"Kindness is seldom wasted." --from "The Lion and the Mouse"
It is both amazing and wonderful that so much of the richness of our language and our moral education still owes a huge debt to a Greek slave who was executed more than two thousand years ago. Yet "sour grapes," "crying 'wolf, '" "actions speak louder than words," "honesty is the best policy," and literally hundreds of other metaphors, axioms, and ideas that are now woven into the very fabric of Western culture all came from Aesop's Fables. An extraordinary storyteller who used cunning foxes, surly dogs, clever mice,...
"Kindness is seldom wasted." --from "The Lion and the Mouse"
It is both amazing and wonderful that so much of the richness of our language...
An English teacher at a boys' school in Tennessee, Pickering was the inspiration for the film "Dead Poets Society." In ten eloquent essays addressed to teachers of all types, Pickering shares compelling, funny, always elucidating anecdotes from his more than 40 years in the classroom.
An English teacher at a boys' school in Tennessee, Pickering was the inspiration for the film "Dead Poets Society." In ten eloquent essays addressed t...
Reading Pickering is like taking a walk with your oldest, wittiest friend, said "Smithsonian magazine. Living to Prowl, Sam Pickering's ninth collection of essays, finds the acclaimed author walking familiar paths, taking time to enjoy family, friends, nature, and other simple pleasures." "" "Like Pickering's earlier books, this collection records in highly personal and idiosyncratic terms a year in the life of a man with a tenacious commitment to pausing and wondering. Moving easily between humor and seriousness, the mundane and the philosophical, stark truth and evocative fictions,...
Reading Pickering is like taking a walk with your oldest, wittiest friend, said "Smithsonian magazine. Living to Prowl, Sam Pickering's ninth colle...
In this, his tenth book of essays, renowned raconteur Sam Pickering wanders from Nova Scotia to Tennessee, from a middle school athletic field to an English department. He tells stories about people named Googoo and Loppie. He examines trees and flowers. He watches a daughter play soccer and a son row. He attends funerals and remembers the past and imagines the future. His is the ordinary world observed closely. But reading Pickering makes life blossom. Suddenly the small and the neglected bloom and charm. He is opinionated, too. Foolishness in low places, as a reviewer put it, is also...
In this, his tenth book of essays, renowned raconteur Sam Pickering wanders from Nova Scotia to Tennessee, from a middle school athletic field to an E...
This is one of the most important works by the most important American philosopher: Henry David Thoreau, vital figure in the Transcendentalist movement, hero to environmentalists and ecologists, profound thinker on humanity's happiness. First published in 1854, Walden collects the penetrating reflections from the two years Thoreau lived in solitude on the shores of Massachusetts' Walden Pond. In lucid, poetic prose, Thoreau ponders the beauty of living simply and in communion with nature. It is a work of pastoral magnificence and wisdom that has moved generations of readers. Writer and...
This is one of the most important works by the most important American philosopher: Henry David Thoreau, vital figure in the Transcendentalist movemen...
Sweeping in and out of real and imagined places, Dreamtime highlights the curious character of an unconventional teacher, writer, traveler, husband, and father as he takes stock of his multifaceted life. Sam Pickering-the inspiration for the main character in Dead Poets Society-guides us on a journey through his reflections on retirement, aging, gardening, and travel. He describes the pleasures of domesticity, summers spent in Nova Scotia, and the joy of sharing a simple life with his wife of almost forty years.
Sweeping in and out of real and imagined places, Dreamtime highlights the curious character of an unconventional teacher, writer, traveler, husband, a...