Essays Books

Book SynopsisA Sunday Times BestsellerChristopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a matchless writer, debater and humanist. Throughout his life he shone the light of reason and truth into the eyes of charlatans and hucksters, exposing falsehood and decrying hypocrisy wherever he found it. With his passing, the world lost a great soul, the written word one of its finest advocates and those who stand for freedom everywhere have lost one of their clearest voices. Arguably collects Hitchens' writing on politics, literature and religion when he was at the zenith of his career; it is the indispensible companion to the finest English essayist since Orwell.Trade ReviewTo say that, during the past three decades, the world would have been poorer, duller and altogether a smaller place without Hitchens and his writings would be to utter a cliché of the kind he despises. It would also be true. -- John Gray * New Statesman *He has no equal in contemporary Anglo American letters. -- Jason Cowley * Financial Times *Essays on everything... remind us what we've lost in Hitchens - someone to provoke assent, outrage, laughter and thought * Sunday Telegraph *Read it you must, partly as a tribute to a great life well lived, but mainly because it is so entertaining * Sunday Times *Hitchens at his most stylish, savage, literate and brilliant * Observer *Table of Contents1: Gods of Our Fathers: The United States of Enlightenment 2: Enlightenment 3: The Private Jefferson 4: Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates 5: Benjamin Franklin: Free and Easy 6: John Brown: The Man Who Ended Slavery 7: Abraham Lincoln: Misery's Child 8: Mark Twain: American Radical 9: Upton Sinclair: A Capitalist Primer 10: JFK: In Sickness and by Stealth 11: Saul Bellow: The Great Assimilator 12: Vladimir Nabokov: Hurricane Lolita 13: John Updike, Part One: No Way 14: John Updike, Part Two: Mr. Geniality 15: Vidal Loco 16: America the Banana Republic 17: An Anglosphere Future 18: Political Animals 19: Old Enough to Die 20: In Defense of Foxhole Atheists 21: In Search of the Washington Novel 22: Isaac Newton: Flaws of Gravity 23: The Men Who Made England: Hilary Mantel's 24: Wolf Hall 25: Edmund Burke: Reactionary Prophet 26: Samuel Johnson: Demons and Dictionaries 27: Gustave Flaubert: I'm with Stupide 28: The Dark Side of Dickens 29: Marx's Journalism: The Grub Street Years 30: Rebecca West: Things Worth Fighting For 31: Ezra Pound: A Revolutionary Simpleton 32: On Animal Farm 33: Jessica Mitford's Poison Pen 34: W. Somerset Maugham: Poor Old Willie 35: Evelyn Waugh: The Permanent Adolescent 36: P. G. Wodehouse: The Honorable Schoolboy 37: Anthony Powell: An Omnivorous Curiosity 38: John Buchan: Spy Thriller's Father 39: Graham Greene: I'll Be Damned 40: Death from a Salesman: Graham Greene's Bottled Ontology 41: Bottled Ontology 42: Loving Philip Larkin 43: Stephen Spender: A Nice Bloody Fool 44: Edward Upward: The Captive Mind 45: C. L. R. James: Mid Off, Not Right On 46: J. G. Ballard: The Catastrophist 47: Fraser's Flashman: Scoundrel Time 48: Fleet Street's Finest: From Waugh to Frayn 49: Saki: Where the Wild Things Are 50: Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived 51: Why Women Aren't Funny 52: Stieg Larsson: The Author Who Played 53: with Fire 54: As American as Apple Pie 55: So Many Men's Rooms, So Little Time 56: The New Commandments 57: In Your Face 58: Wine Drinkers of the World, Unite 59: Charles, Prince of Piffle 60: Afghanistan's Dangerous Bet 61: First, Silence the Whistle-Blower 62: Believe Me, It's Torture 63: Iran's Waiting Game 64: Long Live Democratic Seismology 65: Benazir Bhutto: Daughter of Destiny 66: From Abbottabad to Worse 67: The Perils of Partition 68: Algeria: A French Quarrel 69: The Case of Orientalism 70: Edward Said: Where the Twain Should Have Met 71: Have Met 72: The Swastika and the Cedar 73: Holiday in Iraq 74: Tunisia: At the Desert's Edge 75: What Happened to the Suicide Bombers 76: of Jerusalem? 77: Childhood's End: An African Nightmare 78: The Vietnam Syndrome 79: Once Upon a Time in Germany 80: Worse Than Nineteen Eighty-four 81: North Korea: A Nation of Racist Dwarves 82: The Eighteenth Brumaire of the Castro Dynasty 83: Hugo Boss 84: Is the Euro Doomed? 85: Overstating Jewish Power 86: The Case for Humanitarian Intervention 87: Victor Serge: Pictures from an Inquisition 88: André Malraux: One Man's Fate 89: Arthur Koestler: The Zealot 90: Isabel Allende: Chile Redux 91: The Persian Version 92: Martin Amis: Lightness at Midnight 93: Imagining Hitler 94: Victor Klemperer: Survivor 95: A War Worth Fighting 96: Just Give Peace a Chance? 97: W. G. Sebald: Requiem for Germany 98: When the King Saved God 99: Let Them Eat Pork Rinds 100: Stand Up for Denmark! 101: Eschew the Taboo 102: She's No Fundamentalist 103: Burned Out 104: Easter Charade 105: Don't Mince Words 106: History and Mystery 107: Words Matter 108: This Was Not Looting 109: The Other L-Word 110: The You Decade 111: Suck It Up 112: A Very, Very Dirty Word 113: Prisoner of Shelves

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Book Synopsis‘Late Spring, directed and co-written by Yasujirō Ozu, was released in 1949, which makes it an old film, or a film that has been new for a long time…’ So begins this remarkable essay in narrative reconstruction. Film-critic, novelist and essayist Mars-Jones gives a virtuoso performance as the lost figure of film explainer, drawing out a host of meaning from the reticence of Ozu’s classic Japanese movie. ‘So long after its first release Late Spring is still limber and elusive,’ enthuses Mars-Jones. Noriko Smiling breathes new life into both Ozu’s film, and film studies as a whole. There has never been a film book like this.

