What are the themes in "River of Names" by Dorothy Allison?

Homosexuality. This story, which is part memoir, is the story of a young lesbian who grew up with a troubled childhood. Throughout the story she is talking to her present day girlfriend, Jessie. While homosexuality is not explicitly talked about much in the book, the narrator’s love for Jessie is made clear. They have been together for nearly a year and represent a committed lesbian couple in literature.
Trauma. The narrator struggles to tell the truth to her girlfriend, Jessie, out of fear of judgement and having to relive her trauma. The narrator was raped by several men in her life at a very young age. There were many deaths in her family and she lost several cousins in one year. The narrator, though an obvious survivor, still is struggling to combat a gruesome past.
Survival. Despite all that the narrator endured as a child, she uses humor and lies as a way of surviving. The narrator makes up stories to share with her girlfriend as a way of rewriting her past and moving on. In addition, she minimizes the events that happened to her so that she is able to make it day to day.

Perhaps the most important theme in Allison's River of Names is the theme of survival through great hardship. The narrator in the novel experiences a difficult childhood, to say the least. Yet through it all, she must find a way to survive. The narrator's deep desire for survival is evident in everything that she does, in every choice that she makes. For example, she doesn't fight back when she is abused. She lies to her girlfriend Jesse to keep their relationship light-hearted and to avoid having to dredge up the pain that relating her abuse to Jesse would cause. She even steals, of which she says that “Stealing was a way to pass the time. Things we needed, things we didn't, for the nerve of it, the anger, the need" (Soho Press, 231). This quote speaks to how poverty forces someone to make decisions that they wouldn't normally make, to act out of desperation and, eventually, out of boredom and despair for their situation. In the end, however, the narrator decides to become a caring person to counteract the anger and depression that she grew up surrounded by, while many of her cousins turned to suicide, drink, and babies to try to take the pain away.
The theme of survival ties in with the theme of domestic and sexual abuse in poverty-stricken Southern families. Starting when she is five years old and ending when she is eleven, she is raped repeatedly by her step-father; her other family members are raped as well, by various cousins and uncles. This seems to be a direct result of the crippling poverty that they experience in the backwoods of South Carolina. In the book, the narrator confesses that, "almost always we were raped, my cousins and I. That was some kind of joke, too" (Soho Press, 227). This demonstrates how the lifestyle and struggles of families living in poverty breeds an attitude of acceptance and flippancy which is conducive to the continuation of incest and abuse. Everyone knows that it is happening, but nobody does anything to stop it; in fact, because it is so common, it becomes like a joke over time.

What changes does Laurie’s mother observe in her son the day he starts kindergarten?

Laurie's mother notices that her son becomes bolder. Laurie is no longer the timid "sweet-voiced nursery-school tot" of a year ago. In his place is a loud and often brash character whom Laurie's mother does not recognize.
At the end of the first day of kindergarten, Laurie slams the front door after entering the house. Then, he loudly asks whether anyone is home. At lunch, Laurie speaks rudely to his father and spills his baby sister's milk. In short, Laurie seems to have morphed overnight into a loud, sarcastic character who delights in shocking his parents.
Laurie's mother notices that her son particularly likes talking about Charles, a seemingly recalcitrant classmate. During their conversations, Laurie blames Charles for every disruption endured by his kindergarten class. To Laurie, Charles is a larger-than-life character. He never needs to wear a jacket, and he even has the temerity to kick the teacher's friend.
It is only when Laurie's mother attends the P.T.A. meeting that she makes an important discovery: there is no Charles in Laurie's classroom. This means that Charles is Laurie's alter ego; he is a character crafted to help him navigate the strange new world of kindergarten.

On the day that Laurie starts kindergarten, his mother notices a lot of big changes in her son. First of all, Laurie exhibits physical changes; this is shown by the way he dresses. He is no longer interested in wearing "corduroy overalls," for example, and instead chooses jeans and a belt.
In addition, his demeanor changes. Laurie's mother describes him as "swaggering," for instance, a word which suggests confidence and maturity.
We can also see changes in Laurie's relationship with his mother. Instead of being accompanied by her, Laurie goes to kindergarten in the company of an older child. He also forgets to say goodbye to his mother.
On Laurie's first day, then, he experiences a number of changes which suggest that he is quickly maturing from a dependent infant to a very confident child.

