Arcadia Public Library

"Good Prose" is an inspiring book about writing--about the creation of good prose--and the record of a warm and productive literary friendship.

In the eighteenth century, on discovering her husband has been murdered, an Irish noblewoman drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary lament that reaches across centuries to the young Doireann Ní Ghríofa, whose fascination with it is later rekindled when she narrowly avoids fatal tragedy in her own life and becomes obsessed with learning everything she can about the poem Peter Levi has famously called "the greatest poem written...

Whether you're new to rugby or a scrum veteran, this guide will help you explore all of rugby's action and excitement.

Henry Brown wrote that long before he came to be know as "Box," he "entered the world a slave." He was put to work as a child and passed down from one generation to the next - as property. When he was an adult, his wife and children were sold away from him out of spite. Henry Brown watched as his family left, bound in chains, headed to the deeper South. What more could be taken from him? But then hope - and help - came in the from of the Underground...

"Inspired by the European intensive growers, [this book] offers a very approachable and productive form of farming that has proven to work well for the earth and its stewards for centuries. Gardeners working on 2.5 acres or less will find this book especially useful, as it offers proof that small-scale market growers and serious home gardeners can live good lives close to the land and make a profit at the same time."--

"What defines who we are? For decades, the biological answer has been our genes. In The Master Builder, leading biologist Alfonso Martinez Arias breaks with decades of scientific and popular tradition to make a bold argument: what defines us is our cells. Drawing on new research from his lab and others, Martinez Arias reveals that we are composed of a thrillingly complex, constantly rearranging symphony of cells that know how to count, feel, and ultimately...

How negotiable is a fact in nonfiction? In 2003, an essay by John D'Agata was rejected by the magazine that commissioned it due to factual inaccuracies. That essay--which eventually became the foundation of D'Agata's critically acclaimed About a Mountain--was accepted by another magazine, but not before they handed it to their own fact-checker, Jim Fingal. What resulted from that assignment was seven years of arguments, negotiations, and revisions...

"When Robert Frost was a child, his family thought he would grow up to be a baseball player. Instead, he became a poet. His life on a farm in New Hampshire inspired him to write "poetry that talked," and today he is famous for his vivid descriptions of the rural life he loved so much. There was a time, though, when Frost had to struggle to get his poetry published. Told from the point of view of Lesley, Robert Frost's oldest daughter, this is the...

"The basic facts about the season of Winter including how plants, animals, and the climate change and adapt are included in this photo essay introduction to Winter"--

Journey with Tony Stead as he explores many amazing ways to make nonfiction reading and writing come alive in the classroom. This four-part video series takes you inside two classrooms at The Manhattan New School where Tony works with first-grade teacher Lauren Benjamin and third-grade teacher Lisa Elias Moynihan. Watch how literacy centers literally come alive in the classroom and see some of the original ways students respond to their nonfiction...