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Book SynopsisGranta''s summer issue is devoted to fictions of the ?other?. ?Significant other? calls up the anodyne invitation from a host who wishes to strip away presumption. But we insist it is a fertile concept. Some significant others we know for much of our lives; others are meteoric: we may see them only once.Fiction includes J.M. Coetzee?s story, ?The Museum Guard,? Victor Heringer?s ?Lígia,? and ?Armance? by Fleur Jaeggy. Introducing new fiction from Sophie Collins, Kevin Brazil, and Alexandra Tanner.Non-fiction features Mary Gaitskill?s ''The Pneuma Method?, James Pogue on the mines of Mauritania, and Susan Pedersen on paranormal love in the Balfour family. Christian Lorentzen appraises Daniel Sinykin?s Big Fiction. Snigdah Poonam follows a teenager who makes a pilgrimage to Ayodhya, where the BJP?s Hindu nationalists have built their dream temple of Ram.Poetry by Najwan Darwish, Zoë Hitzig, Tamara Nassar and Bernadette Van-Huy. Plus photography by Rosalind Fox Solomon (introduced by Lynne Tillman), Jesse Glazzard (introduced by Anthony Vahni Capildeo) and Debmalya Ray Choudhuri (introduced by John-Baptiste Oduor).

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Book SynopsisIn Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other, Danielle Dutton imagines new models for how literature might work in our fractured times. The collection covers an inventive selection of subjects in four eponymous sections which contrast and echo one another. Out of these varied materials, Dutton builds a haunting landscape of strangeness and beauty.

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Book SynopsisGeorge Orwell set out 'to make political writing into an art', and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature - his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell's essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. Fearing that England was about to be wiped from the face of the earth by the Nazi bombers flying overhead, Orwell put pen to paper and set out to make a record of English culture. England Your England, the sixth in the Orwell's Essays series, is this record, and is an important tableau of the nation's history, and demonstrates a resolute refusal to bow to the threatening forces of Fascism.Trade Review'A writer who can - and must - be rediscovered with every age.' (Irish Times) 'It just keeps being horribly relevant.' (David Olusoga, The Guardian)

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Book SynopsisThis new book of essays from the author of Wild tracks the turning light of the day and seasons, an almanac of the turning times. Beginning in night and winter, it moves to dawn and spring, then noon and summer and finally evening and autumn. Set partly at the author's home in Wales, the book journeys widely, searching for a dead father in Prague, listening to the Sky-Grandmothers of Mexican myth and staying with the people of West Papua who, when they know they will fall over laughing, lie down first. It asks: what is the real gift of the misunderstood Goddess Nemesis? Why should flowers be prescribed as medicine? What do male zebra finches dream of? Where do the sands of time run fastest, and how is that connected to the age of anxiety? It explores the dawn chorus; the tradition of sacred hospitality; dust from the time before the sun even existed; the twilight time of the trickster and the daily rituals of morning. In all of these it asks: why does light, through the hours of the day and the seasons of the year, affect us? Griffiths concludes this extraordinary collection by deciding that light is in fact how we think.Trade Review'A great stylist, lively and curious, she writes beautifully about a very wide range of topics. But in every case she brings something that nobody else could bring.' George Monbiot

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Book Synopsis* LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE. * Repackaged for 2022 with an additional essay In Strangers, Rebecca Tamas explores where the human and nonhuman meet, and why this delicate connection just might be the most important relationship of our times. From 'On Watermelon' to 'On Grief', Tamas's essays are exhilarating to read in their radical and original exploration of the links between the environmental, the political, the folkloric and the historical. From thinking stones, to fairgrounds, from colliding planets to transformative cockroaches, Tamas's lyrical perspective takes the reader on a journey between body, land and spirit-exploring a new ecological vision for our fractured, fragile world.Trade Review'A fascinating, lyrical exploration of the eco-political, from human and non-human bodies to landscapes. Tamas' essays are deeply rooted in folklore and the fragility of existence. A stunning work of enquiry and eloquence.' -Sinead Gleeson; 'So full of insight, compassion and reason' -Anthony Anaxagorou; 'Bursting with intellectual generosity. Deep wide roots and radical shoots. ' -Max Porter; 'exciting and clear-eyed' -Melissa Harrison; 'Rebecca Tamas has the ability to bring together our planet's environment with the ecology of the imagination, to retrieve silent life-forms alongside forgotten intellectual movements. This creates a shifting perspective in her essays which illuminates while giving unexpected pleasure.' -Amit Chaudhuri; 'To read Rebecca Tamas is to feel weirdly, uncannily creaturely, and to see all around us as pulsing with meaning.' -Katherine Angel; 'Strangers is a much-needed lesson in how to love--unconditionally and immeasurably--a dying world.' -Jessica J Lee; 'Erudite yet intimate, moving yet fierce, Rebecca Tamas' hungry exploration of the world - occurring at the porous boundary between literary forms - made me rethink what it means to be humane.' -Olivia Sudjic; 'Rebecca Tamas writes searingly on loss, transformation, art and the body. Her writing is tender and sharp, brimming with heat' -Nina Mingya Powles; 'Strangers is an extraordinary, essential book. Both quiet and loud. Strange yet explicit.' -Sara Baume; 'These essays are sharp, purposeful, moving and strange: necessary writing for now.' -Jenn Ashworth; 'The writing in these essays is luminous and urgent, intensely intimate and wildly global. Strangers is an intricate exploration of environmental precarity, literary strangeness, and the importance of the nonhuman.' -Naomi Booth; 'Strangers is a work of generous, optimistic curiosity, one which forgoes the easy promise of a world to come and invites us instead into a relationship of charged "feral intimacy" with a world that is already here.' -Sam Byers; 'Tamas builds a world so intimate for us here, teaching us how to unlearn and relearn, relive and relove.' -Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal; 'This text is an echoing, unstoppable bell.' -Caught by the River (book of the month); 'A passionate and poetic exercise in empathy for everything.' -Between Two BooksTable of ContentsOn Watermelon--On Hospitality--On Panpscychism--On Greenness--On Pain--On Grief--On Everest--On Mystery

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Book SynopsisEight essays on literature, language, art, Europe and life from one of Germany's most revered living writers. After a visit to Putin's old postbox, the reader is taken to Dresden and Brixton, Gdansk and Minsk, diverted to birds, bees, stray cats and pet dogs, confronted with Stasi and KGB, Proust and Jah Shaka, puzzled by overcoats and anoraks, Francis Bacon and Vermeer, and lost (then found) in service stations and memorial centres. Throughout, Marcel Beyer forges unexpected links and makes unpredictable leaps. "I work from the margins, partly very literally as I build my sentences, for instance when I start with the name of a colour rather than a noun, to explore how the sentence might be steered from there to a subject. In my reading, I am drawn to the outliers or, as malicious claims would have it, to the obscure. Central books: that is, those everyone can agree on, have never much interested me. I am rarely tempted to explore the centre of my world in writing, and even if I did want to encroach upon a centre, I would have to choose a path from the outside. But outside, too, one advances to the heart of things." Inspired by the great W. G. Sebald, Beyer's playful literary investigations wend through the high points and horrors of Europe's artistic history, towards a profoundly personal conclusion. "Reading Beyer, you begin to look more closely at the things around you and to be more patient in trusting your own associations and digressions." Literarische Welt; "In the geographical movement eastwards, the decades after 1989 take shape in a wealth of acoustic, visual and atmospheric perceptions: fonts, posters, buildings, modes of transport are witnesses as important as the people themselves." Suddeutsche Zeitung; "Beyer traces similarities, adjacencies, succeeding over and over in interrelating ostensibly disparate themes and objects, words and images." Deutschlandfunk; "Marcel Beyer is a wonderfully clear- sighted storyteller. His writing is breezy and intelligent and always carries its double and deeper meaning with it." Bayern 2 RadioTrade Review"Everyone should read this melancholy examination of cross-border phenomena." Adam Thirlwell