What kind of sources does Charles Mann use in 1491?

Charles Mann's 1491 uses a wealth of anthropological and archaeological work done in North and South America to prove that the indigenous people of the area had a history long before the first Europeans came and "discovered" America.  Mann cites events such as the discovery of Kennewick Man, a skull found in the Pacific Northwest which is older than the old theory of the Bering Land Bridge.  He points to fields in the Amazon which could not have been created by accident, but rather by natives acting on their environment in order to make it better suited for their survival.  Mann uses burial sites as evidence that strong trade networks existed in the Americas before Columbus--one example is a feather of a tropical bird being located as far north as Cahokia.  Mann's work in this field is part of a growing field of history that focuses on native history.  

What can you learn about Iran from this book?

Reading Lolita in Tehran is set during the period when the government in Iran is replaced by a fundamentalist Islamic regime. Nafisi, a university literature professor, traces how rights for women are severely curtailed. She is forced to move from wearing European style clothing and letting her hair go free to covering herself in the hijab to go out on the street. She talks about how letting a tendril of hair escape the veil becomes a subversive act.
During this time, Nafisi loses her university job because she is a woman and because the American and European literature she teaches is considered "decadent." Iraq and Iran also get into a war, so Nafisi must cope with bombing raids on Tehran.
While Nafisi concentrates on what it is like to survive in a country that has become a totalitarian state, she also describes some of the beauties of life in her country: the mountains she can see from her window ringing the city or the good coffee and pastries she and her former students eat as they get together to discuss literature in her apartment.

How did the twentieth-century American mystery story evolve in a very different direction than the British version?

The twentieth-century American mystery story evolved away from the gentle "cosy" traditional of British mysteries towards what is called the "hard-boiled" crime genre. This reflects the different character and historical moment of the two nations.
Twentieth-century British mysteries tend to be set in the countryside, often at a large and wealthy country home with many servants. They are concerned with preserving the status quo and reinstating moral order when chaos threatens. As the British mystery writer P.D. James expresses it, British mysteries are conservative, interested in “bringing order out of disorder. She calls the mysteries part of “a genre of reconciliation and social healing." The genre thus reflects the class system that was and is part of British life.
The backward-looking view of the British mystery also reveals nostalgia for the country's "glory days" of the nineteenth-century and the Edwardian period, before the First World War. A large number of these mysteries take place in the kinds of homes that were fast disappearing in the twentieth-century, reflecting a wealth and power that was only a memory to many Britons.
Meanwhile, the American mystery novel was evolving to reflect the ethos of a brash, rising nation. Many of the most famous novels are set in big, corrupt cities like Los Angeles. Rather than affirming the moral order, as British mysteries did, American hardboiled mysteries emphasize pervasive corruption: anyone can be a criminal or murderer and crime is imbedded in the fabric of life. The US is a country where people do what they can to get ahead. Detectives like Chandler's Sam Spade are not primarily concerned with moral issues. In The Maltese Falcon, Spade states that he arrests would-be criminals not because they are necessarily guilty, but because it's his job and in his nature:

I’m a detective and expecting me to run criminals down and then let them go free is like asking a dog to catch a rabbit and let it go. It can be done, all right, and sometimes it is done, but it’s not the natural thing.

If British mysteries of the prior century were characterized by the soft, pastoral glow of a country estate, emphasizing that the world is a good place except for the unusual entrance of a crime, the colors and feel of an American hard-boiled mystery are hard and stark, characterized by the neon lights and modern apartment buildings of new America.
I would suggest that you look at the links below.
https://seonaidhceanneidigh.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/the-roots-of-american-british-crime-fiction/

What is the meaning of "pocketa-pocketa" in Walter Mitty's dreams?

The “pocketa-pocketa” part of his dreams is Mitty’s way of imagining the sound certain things make—it’s the sound of engine of the hydroplane, or the sound of anaesthetizing machine, or the sound of flame throwers. It’s significant that he always imagines the same sound; because the sound is (perhaps) based on the sound his car makes, it serves an indicator of how reality and fantasy interpenetrate in Mitty’s mind. It also suggests that, while his fantasies are very different, there is a certain common thread to them all. Mitty, in his fantasies, is always impossibly heroic and tremendously skilled. But while he definitely lives in a dream world, he is not divorced from reality. Mitty is very much aware of the real circumstances of his life. Another way of understanding the “pocketa-pocketa” sound is to see it as a kind of marker: in its lack of specificity and its repetition, the sound indicates that the fantasy really is a fantasy. It’s what differentiates Mitty’s overactive imagination from actual psychosis.

