The Poet S Tale

As the year 1386 began, Geoffrey Chaucer was a middle-aged bureaucrat and sometime poet, living in London and enjoying the perks that came with his close connections to its booming wool trade. When it ended, he was jobless, homeless, out of favour with his friends and living in exile. Such a reversal might have spelled the end of his career; but instead, at the loneliest time of his life, Chaucer made the revolutionary decision to 'maken vertu of necessitee' and keep writing. The result - The Canterbury Tales - was a radically new form of poetry that would make his reputation, bring him to a national audience, and preserve his work for posterity. In The Poet's Tale, Paul Strohm brings Chaucer's world to vivid life, from the streets and taverns of crowded medieval London to rural seclusion in Kent, and reveals this crucial year as a turning point in the fortunes of England's most important poet.

FROM THE #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE HARRY BOSCH AND LINCOLN LAWYER SERIES An electrifying standalone thriller that breaks all the rules! With an introduction by Stephen King. Death is reporter Jack McEvoy's beat: his calling, his obsession. But this time, death brings McEvoy the story he never wanted to write--and the mystery he desperately needs to solve. A serial killer of unprecedented savagery and cunning is at large. His targets: homicide cops, each haunted by a murder case he couldn't crack. The killer's calling card: a quotation from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. His latest victim is McEvoy's own brother. And his last...may be McEvoy himself.

"A lively microbiography of Geoffrey Chaucer, the "father of English literature", focusing on the surprising and fascinating story of the tumultuous year that led to the creation of the Canterbury Tales"--Provided by publisher.

This text analyzes the effect of Chaucer's poetry on his contemporary readers, examining how he and his audience understood their society and how this is reflected in the works. This book provides a fuller understanding of Chaucer's world and the social implications of literary styles and form.

In Dearly, Margaret Atwood's first collection of poetry in over a decade, Atwood addresses themes such as love, loss, the passage of time, the nature of nature and - zombies. Her new poetry is introspective and personal in tone, but wide-ranging in topic. In poem after poem, she casts her unique imagination and unyielding, observant eye over the landscape of a life carefully and intuitively lived. While many are familiar with Margaret Atwood's fiction--including her groundbreaking and bestselling novels The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments, Oryx and Crake, among others--she has, from the beginning of her career, been one of our most significant contemporary poets. And she is one of the very few writers equally accomplished in fiction and poetry. This collection is a stunning achievement that will be appreciated by fans of her novels and poetry readers alike.