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Book SynopsisThis collection feels medicinal and miraculous all at once. . . This is not just nature writing.' This is cosmic writing.Robert Moor, bestselling author of On Trails: An ExplorationFor readers of Sand Talk, Braiding Sweetgrass, and Sounds Wild and BrokenFrom the Center for Humans and Nature, publisher of the award-winning anthology series Kinship, comes a new anthology series on the Elementals, a five-volume collection of essays, poetry, and stories that illuminate the dynamic relationships between people and place, human and nonhuman life, mind and the material world, and the living energies that make all life possible.For millennia, humans have sought to identify and understand the most essential aspects of nature. Of enduring fascination are the four material elements: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. All living beings owe their own existence

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Book SynopsisCollective Winner of the 2019 Highland Book Prize Under the ravishing light of an Alaskan sky, objects are spilling from the thawing tundra linking a Yup'ik village to its hunter-gatherer past. In the shifting sand dunes of a Scottish shoreline, impressively preserved hearths and homes of Neolithic farmers are uncovered. In a grandmother's disordered mind, memories surface of a long-ago mining accident and a 'mither who was kind'. For this luminous new essay collection, acclaimed author Kathleen Jamie visits archaeological sites and mines her own memories - of her grandparents, of youthful travels - to explore what surfaces and what reconnects us to our past. As always she looks to the natural world for her markers and guides. Most movingly, she considers, as her father dies, and her children leave home, the surfacing of an older, less tethered sense of herself. Surfacing offers a profound sense of time passing and an antidote to all that is instant, ephemeral, unrooted.Trade ReviewNature in Jamie's writing is immediate, domestic and, well, natural... a book whose impact is accretive and, eventually, astonishing. -- Alex Preston * Observer *Notes detailing chance encounters, fleeting relationships and a shared pull towards a specific world, (are) deepened with autobiographical anecdote, then shaken up with a vivid and urgent present-tense noticing that electrifies her connections and surroundings. It is as if Jamie, wherever she goes, functions as a lightning rod, drawing past, present and future together * New Statesman *Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie really stood out -- Sinéad Gleeson * Irish Times, Books of the Year 2019 *"A beautifully produced essay collection that spirals back through interests and themes traced over the past 40 years of Jamie's career, as well as forwards into an unknown future... To read a Jamie essay is to be given a fresh lens through which to view the world -- Amanda Bell * Irish Times *

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Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.The only advice, indeed, that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions.In her second volume of essays, Virginia Woolf delves deeper into the delights of reading. Here, she explores the novels of Thomas Hardy and Daniel Defoe, and recounts the fascinating lives of Christina Rossetti and Mary Wollstonecraft. In How Should One Read a Book?' she offers sage advice for the common reader, and sheds light on the lessons and pleasures literature can provide.Published in 1932, The Common Reader: Second Series is a wise and illuminating companion collection to her 1925 First Series. Woolf's enduring appeal and ideas continue to resonate with readers in the twenty-first century.

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Book SynopsisFirst and foremost an outcry against injustice and inhumanity, Unto this Last is also a closely argued assault on the science of political economy, which dominated the Victorian period. Ruskin was a profoundly conservative man who looked back to the Middle Ages as a Utopia, yet his ideas had a considerable influence on the British socialist movement. And in making his powerful moral and aesthetic case against the dangers of unhindered industrialization he was strangely prophetic. This volume shows the astounding range and depth of Ruskin''s work, and in an illuminating introduction the editor reveals the consistency of Ruskin''s philosophy and his adamant belief that questions of economics, art and science could not be separated from questions of morality. In Ruskin''s words, ''There is no Wealth but Life.''Table of ContentsEdited with an Introduction and Notes by Clive WilmerIntroductionChronologyFurther ReadingThe King of the Golden RiverFrom The Stones of Venice, Volume IIThe Nature of GothicFrom The Two PathsThe Work of Iron, in Nature, Art, and PolicyFrom Modern Painters, Volume VThe Two BoyhoodsUnto This LastPrefaceEssay I: The Roots of HonourEssay II: The Veins of WealthEssay III: Qui Judicatis TerramEssay IV: Ad ValoremFrom The Crown of Wild OliveTrafficFrom Sesame and LiliesOf Kings' TreasuriesFrom Fors ClavigeraLetter 7: CharitasLetter 10: The Baron's GateNotes

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Book SynopsisIn September 1939, housewife and mother Nella Last began a diary whose entries, in their regularity, length and quality, have created a record of the Second World War which is powerful, fascinating and unique. When war broke out, Nella's younger son joined the army while the rest of the family tried to adapt to civilian life. Writing each day for the "Mass Observation" project, Nella, a middle-aged housewife from the bombed town of Barrow, shows what people really felt during this time. This was the period in which she turned 50, saw her children leave home, and reviewed her life and her marriage - which she eventually compares to slavery. Her growing confidence as a result of her war work makes this a moving (though often comic) testimony, which, covering sex, death and fear of invasion, provides a new, unglamorised, female perspective on the war years.'Next to being a mother, I'd have loved to write books.' Oct 8, 1939Trade ReviewA classic of wartime literature...highly engaging, very moving. All Home Front life is here, especially the kitchen sink * Simon Garfield *I relished it...her personality is so powerful...There are so many things to admire about her. * Margaret Forster *A fantastic story...This is not the war of the newsreels - it's about tiny domestic difficulties, lumpy custard... * Victoria Wood *I adored [it.]. An extraordinary glimpse into the heart of an 'ordinary' woman, Nella Last's day-to-day account of her war is spirited, poignant and utterly compelling. * Lucy Moore *

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Book SynopsisWinter takes us on an intimate tour of the artists, poets, composers, writers, explorers, scientists and thinkers who helped shape a new and modern idea of winter. We learn how literature heralds the arrival of the middle class; how snow science leads to existential questions of God and our place in the world; how the race to the poles marks the human drive to imprint meaning on a blank space. Offering a kaleidoscopic take on the season, Winter is a homage to an idea of a season and a journey through the modern imagination.Trade Review'Gopnik's mind darts about like mercury as he tells his tale' The Times. * The Times *'Often startlingly good ... The perfect fireside companion' Observer. * Observer *'Brilliantly insightful ... Any writer who can take subjects as diverse as Wilson Bentley's snow crystal photographs, Dickens's Christmas stories and the myth that the Inuit have dozens of different words for snow, and find something original and interesting to say about each of them, has to be worth reading' Sunday Times. * Sunday Times *'Makes chilliness worth every minute' The Economist. * Economist *Table of ContentsAuthor's Note. Romantic Winter. Radical Winter. Recuperative Winter. Recreational Winter. Remembering Winter. Bibliography. Permissions. Index.

