Hard Country
The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong <p>"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood..." One hundred years after its first publication in August 1915, Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" is so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget that it is, in fact, a poem. Yet poetry it is, and Frost's immortal lines remain unbelievably popular. And yet in spite of this devotion, almost everyone gets the poem hopelessly wrong.</p> <p>David Orr's <i>The Road Not Taken</i> dives directly into the controversy, illuminating the poem's enduring greatness while revealing its mystifying contradictions. Widely admired as the poetry columnist for the <i>New York Times Book Review</i>, Orr is the perfect guide for lay listeners and experts alike. Orr offers a lively look at the poem's cultural influence, its artistic complexity, and its historical journey from the margins of the First World War all the way to its canonical place today as a true masterpiece of American literature.</p> <p>What Orr artfully reveals is that the poem speaks to both of these impulses, and all the possibilities that lie between them. The poem gives us a portrait of choice without making a decision itself. And in this, "The Road Not Taken" is distinctively American, for the United States is the country of choice in all its ambiguous splendor.</p> Poetry of Robert Frost: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, the Road Not Taken and Many Others <p>Enjoy this amazing narration of Robert Frost's poetry, including his most famous poems, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, The Road Not Taken, among many others.</p> The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam <p><strong>Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (Biography)<br /><br><br /><br>A <em>New York Times</em> bestseller, this “epic and elegant” biography (<em>Wall Street Journal</em>) profoundly recasts our understanding of the Vietnam War.</strong></p><br><p>Praised as a “superb scholarly achievement” (<em>Foreign Policy</em>), <em>The Road Not Taken</em> confirms Max Boot’s role as a “master chronicler” (<em>Washington Times</em>) of American military affairs. Through dozens of interviews and never-before-seen documents, Boot rescues Edward Lansdale (1908–1987) from historical ignominy to “restore a sense of proportion” to this “political Svengali, or ‘Lawrence of Asia’ ”(<em>The New Yorker</em>). Boot demonstrates how Lansdale, the man said to be the fictional model for Graham Greene’s <em>The Quiet American</em>, pioneered a “hearts and minds” diplomacy, first in the Philippines and then in Vietnam. Bringing a tragic complexity to Lansdale and a nuanced analysis to his visionary foreign policy, Boot suggests Vietnam could have been different had we only listened.</p><br><p>With contemporary reverberations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, <em>The Road Not Taken</em> is a “judicious and absorbing” (<em>New York Times Book Review</em>) biography of lasting historical consequence.</p> The Road Not Taken and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions) <i>"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I <br />I took the one less traveled by,<br />And that has made all the difference.<br />"</i>These deceptively simple lines from the title poem of this collection suggest Robert Frost at his most representative: the language is simple, clear and colloquial, yet dense with meaning and wider significance. Drawing upon everyday incidents, common situations and rural imagery, Frost fashioned poetry of great lyrical beauty and potent symbolism. Now a selection of the best of his early works is available in this volume, originally published in 1916 under the title <i>Mountain Interval</i>. Included are many moving and expressive poems: "An Old Man&apos;s Winter Night," "In the Home Stretch," "Meeting and Passing," "Putting In the Seed," "A Time to Talk," "The Hill Wife," "The Exposed Nest," "The Sound of Trees" and more. All are reprinted here complete and unabridged. Includes "The Road Not Taken." The Road Not Taken The must-read poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. The Road Not Taken And Selected Poems Independently Published