Michael Croland – författare

Humor buffs and poetry lovers will laugh out loud with this captivating collection of more than 350 limericks. A limerick is a five-line rhyming poem with a bouncy rhythm, and common varieties include geographical and bawdy limericks as well as tongue twisters and creative misspellings. Limerick legends Morris Bishop, Edward Lear, and Carolyn Wells are featured, as are renowned political figures, poets, and writers such as Lewis Carroll, Robert Frost, James Joyce, Mark Twain, and Woodrow Wilson. With selections from the Elizabethan era, classics from the golden age, and contemporary verse, this irresistible, rib-tickling anthology has something for everyone.

This first-ever anthology features poems by eleven US presidents, providing unique and fascinating insight into their biographies and American history. Through good times and bad, presidents turned to poetry to express themselves. Selections include George Washington's teenage romantic yearnings, Thomas Jefferson's death-bed adieu, John Quincy Adams's sonnet memorializing his father, John Tyler's poignant elegy for his daughter, Abraham Lincoln's mockery of the Confederacy, Woodrow Wilson's humorous limericks, Warren G. Harding's steamy love poems to his mistress, and Ronald Wilson Reagan's existential reflections. Appendixes explore additional presidents who wrote poetry, misattributions, prose formatted as verse, and fondness for poetry.

This first-ever anthology of poetry by First Ladies features captivating poems by fifteen of these remarkable women. Among the highlights are Louisa Adams's verse about the passing of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson on the same day, Mary Todd Lincoln's satire that nearly led to her husband's death in a duel, sonnets by Dolley Madison, valentines by Eleanor Roosevelt and Michelle Obama, and Lou Hoover compares "Presidents' Wives" to "twins."The collection showcases the accomplishments of First Ladies and their impact on the nation. This anthology reflects evolving gender norms, and the selections document what life – with all of its peaks and valleys – was like for women throughout American history. The sequel to Poems by Presidents: The First-Ever Anthology, Poems by First Ladies provides a deeper understanding of the wives of America's commanders in chief, offering unique insights into their humanity, values, and politics.

Step inside a fascinating world of Jews who relate to their Jewishness through the vehicle of punk—from prominent figures in the history of punk to musicians who proudly put their Jewish identity front and center.Why did punk—a subculture and music style characterized by a rejection of established norms—appeal to Jews? How did Jews who were genuinely struggling with their Jewish identity find ways to express it through punk rock? Oy Oy Oy Gevalt! Jews and Punk explores the cultural connections between Jews and punk in music and beyond, documenting how Jews were involved in the punk movement in its origins in the 1970s through the present day.Author Michael Croland begins by broadly defining what the terms "Jewish" and "punk" mean. This introduction is followed by an exploration of the various ways these ostensibly incompatible identities can gel together, addressing topics such as Jewish humor, New York City, the Holocaust, individualism, "tough Jews," outsider identity, tikkun olam ("healing the world"), and radicalism. The following chapters discuss prominent Jews in punk, punk rock bands that overtly put their Jewishness on display, and punk influences on other types of Jewish music—for example, klezmer and Hasidic simcha (celebration) music. The book also explores ways that Jewish and punk culture intersect beyond music, including documentaries, young adult novels, zines, cooking, and rabbis.