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Book SynopsisIn an Antique Land is a subversive history in the guise of a traveller's tale. When the author stumbles across a slave narrative in the margins of an ancient text, his curiosity is piqued. What follows is a ten year search, which brings author and slave together across 800 hundred years of colonial history. Bursting with anecdote and exuberant detail, it offers a magical, intimate biography of the private life of a country, Egypt, from the Crusades to Operation Desert Storm.Trade ReviewGhosh's book is extraordinary; a travel book that reaches back into the twelth century as it touches on the dilemmas of our own time. * Sunday Times *Ghosh is an engagingly humble and receptive traveller... a refreshing reversal of the usual power relationship between the observing (European) travel writer and his indigenous subjects. * Guardian *A rich and satisfying journey * The Times *This captivating, extraordinary story offers the general reader a vision of a rapidly disappearing world told with such grace, humility and insight that its appeal is universal -- Julie Fisher * Bookmunch *

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Book SynopsisWITH AN INTRODUCTION, PLUS EXTENSIVE NOTES AND REFERENCES BY HERMIONE LEEThis volume combines two books which were among the greatest contributions to feminist literature this century. Together they form a brilliant attack on sexual inequality. A Room of One''s Own, first published in 1929, is a witty, urbane and persuasive argument against the intellectual subjection of women, particularly women writers. The sequel, Three Guineas, is a passionate polemic which draws a startling comparison between the tyrannous hypocrisy of the Victorian patriarchal system and the evils of fascism.Trade ReviewOne realises afresh the full meaning of originality, the magic of the mind which plays around concrete facts as though they were all spirit. And when it is finished it is with a renewed sense of zest and stimulus that one takes up life again and looks anew at objects which before were only ordinary. * Guardian *Brilliant interweaving of personal experience, imaginative musing and political clarity -- Kate MosseAchingly relevant -- Natasha Walter * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisThis authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together an extensive collection of Bacon''s writing - the major prose in full, together with sixteen other pieces not otherwise available - to give the essence of his work and thinking.Although he had a distinguished career as a lawyer and statesman, Francis Bacon''s lifelong goal was to improve and extend human knowledge. In The Advancement of Learning (1605) he made a brilliant critique of the deficiencies of previous systems of thought and proposed improvements to knowledge in every area of human life. He conceived the Essays (1597, much enlarged in 1625) as a study of the formative influences on human behaviour, psychological and social. In The New Atlantis (1626) he outlined his plan for a scientific research institute in the form of a Utopian fable. In addition to these major English works this edition includes ''Of Tribute'', an impTrade ReviewThis volume helps to illustrate the reciprocal relation between his career as a lawyer and a statesman and his writings in natural philosophy, moral philosophy, religion, and politics. * Rose-Mary Sargent, Metascience *

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Book Synopsis“Funny, human, highly learned and literary, sexy, and filled with psychological nuances that remain unrivaled at the hands of any other psychological writer.” —André AcimanA Penguin ClassicA Sentimental Journey is a novel without a plot, a journey without a destination. It records the adventures of the amiable Parson Yorick, as he sets off on his travels through France and Italy, relishing his encounters with all manner of men and women—particularly the pretty ones. Sterne's tale rapidly moves away from the narrative of travel to become a series of dramatic sketches, ironic incidents, philosophical musings, reminiscences, and anecdotes; sharp wit is mixed with gaiety, irony with tender feeling. With A Sentimental Journey, as well as his masterpiece, Tristram Shandy, Sterne forged a truly original style and established himself as the first of the stream-of-consciousness writers. This Penguin Classics

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Book SynopsisThe world first publication of a previously unknown work of fantasy by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the powerful story of a doomed young man who is sold into slavery and who swears revenge on the magician who killed his father.Kullervo son of Kalervo is perhaps the darkest and most tragic of all J.R.R. Tolkien's characters. Hapless Kullervo', as Tolkien called him, is a luckless orphan boy with supernatural powers and a tragic destiny.Brought up in the homestead of the dark magician Untamo, who killed his father, kidnapped his mother, and who tries three times to kill him when still a boy, Kullervo is alone save for the love of his twin sister, Wanona, and guarded by the magical powers of the black dog, Musti. When Kullervo is sold into slavery he swears revenge on the magician, but he will learn that even at the point of vengeance there is no escape from the cruellest of fates.Tolkien wrote that The Story of Kullervo was the germ of my attempt to write legends of my own', and was a major matter in the legends of the First Age'; his Kullervo was the ancestor of Túrin Turambar, tragic incestuous hero of The Silmarillion. In addition to being a powerful story in its own right, The Story of Kullervo published here for the first time with the author's drafts, notes and lecture-essays on its source-work, The Kalevala, is a foundation stone in the structure of Tolkien's invented world.Trade ReviewPraise for J.R.R. Tolkien:‘One marvels anew at the depth, breadth and persistence of J.R.R. Tolkien’s labour. No one sympathetic to his aims – the invention of a secondary universe – will want to miss this chance to be present at the creation.’Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisIn his writings, David Hume set out to bridge the gap between the learned world of the academy and the marketplace of polite society. This collection, drawing largely on his Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (1776 edition), which was even more popular than his famous Treatise of Human Nature, comprehensively shows how far he succeeded.From `Of Essay Writing'' to `Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences'' Hume embraces a staggering range of social, cultural, political, demographic, and historical concerns. With the scope typical of the Scottish Enlightenment, he charts the state of civil society, manners, morals, and taste, and the development of political economy in the mid-eighteenth century. These essays represent not only those areas where Hume''s arguments are revealingly typical of his day, but also where he is strikingly innovative in a period already famous for its great thinkers. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the Trade ReviewThis reviewer found Copley and Edgar's edition to be the easiest to read, and as such it may be appropriate for less experienced students of Hume's work. * Scottish Tradition *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; Note on the Text ; Select Bibliography ; Chronology ; 1. Of Essay Writing ; 2. Of the Middle Station of Life ; 3. Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion ; 4. That Politics may be Reduced to a Science ; 5. Of the First Principles of Government ; 6. Of the Origin of Government ; 7. Of the Parties of Great Britain ; 8. Of Superstition and Enthusiasm ; 9. Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature ; 10. Of Civil Liberty ; 11. Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences ; 12. The Epicurean ; 13. The Stoic ; 14. The Platonist ; 15. The Sceptic ; 16. Of National Characters ; 17. Of Tragedy ; 18. Of the Standard of Taste ; 19. Of Commerce ; 20. Of Refinement in the Arts ; 21. Of Interest ; 22. Of the Balance of Trade ; 23. Of Public Credit ; 24. Of Some Remarkable Customs ; 25. Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations ; 26. Of the Original Contract ; 27. Of the Protestant Succession ; 28. Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth ; 29. On Suicide ; 30. On the Immortality of the Soul