"[T]a-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa" is an example of what's called onomatopoeia. This can be defined as a word or expression that imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Popular examples include "bang," "boom," and the three alleged components of a famous brand of breakfast cereal, "snap, crackle, and pop."
In "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," our hero experiences five vivid daydreams. In the first, he imagines himself to be a brave airman on a dangerous mission:

The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window.

We can see here the use of onomatopoeia. "Ta-pocketa" imitates the sound of the plane's pounding cylinders. It's also used elsewhere in the story to imitate the sound of gunfire and the noise of a machine. But that's in Walter Mitty's fantasy world; in the real world, it's the sound that his car makes.

In Fahrenheit 451, what is the significance of the books that were saved? Why are there no recent works of fiction included?

When answering a question like this, it's worth being aware of the backstory of Fahrenheit 451, at least as it was described by Beatty. As Beatty tells it, the infantilization of society was not actually an initiative directed by the government. Rather, this evolution occurred within the society itself as it became increasingly shaped by consumerism and a culture of gratification.
With this in mind, we can find a potential in-universe rationale to answer your second question, as to why contemporary literature goes largely unmentioned within this world. That being said: be aware that, just as Fahrenheit 451 ultimately envisions an alternate history, this answer will likewise need to reflect that trajectory which Bradbury foresaw, rather than the reality that has followed the book's publication.
In any case, if we assume the history described by Beatty really did happen—society itself became increasingly driven by gratification and increasingly hostile toward the very thought of being challenged by the products it consumed—then we can expect these trends to have had a dramatic effect on the literature this society produced. If a society grew so intensely hostile toward consuming literature, then this question arises: how many writers should we expect to find continuing to produce literature in such a world (and how many of those would we expect to see published)?

The books that Montag, at the end of the novel, learned were saved and memorized, include what in the 1950s would have been considered the "great books." These works were considered to contain the best and highest of human thought. Interestingly, they include works by philosophers such as Socrates, books by scientists such as Darwin and Einstein, books by political figures such as Lincoln, and great religious texts. Granger also mentions some literature, such as Gulliver's Travels, a book which also happens to be a political and social satire, and Byron's poetry.
In the 1950s, Einstein's work would have been relatively recent, but clearly there can be no books mentioned that did not exist when Bradbury wrote his novel.
The books that are considered valuable represent a diverse set of conflicting viewpoints and therefore invite debate. Machiavelli, for example, would differ with Christ and Gandhi on the best way to run a society. All these books were written as well by figures who were fearless in rejecting orthodoxy and thinking for themselves so that they advanced human knowledge and freedom—just what the world of book-burning does not do. They are also an interesting snapshot of the 1950s, as they include no books by women or black people, although a few Asian authors are in the mix.

If you woke up one day to discover that the government and everyone in society were burning books, which ones would you save? Of course, most people would save their favorite books. However, for the intellectuals that Montag meets after escaping from such a society, they choose the following books to save through memorization:

"I am Plato's Republic. Like to read Marcus Aurelius? Mr. Simmons is Marcus . . . I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver's Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Mr. Alber Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we all are, Montag. Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Lincoln if you please. We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John" (151).

Within the above list are some of the greatest writers, philosophers, political leaders, spiritual leaders, and scientists to grace the earth with human thought. If all of these works are lost, it would mean that humanity would have to rediscover such genius again. That might take centuries! Also, Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in the early 1950s, so anything written after its publication would certainly not be included. However, these intellectuals must have memorized the above list of works because they all have something in common--they are all classic works that not only contain a store of human knowledge and wisdom, but also provide different perspectives on how to live, how to create a free and just society, and how to question the status quo. The society in Fahrenheit 451 uses manipulation and distraction to control the population. Thus, the works memorized would be useful if that society were ever in a position to rebuild. Soon after Montag meets these men, an atomic bomb goes off. Apparently, the time to rebuild and use these valuable works of information and insight might be closer than they realized.