-Make your] characters want something right away--even if it's only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.- --Kurt Vonnegut
-'The cat sat on the mat' is not the beginning of a story, but 'the cat sat on the dog's mat' is.- --John Le Carre
Nothing is more inspiring for a beginning writer than listening to masters of the craft talk about the writing life. But if you can't get Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez together at the Algonquin, The Modern Library...

This entertaining, informative collection covers the best of American satire from Ben Franklin's cutting satiric attacks to Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Celestial Railroad, " Calvin Trillin's "Old Marrieds, "Mark Twain's "American Abroad" to P.J. O'Rourke's "The Innocents Abroad Updated, " a late 20th-century take on Twain's classic piece. "Entertaining and satisfying...An excellent introduction." "Amazon.com.""

Though you may not know the man, you probably know his music. Arkansas-born Louis Jordan's songs like Baby, It's Cold Outside," "Caldonia" and "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" can still be heard today, decades since Jordan ruled the charts. In his five-decade career, Jordan influenced American popular music, film and more and inspired the likes of James Brown, B.B. King, Chuck Berry and Ray Charles. Known as the "King of the Jukeboxes," he and his combo played a hybrid of jazz, swing, blues and comedy music during the big band era that became the start of R&B. In a stunning narrative...