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Book SynopsisEric Arthur Blair (1903-1950), better known by his pen-name, George Orwell, was born in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. An author and journalist, Orwell was one of the most prominent and influential figures in twentieth-century literature. His unique political allegory Animal Farm was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with the dystopia of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), which brought him world-wide fame. His novels and non-fiction include Burmese Days, Down and Out in Paris and London, The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia.Trade ReviewAnyone who wants to understand the twentieth century will still have to read Orwell -- Timothy Garton Ash, * New York Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisGeorge Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. On Reading, the seventh in the Orwell’s Essays series, collects together Orwell’s short essays on books – ‘Bookshop Memories’, ‘Good Bad Books’, ‘Nonsense Poetry’, ‘Books vs. Cigarettes’ and ‘Confessions of a Book Reviewer’ – giving a rounded view of the great writer’s opinions on the literature of his day, and the vessels in which it was sold.Table of Contents‘Bookshop Memories’, ‘Good Bad Books’, ‘Nonsense Poetry’, ‘Books vs. Cigarettes’, ‘Confessions of a Book Reviewer’, Note on the Text, Notes

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Book SynopsisRuskin was the most powerful and influential critic of the nineteenth century. He wrote about nature, art, architecture, politics, history, myth and much besides. This new selection draws on the whole range of his output, including representative material from all his major works. The introduction outlines the development of his life and thought and shows why he remains such a rewarding writer today.Table of ContentsModern Painters ; The Seven Lamps of Architecture ; The Stones of Venice ; Unto this Last ; Sesame and Lilies ; The Queen of the Air ; Lectures on Art ; Fors Clavigera ; The Eagle's Nest ; Proserpina ; Fiction, Fair and Foul ; The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century ; Praeterita

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Book Synopsis''you''ll find another man to harvest, Glycerion: let this one go''The Greek satirist Lucian was a brilliantly entertaining writer who invented the comic dialogue as a vehicle for satiric comment. His influence was immense, not only in the Greek world, but on later European writers such as Rabelais and Swift. His dialogues puncture the pretensions of pompous philosophers and describe the daily lives of Greek courtesans; they are peopled by politicians, historians and ordinary citizens, as well as by gods and mythic figures. This selection provides a cross-section of Lucian''s styles and satirical targets, from serious polemic to lighter squibs and character portrayals. It includes How to Write History and his most famous piece, A True History, a fabulous tale of space travel and a monstrous whale which prefigures the fantasies of Jules Verne.This lively new translation is both accurate and idiomatic, and the introduction highlights Lucian''s importance in his own and later times. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Table of ContentsPraise of the Fly ; The Dream ; Charon ; Timon ; Icaromenippus, or High Above the Clouds ; Nigrinus ; The Death of Peregrinus ; Hermotimus or On Philosophical Schools ; Alexander ; Demonax ; Lovers of Lies, or The Sceptic ; How to Write History ; A True History I ; A True History II ; Dialogues of the Courtesans

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Book SynopsisA collection of John Carey’s greatest, wisest, and wittiest reviews—amassed over a lifetime of writingTrade Review“For Carey, as this ridiculously enjoyable selection of his greatest hits 1986–2021 demonstrates, the reconciliation of high learning and popular reach is not a headache, but an art. . . . From Sherlock Holmes to Germaine Greer, these reviews prove that John Carey is the finest literary critic of our age.”—Sebastian Faulks, Sunday Times“John writes for the casual reader rather than the expert and cleverly mines the books for their best anecdotes—making this an engaging read.”—Thomas Barrie, House and Garden, “Gifts for Bookworms”“There’s much to savour in this collection of journalism by one of Britain’s most perceptive literary critics. . . . Sunday Best is a pleasure, and one can only marvel at the facility with which, over and over again, Carey distinguishes the signal from the noise.”—Rhodri Lewis, Prospect“Surely the sharpest and wisest of our current critics—and the one who makes us laugh too.”—Claire Tomalin“John Carey is the finest literary critic of the age, and this collection of his reviews is a calling card of his many virtues—the breadth of his interests, his incisiveness, his fearlessness, his wit, his wonderfully fierce moral vision, and above all his clarity—you may search in vain for a semi-colon—and his desire to communicate as broadly as possible. An exemplary collection from an exemplary writer.”—Andrew Holgate, literary editor, Sunday Times“Whether he’s discussing the appeal of Sherlock Holmes or the popularity of cannibalism in the siege of Leningrad, John Carey’s reviews are always marvels of clarity, revelation, human warmth and acerbic wit. This is literary journalism at its stylish pinnacle.”—John Walsh, former literary editor, Sunday Times“Unlike the majority of his colleagues and descendants, Carey never switches code or shifts guises, speaking now as a populist, now as a specialist. He has no need to—for more than 50 years, his taut, spry, flexible, idiomatic style has enabled him to engage a large non-specialist audience without, for the most part, stinting his deep infectious belief that literature is serious, and matters.”—Leo Robson, lead fiction reviewer, New Statesman

