uninterrupted hours; her ruminations ripple out from personal and familial memories to wise and honest meditations on families and aging, race and the body.” —Minneapolis Star TribuneWhat did your face look like before your parents were born? In The Face: A Time Code, bestselling author and Zen Buddhist priest Ruth Ozeki recounts, ...

A dazzling collection of essays on how the best poems work, from the master poet and essayist“Poetry,” Jane Hirshfield has said, “is language that foments revolutions of being.” In ten eloquent and highly original explorations, she unfolds and explores some of the ways this is done—by the inclusion of hiddenness, paradox, and surprise; by a perennial awareness of the place of uncertainty in our lives; by language’s own acts of discovery; by the powers of image, sta...

"Intrepid journalist and novelist William T. Vollman's colossal body of work stands unsurpassed for its range, moral imperative, and artistry."— BooklistWilliam T. Vollmann, the National Book Award–winning author of Europe Central, offers a charming, evocative, and piercing examination of the ancient Japanese tradition of Noh theatre and the keys it holds to our modern understanding of beauty. Kissing the Mask is the first major book on Noh by an A...

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...