Not only have a breathtaking array of musical giants come from the South—think Elvis Presley, Robert Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Rodgers, to name just obvious examples—but so have a breathtaking array of American music genres. From blues to rock & roll to jazz to country to bluegrass—and areas in between—it all started in the American South. Since its debut in 1996, The Oxford American's more-or-less annual Southern Music Issue has become legendary for its passionate and wide-ranging approach to music and for working with some of America's greatest writers. These writers—from Peter Guralnick to Nick Tosches to Susan Straight to William Gay—probe the lives and legacies of Southern musicians you may or may not yet be familiar with, but whom you'll love being introduced, or reintroduced, to. In one creative, fresh way or another, these writers also uncover the essence of music—and why music has such power over us. To celebrate ten years of Southern music issues, most of which are sold-out or very hard to find, the fifty-five essays collected in this dynamic, wide-ranging, and vast anthology appeal to both music fans and fans of great writing.

The Oxford English Dictionary is the internationally recognized authority on the evolution of the English language from 1150 to the present day. The Dictionary defines over 500,000 words, making it an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, pronunciation, and history of the English language. This new upgrade version of The Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM offers unparalleled access to the world's most important reference work for the English language. The text of this version has been augmented with the inclusion of the Oxford English Dictionary Additions Series (Volumes 1-3), published in 1993 and 1997, the Bibliography to the Second Edition, and other ancillary material. System requirements: PC with minimum 200 MHz Pentium-class processor; 32 MB RAM (64 MB recommended); 16-speed CD-ROM drive (32-speed recommended); Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 200, or XP (Local administrator rights are required to install and open the OED for the first time on a PC running Windows NT 4 and to install and run the OED on Windows 2000 and XP); 1.1 GB hard disk space to run the OED from the CD-ROM and 1.7 GB to install the CD-ROM to the hard disk: SVGA monitor: 800 x 600 pixels: 16-bit (64k, high color) setting recommended. Please note: for the upgrade, installation requires the use of the OED CD-ROM v2.0.

This volume offers a survey of American short fiction in 59 tales that combine classic works with 'different, unexpected gems', which invite readers to explore a wealth of important pieces by women and minority writers. Authors include: Amy Tan, Alice Adams, David Leavitt and Tim O'Brien.

This second edition of the author's account of celebrated controversies in geology embraces many of the important ideas that have emerged since the birth of the subject. The two new chapters are on the emergence of stratigraphy in the 19th century and on the mass extinctions controversy.

The Asketikon of St Basil the Great comprises a new English translation and studies which re-examine the emergence of monasticism in Asia Minor. Rufinus' translation of an earlier edition is compared with the Greek text of the longer edition, as a means of tracing the development of ideas. Silvas concludes that the antecedents of the monastic community of the Great Asketikon are best sought in the domestic ascetic movement in Anatolia as typified at Annisa under theleadership of Makrina.

In this magisterial collection, Frank Muir guides the reader on a journey of discovery and delight through five centuries of humorous prose in the English language.Starting in London with William Caxton and a Preface written and printed in 1477, and ending with P. G. Wodehouse whose last novel was published in 1977, the route is meandering: from England to Ireland and Scotland, back to England again, on to America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. There areexamples chosen from humorous fiction, letters, and journalism written by over 200 authors and ranging from medieval jests to the New Yorker and Beachcomber; from Thomas Nashe and Tom Brown's galloping bawdy to Jane Austen and on to Garrison Keillor and Arthur Marshall; from the jokes in SamuelJohnson's Dictionary to Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim and his hangover. The great humorous writers such as Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and P. G. Wodehouse are given a kind of mini-anthology of their own so that the range and versatility of their work can be appreciated.The extracts are embedded in a commentary that sets the writers in their historical context with items of contemporary gossip and anecdotal biography.As tour leader of this enjoyable enterprise, there could be no one better than Frank Muir to entertain, inform, and above all amuse the reader in his own distinctive fashion.

When barbarians invaded the Roman Empire in the years around 400 AD, Christian monks hid their cloisters. Conrad Leyser shows that monks in the early medieval West were, in fact, pioneers in the creation of a new language of moral authority.

Starting with the most meagre resources, Philip made his kingdom the greatest power in Europe The Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily is one of our most valuable sources from ancient times. His history, in forty volumes, was intended to range from mythological times to 60 BCE, and fifteen of The Library's forty books survive. This new translation by Robin Waterfield of books 16-20 covers a vital period in European history. Book 16 is devoted to Philip, and without it the career of this great king would be far more obscure to us. Book 17 is the earliest surviving account by over a hundred years of the world-changing eastern conquests of Alexander the Great, Philip's son. Books 18-20 constitute virtually our sole source of information on the twenty turbulent years following Alexander's death and on the violent path followed by Agathocles of Syracuse. There are fascinating snippets of history from elsewhere too - from Republican Rome, the Cimmerian Bosporus, and elsewhere. Despite his obvious importance, Diodorus is a neglected historian. This is the first English translation of any of these books in over fifty years. The introduction places Diodorus in his context in first-century-BCE Rome, describes and discusses the kind of history he was intending to write, and assesses his strengths and weaknesses as a historian. With extensive explanatory notes on this gripping and sensational period of history, the book serves as a unique resource for historians and students.

"A sumptuous selection of short fiction and poetry. . . . Its invitation to share the passion of women's voices characterizes the entire volume."--"USA Today."