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Book Synopsis''His moral courage shines through from the start.'' - Sunday TelegraphThe definitive edition of the late Sir Roger Scruton''s philosophical and political essays and reviews, now collected in one volume.The philosopher Roger Scruton was the leading conservative thinker of the post-war years. In this book are assembled the very best of his essays and commentaries, arranged thematically. The selection has been made and edited by Mark Dooley, Scruton''s literary executor.Throughout this collection, Scruton proves himself to be at his most scintillating and controversial. He writes with passion and conviction about such varied topics as feminism, racism, fascism, Tony Blair and Donald Trump, as well as subjects like global warming, music and architecture. He takes aim at those who defy conservative common sense in favour of liberal falsehoods.This book shows Scruton at his most brilliant and demonstrates how his influence will remainTrade ReviewEvery piece is a masterclass in prose style and a reminder of how he earned such widespread popular affection…His moral courage shines through from the start. * Sunday Telegraph *This is inspirational thought delivered by graceful language about politics and aesthetics that will continue to attract and influence readers. * The Epoch Times *… A brilliantly stimulating selection of the journalism by the late Sir Roger Scruton… These are little masterpieces of philosophical polemic. * The Oldie *The writings expertly collected in Against the Tide go a long way to illuminating Scruton's humane and dignified conservatism. * Law and Liberty *On every page, the reader encounters a mind passionately at work, seeking to reconcile everyday problems with a moral sense. * The Washington Free Beacon *Against the Tide is a concise but rich selection of some of Scruton’s writings for various journals, magazines, and newspapers … What a pleasure to see so many of these pieces back in print … it is hard to imagine a better introduction to Scruton’s work than this wonderful, endlessly readable volume. -- Douglas Murray * The New Criterion *Over 40 years of Scruton’s columns and commentaries, published and unpublished, as well as diary entries are gifted to us in this remarkably concise but substantive volume. * The American Conservative *Reading Scruton will help us rekindle the search for what is good, true, and beautiful, and, more importantly, recognize them (and their opposites) when we see them. * The Interim *A collection of his finest writing. * Telegraph *Scruton stood apart in Britain as a thinker. His writing continues to illuminate, and he is sorely missed. * The Lady *Table of ContentsPreface: The Work That Must Be Done Part One: Who Am I? My Life Beyond the Pale Roger Scruton Says ‘Put a Cork in It’ My Week: July 2005 My Week: January 2006 My Week: April 2006 The Flame That Was Snuffed Out by Freedom Finding Scrutopia in the Czech Republic Diary – August 2016 Part Two: Who Are We? The Conservative Conscience The Blair Legacy A Question of Temperament The Meaning of Margaret Thatcher Identity, Marriage, Family: Our Core Conservative Values Have Been Betrayed What Trump Doesn’t Get About Conservatism Part Three: Why The Left Is Never Right The Ideology of Human Rights Who is a Fascist? In Praise of Privilege A Hominist Homily In Loco Parentis McCarthy Was Right on the Red Menace A Focus of Loyalty Higher than the State The Art of Taking Offence Part Four: Intimations of Infinity De Anima A Matter of Life and Deathlessness Dawkins Is Wrong about God Altruism and Selfishness Memo to Hawking: There’s Still Room for God Humans Hunger for the Sacred: Why Can’t the New Atheists Understand That? Part Five: The End of Education The Virtue of Irrelevance The Open University and the Closed Mind The End of Education The Plague of Sociology Know Your Place Universities’ War against the Truth Part Six: Fraudulent Philosophy A Note on Foucault The Triumph of Nothingness Freud and Fraud If Only Chomsky Had Stuck to Syntax Part Seven: The West and the Rest In Memory of Iran The Lesson of Lebanon Decent Debate Mustn’t Be the Victim The Wrong Way to Treat President Putin Why Iraq Is a Write-Off Part Eight: Cultural Corruption The Art of Motor-Cycle Maintenance Temples of Anxiety The Modern Cult of Ugliness High Culture Is Being Corrupted by a Culture of Fakes Part Nine: Animal Rights, Pulpit Politics and Sex Male Domination The Pestilence of Pulpit Politics On the Eating of Fish Obligations of the Flesh Eat Animals! It’s for Their Own Good Sextants and Sexting Tally Ho! Let the Hunt Remind Us of Who We Are Part Ten: Annus Horribilis and Last Words Diary After My Own Dark Night My 2019 Index

