Science Fiction Poetry

Poet, writer, and Instagram sensation Nikita Gill returns with a collection of fairytales poetically retold for a new generation of women. Traditional fairytales are rife with cliches and gender stereotypes: Beautiful, silent princesses; ugly, jealous, and bitter villainesses; girls who need rescuing; and men who take all the glory. But in this rousing new prose and poetry collection, Nikita Gill gives Once Upon a Time a much-needed modern makeover.

Jason and the Golden Fleece is one of the finest tales of Ancient Greece, an epic journey of adventure and trial standing beside similar stories of Perseus, Theseus and the Labours of Heracles. The finest classic account comes from Apollonius of Rhodes, the Greek poet of the 3rd century BCE and librarian at Alexandria. Though less well-known than Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and much shorter, it is an epic poem which is both exciting and moving, with remarkably vivid portraits of the main characters, Jason and Medea.

Over the past two decades, Jessica Care moore has become a cultural force as a poet, performer, publisher, activist, and critic. Reflecting her transcendent electric voice, this searing poetry collection is filled with moving, original stanzas that speak to both Black women’s creative and intellectual power, and express the pain, sadness, and anger of those who suffer constant scrutiny because of their gender and race.

The Iliad is one of the two great epics of Homer, and is typically described as one of the greatest war stories of all time, but to say the Iliad is a war story does not begin to describe the emotional sweep of its action and characters: Achilles, Helen, Hector, and other heroes of Greek myth and history in the tenth and final year of the Greek siege of Troy.

Wild Embers explores the fire that lies within every soul, weaving words around ideas of feeling at home in your own skin, allowing yourself to heal, and learning to embrace your uniqueness with love from the universe. Featuring rewritten fairy-tale heroines, goddess wisdom, and poetry that burns with revolution, this collection is an explosion of femininity, empowerment, and personal growth.

The Fable of the Bees—a satirical poem, prose discussion, three essays and six dialogues completed in 1729—exposes human vices but defends them as a necessity within a wealthy society. Mandeville’s bees thrive until they start living by honesty and virtue… then they are impoverished. Mandeville did not play by the rules: he satirized the sins of society but also ridiculed the widespread hypocrisy of deploring these sins whilst reaping their benefits. He and his work were attacked for the rest of the century.

Tempted by the promise of fame and fortune, the Singing Mermaid joins a circus. The crowds love her, but the poor mermaid is kept in a tank by the wicked circus owner Sam Sly, and she soon longs to return to the freedom of her ocean home. The Singing Mermaid is a delightful tale from the stellar picture book partnership of Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks, creators of What the Ladybird Heard. With brilliant rhyming verse read by Lauren Laverne, this story is loved by children and parents alike.

Dumpty: The Age of Trump in Verse is a satirical poetry collection from award-winning actor and best-selling author John Lithgow. Chronicling the last few raucous years in American politics, Lithgow takes listeners verse by verse through the history of Donald Trump's presidency.

Transcendentalism embodies the concept that people have a deeper and more profound understanding of the world around them than simply by what they can glimpse with their senses. In this collection of essays and poems, the works of three transcendentalist authors are shared, each with their own impressions and opinions supporting the movement.

Under the order of King Pelias, Jason embarks on a perilous journey to steal the Golden Fleece from the Land of Colchis. Far from heroic, Jason is the typical everyman. Often compared with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Jason and the Argonauts is the only surviving poem from the Hellenistic period and was hugely influential on later literature, especially the Roman poetry of Virgil and Ovid.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, the English poet Francis Thompson (1859-1907) was a true mystic. While more celebrated poets, like Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Arnold, were content to express their religious leanings in traditional devotional formulae, Thompson strove to portray the divine directly, in all its terrifying majesty. In this way he is more akin to earlier masters, like Henry Vaughan and George Herbert, than to the poets of his own day.

Warrior-prince Rama is about to be crowned Young King, when he hears the devastating news that his father, king of Ayodhya, has been tricked into banishing him to the forest. His devoted wife, Sita, insists on accompanying him in exile, but the evil 10-headed Lord Ravana has fallen deeply in love with the beautiful princess and steals her away. Aided by Hanuman, mighty captain of the monkeys, Rama sets out across the world to find her and destroy Ravana in a deadly battle.

The illustrated edition of this audiobook features 14 beautiful pieces of artwork in an attached PDF, and a link to a comprehensive set of behind-the-scenes videos documenting the illustration and narration processes. The ultimate way to experience this classic tale! What happens after Homer's Iliad? Not only is the larger conflict unresolved by the end of that story, but several of the most famous events of the Trojan War are absent from its pages. It's hard not to want another complete epic to pick up where Achilles, Agamemnon, and Priam left off.

Sing along with Julia Donaldson and her latest collection of songs - fun for kids and parents alike. As well as being the UK's most successful picture book author, Julia Donaldson is a gifted songwriter for children. This volume includes nine of her best-loved songs. The songs will be familiar to anyone who has heard them on TV or radio, or enjoyed one of Julia's hugely popular live performances. All nine songs are sung by the author. Now everyone can sing along!

Dan Starkey takes on the mantle of William Hope Hodgson's supernatural detective, Thomas Carnacki, in this collection of enhanced audiobook readings: 'The Gateway of the Monster', 'The House Among the Laurels', 'The Whistling Room', 'The Horse of the Invisible', 'The Searcher of the End House' and 'The Thing Invisible'. Directed by Scott Handcock.

The Aeneid is one of the greatest works in all of world literature. It is filled with mythology, history, and archaeology; it is infused with patriotism, religious feeling, and pathos; it is rich in adventure and romance. As the story begins, a storm shipwrecks Aeneas and his Trojan followers near Carthage in North Africa. There, Aeneas falls in love with Dido, queen of Carthage. But the gods order him to leave for Italy. In despair, Dido commits suicide. Upon finally reaching Italy, Aeneas goes down into the lower world and learns about his future descendants, the Romans.

On the night of October 6, 1998, a gay 21-year-old University of Wyoming student named Matthew Shepard was lured from a bar by two young men, then savagely beaten, tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie, and left to die. Five days later, Lesléa Newman arrived on campus to give the keynote speech for the University of Wyoming’s Gay Awareness Week. October Mourning is Lesléa Newman’s deeply personal response to the events of that tragic day and its brutal aftermath.

National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping-off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.

This award-winning anthology of poetry and prose takes a new look at being a woman - particularly an aging woman - in a society that prizes and glorifies youth. The works are by both younger writers looking forward in time and writers who have experienced the joys and challenges of growing older. This international best seller was put together by editor Sandra Martz who selected the collection's pieces from thousands of submitted manuscripts.

One of the supreme masterpieces of world literature, the Homeric saga of the shipwrecks, wanderings, and homecoming of the master tactician Odysseus encompasses a virtual inventory of the themes and attitudes that have shaped Western culture. The tale of Odysseus' encounters with such obstacles as Calypso, Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, and the lotus-eaters, and his dramatic return to Ithaca and his patient wife, Penelope, forms a prototype for all subsequent Western epics.