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Book SynopsisI've lived through ten iOS upgrades on my Mac and that's just something I use to muck about on Twitter. Surely capitalism is due an upgrade or two?'When Caitlin Moran sat down to choose her favourite pieces for her new book she realised that they all seemed to join up. Turns out, it's the same old problems and the same old ass-hats.Then she thought of the word Moranifesto', and she knew what she had to doThis is Caitlin's engaging and amusing rallying call for our times. Combining the best of her recent columns with lots of new writing unique to this book, Caitlin deals with topics as pressing and diverse as 1980s swearing, benefits, boarding schools, and why the internet is like a drunken toddler.And whilst never afraid to address the big issues of the day such as Benedict Cumberbatch and duffel coats Caitlin also makes a passionate effort to understand our 21st century society and presents us with her Moranifesto' for making the world a better place.The polite revolution starts here! Please.Trade ReviewShe is one of the most astute social commentators hitting a keyboard today ... guaranteed to brighten up anyone's life * Independent *the joy of Moran’s writing lies in how she combines thoughtfulness and intelligence with proper belly laughs. * Independent on Sunday *Spiky, funny and passionate * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisIn this collection of profiles, essays and travel stories, Chatwin takes us to Benin, where he is arrested as a mercenary during a coup; to Boston to meet an LSD guru who believes he is Christ; to India with Indira Ghandi when she attempted a political comeback in 1978; and to Nepal where he reminds us that ''Man''s real home is not a house, but the Road, and that life itself is a journey to be walked on foot''Trade ReviewAs a writer he was unclassifiably interesting: lucid, ironic, cool. He seemed to owe nothing to anybody. -- Colin Thubron * Sunday Times *Chatwin is equally fascinating on places. He goes yeti-hunting in Nepal, and magnificently evokes the Himalayas' seductive harshness. He visits Afghanistan in the steps of his own favourite writer, Robert Byron, and reveals something no current news report ever succeeds in doing why anyone should want to spend time in that beautiful, tormented land...human existence at least as Chatwin sees it is gloriously open-ended, unpredictable and exotic * Sunday Times *One of its chief delights is that it contains so many of its author'sbest anecdotes, his choicest performances -- Salman Rushdie * Observer *I like the combination of its far-reaching quality and the minute precision with which his thoughts are charted -- Rose Tremain * Sunday Times *All the writing in this volume demonstrates Bruce Chatwin’s loathing of the humdrum, the dreary, the predictable. What attracted him was the unusual, the weird and wonderful… the journalist in him (strongly present) knew a good story when it heard one -- Margaret Forster * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisThe Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, also called the Age of Reason, was so named for an intellectual movement that shook the foundations of Western civilization. In championing radical ideas such as individual liberty and an empirical appraisal of the universe through rational inquiry and natural experience, Enlightenment philosophers in Europe and America planted the seeds for modern liberalism, cultural humanism, science and technology, and laissez-faire Capitalism This volume brings together works from this era, with more than 100 selections from a range of sources. It includes examples by Kant, Diderot, Voltaire, Newton, Rousseau, Locke, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and Paine that demonstrate the pervasive impact of Enlightenment views on philosophy and epistemology as well as on political, social, and economic institutions.Table of ContentsNotes to Introduction Suggestions for Further Reading Chronological Table Part One: The Enlightenment Spirit: An Overview What is Enlightenment? Kant The Human Mind Emerged from Barbarism d’Alembert “Encyclopédie” Diderot Definition of a Philosophe Dumarsais Le mariage de Figaro Beaumarchais The Magic Flute Mozart The Future Progress of the Human Mind Condorcet Part Two: Reason and Nature The New Science Bacon Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy Newton The New Physics Cotes On Bacon and Newton Voltaire The Rat Buffon The Utility of Science Condorcet The Organization of Scientific Research Priestley Letter to Joseph Priestley Franklin Part Three: Reason and God On Superstition and Tolerance Bayle A Letter Concerning Toleration Locke On Enthusiasm Shaftesbury The Argument for a Deity Newton A Discourse of Free-Thinking Collins “If there is a God…;” Montesquieu Of Miracles and the Origin of Religion Hume Reflections on Religion Voltaire Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar Rousseau “No need of theology…;only of reason…;” d’Holbach The Progress of Superstition Gibbon Unitarianism Priestley “Religion…;my views of it…;” Jefferson “Something of my religion…;” Franklin The Temple of Reason The Age of Reason Paine Part Four: Reason and Humanity The Mind and Ideas “I think, therefore I am…;” Descartes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke New Essays on Human Understanding Leibnitz On Mr. Locke Voltaire A Treatise of Human Nature Hume Man a Machine la Mettrie Of Ideas, Their Generation and Associations Hartley The Philosophy of Common Sense Reid Treatise on the Sensations Condillac Education and Childhood Some Thoughts Concerning Education Locke Children and Civic Education Rousseau Education for Civil and Active Life Priestley Manners and Morals The Fable of the Bees Mandeville An Essay on Man Pope Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure Cleland Enjoyment and Tahiti Diderot Concerning the Moral Sense Hutcheson The Impartial Spectator Smith A Treatise on Man Helvétius Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals Kant The Principle of Utility Bentham Taste and Art On Wit Addison Ideas of Beauty and Virtue Hutcheson Discourse on Style Buffon Of the Standard of Taste Hume The Sublime Burke On Theater and Morals Rousseau On Custom and Fashion Smith The Beautiful and Sublime Kant Discourse on Art Reynolds Part Five: Reason and Society Progress and History The New Science Vico The Utility of History Bolingbroke History as Guide Hume On Progress Turgot A Critique of Progress Rousseau In Defense of Modernity Voltaire The Four-Stage Theory of Development Smith The Progressive Character of Human Nature Ferguson “How glorious, then, is the prospect…;” Priestley The Perfectibility of Man Condorcet Politics and the State The Second Treatise of Civil Government Locke The Spirit of the Laws Montesquieu Political Essays Voltaire Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Rousseau The Social Contract Rousseau Common Sense Paine The American Declaration of Independence Benevolent Despotism Frederick the Great Federalist No. 10 Madison The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen The Rights of Man Paine Enquiry Concerning Political Justice Godwin The Economy and Markets The Royal Exchange Addison Industry and the Way to Wealth Franklin Of Luxury Hume The Physiocratic Formula Quesnay Economic Liberty Turgot The Wealth of Nations Smith Crime and Punishment The Severity of Criminal Laws Montesquieu An Essay on Crimes and Punishments Beccaria On Torture and Capital Punishment Voltaire The State of Prisons Howard “Cases unmeet for punishment…;” Bentham War and Peace Splendid Armies Voltaire “There never was a good war…;” Franklin Perpetual Peace Kant Gender and Race Some Reflections upon Marriage Astell Duties of Women Rousseau The Fair Sex Kant Women, Adored and Oppressed Paine(attr.) “A woman…;gossips much…;” Mozart Women’s Education Macaulay On the Equality of the Sexes Constantia The Rights of Woman de Gouges Vindication of the Rights of Woman Wollstonecraft “Negroes…;naturally inferior to the whites…;” Hume Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes Woolman The Difference between the Races Kant “Who are you, then, to make slaves…;” Diderot “Bestial manners, stupidity, and vices…;” Long African Slavery in America Paine Of Empires and Savages Gibbon On Indians and Negroes Jefferson “Negro” Encylopaedia Britannica The End of Empire Priestley

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Book SynopsisScholar, churchman, diplomat and theologian, Gerald of Wales was one of the most fascinating figures of the Middle Ages and The Journey Through Wales describes his eventful tour of the country as a missionary in 1188. In a style reminiscent of a diary, Gerald records the day-to-day events of the mission, alongside lively accounts of local miracles, folklore and religious relics such as Saint Patrick''s Horn, and eloquent descriptions of natural scenery that includes the rugged promontory of St David''s and the vast snow-covered panoramas of Snowdonia. The landscape is evoked in further detail in The Description, which chronicles the everyday lives of the Welsh people with skill and affection. Witty and gently humorous throughout, these works provide a unique view into the medieval world.Table of ContentsTranslated by Lewis ThorpeIntroduction:I. The Life of Gerald of WalesGeneaological table: the family of Gerald of WalesII. The Journey Through Wales1. The purpose of the journey and its achievements2. Gerald's role3. The route followed4. The three versions5. "...cum notabilibus suis"6. The editions7. The earlier translation8. This translationIII. The Description of Wales1. The shape and subject-matter2. The three versions3. The changes made in the second and third versions4. The editions5. The earlier translation6. This translationIV. Gerald the HistorianV. Gerald the ArtistVI. Short BibliographyVII. AcknowledgmentsVIII. List of Gerald's Extant WritingsMaps:1. Gerald's Journey Through Wales2. Wales in 1188THE JOURNEY THROUGH WALESFirst PrefaceSecond PrefaceList of Chapter-Headings: Book I; Book IITHE DESCRIPTION OF WALESFirst PrefaceSecond PrefaceList of Chapter-Headings: Book I; Book IIAppendix I: The additions made in Versions II and III of The Journey Through WalesAppendix II: The additions made in Versions II and III of The Description of WalesAppendix III: Gerald of Wales and King ArthurIndex

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Book SynopsisComposed in the early thirteenth century, Wolfram von Eschenbach''s Parzival is the re-creation and completion of the story left unfinished by its initiator Chrétien de Troyes. It follows Parzival from his boyhood and career as a knight in the court of King Arthur to his ultimate achievement as King of the Temple of the Grail, which Wolfram describes as a life-giving Stone. As a knight serving the German nobility in the imperial Hohenstauffen period, the author was uniquely placed to describe the zest and colour of his hero''s world, with dazzling depictions of courtly luxury, jousting and adventure. Yet this is not simply a tale of chivalry, but an epic quest for spiritual education, as Parzival must conquer his ignorance and pride and learn humility before he can finally win the Holy Grail.Table of ContentsParzival - Wolfram von Eschenbach Translated by A. T. HattoForewordChapter 1Chapter 2Wolfram's ApologyChapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16An Introduction to a Second ReadingA Glossary of Personal NamesA List of Works in English for Further Reading

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Book SynopsisPliny''s Natural History is an astonishingly ambitious work that ranges from astronomy to art and from geography to zoology. Mingling acute observation with often wild speculation, it offers a fascinating view of the world as it was understood in the first century AD, whether describing the danger of diving for sponges, the first water-clock, or the use of asses'' milk to remove wrinkles. Pliny himself died while investigating the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii in AD 79, and the natural curiosity that brought about his death is also very much evident in the Natural History - a book that proved highly influential right up until the Renaissance and that his nephew, Pliny the younger, described ''as full of variety as nature itself''.Table of ContentsIntroductionFurther ReadingTranslator's NoteNatural HistoryPrefaceThe Universe and the WorldBook II. AstronomyBook III. Spain and ItalyBook IV. Europe and BritainBook V. The Continents of Africa and AsiaBook VI. The Black Sea, India, and the Far EastZoologyBook VII. ManBook VIII. Land AnimalsBook IX. Creatures of the SeaBook X. BirdsBook XI. InsectsBotanyBooks XII-XIII. TreesBook XIV. Vines and ViticultureBook XV. The Olive and Other Fruit-TreesBook XVI. Forest TreesBook XVIII. AgricultureMateria MedicaBook XX. Drugs Obtained from Garden PlantsBooks XI-XXII. Flowers and HerbsBook XXIII. The Vine and the WalnutBook XXIV. Drugs Obtained from Foreign TreesBook XXV. The Nature of Wild PlantsBook XXVI. Diseases and Their RemediesBook XXVII. More Plants Used in MedicineBook XXVIII. Drugs Obtained from Man; Magic and SuperstitionBook XXIX. Medicine, Doctors and Medical PracticeBook XXX. MagicBook XXXI. WaterBook XXXII. Fish and Aquatic CreaturesMining and MineralsBook XXXIII. Gold and SilverBook XXXIV. Copper and Bronze Sculpture, Tin, Lead and IronBook XXXV. Painting, Sculpture and ArchitectureBook XXXVI. Stones, Minerals and MonumentsBook XXXVII. Precious StonesKey to Place-NamesIndex

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Book SynopsisSet on a Bengali noble''s estate in 1908, this is both a love story and a novel of political awakening. The central character, Bimala, is torn between the duties owed to her husband, Nikhil, and the demands made on her by the radical leader, Sandip. Her attempts to resolve the irreconciliable pressures of the home and world reflect the conflict in India itself, and the tragic outcome foreshadows the unrest that accompanied Partition in 1947.Trade ReviewBy the Winner of the Nobel Prize in LiteratureTable of ContentsThe Home and the WorldPrefaceChronologyIntroduction by Anita DesaiFurther ReadingChapter One:Bimala's StoryChapter Two:Bimala's StoryNikhil's SotrySandip's StoryChapter Three:Bimala's StorySandip's StoryChapter Four:Nikhil's StoryBimala's StorySandip's StoryChapter Five:Nikhil's StoryBimala's StoryNikhil's StoryChapter Six:Nikhil's StorySandip's StoryChapter Seven:Sandip's StoryChapter Eight:Nikhil's StoryBimala's StoryChapter Nine:Bimala's StoryChapter Ten:Nikhil's StoryBimala's StoryChapter Eleven:Bimala's StoryChapter Twelve:Nikhil's StoryBimala's StoryAdditional Notes

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Book Synopsis''... a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food...''Swift''s devastating short satire on how to solve a famineIntroducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin''s 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). Swift''s works available in Penguin Classics are Gulliver''s Travels and A Modest Proposal and Other Writings.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewSurprising, illuminating . . . one of the many pleasures of reading Calasso is to follow the bumper-car ride of his thinking, as he caroms off this and that totemic figure dotted about the intellectual fairground * The New York Times Review of Books *The ninth in Mr. Calasso's kaleidoscopic series of investigations into the spiritual biography of the secular West . . . the two long essays in The Unnamable Present examine the effects of novel and often dangerous mythologies-democracy, nationalism, Darwinism, race theory- in 20th-century Europe . . . he handles the events of the past with the reverence of a priest, rather than the dispassion of a historian. Material facts are the tangible aspect of hidden truths -- Dominic Green * The Wall Street Journal *A public intellectual in the great European tradition, whose new book attempts to define the era we're currently living through * Irish Times *I love Roberto Calasso's writing: it's rigorous, elusive, and expansive. The Unnamable Present continues his austere, zigzagging history of the world, but the difference is that now he's examining the supermodern - and this shift would I guess be a moment for pure celebration, were his conclusions not so inescapable and so terrifyingCalasso's erudition is dazzling . . . his assertions come in short, verbless sentences, darting from historical moment to historical moment, alighting on a person, a place, a topic, before moving briskly on * Times Literary Supplement *This slim but wide-ranging philosophical inquiry extends the Italian author's series on the roots of modernity, with particular attention to moral relativism * The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisWilliam Hazlitt (1778-1830) developed a variety of identities as a writer: essayist, philosopher, critic of literature, drama, and painting, biographer, political commentator, and polemicist. What unites this variety is his dramatic and passionate intelligence, his unswerving commitment to individual and political liberty, and his courageous opposition to established political and cultural power. Hailed in 1819 as `one of the ablest and most eloquent critics of our nation'', Hazlitt was also reviled for his political radicalism by the conservative press of the period. His writing engages with many of the important cultural and political debates of a revolutionary period, and retains its power both to provoke and move the reader. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other vTrade ReviewI recommend the Selected Writings of Hazlitt edited by Jan Cook, and the most recent biography, Hazlitt, A Life, by Stanley Jones. * Ottawa Citizen, 13 July 1997 *Table of ContentsIncludes: The French Revolution; On Modern Comedy; Modern Tragedy; Our National Theatres; On Personal Identity; Characteristics; On Poetry in General; Shakespeare; Macbeth; Coriolanus; Mr Wordsworth

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Book Synopsis''Intellectual freedom depends on material things. Poetry depends on intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor...''In these two classic essays of feminist literature, Woolf argues passionately for women''s intellectual freedom and their role in challenging the drive towards fascism and conflict. In A Room of One''s Own she explores centuries of limitations placed on women, as well as celebrating the creative achievements of the women writers who overcame these obstacles. In this first history of women''s writing, she describes the importance of education, financial independence, and equality of opportunity to creative freedom. Three Guineas was written under the threat of fascism and impending war. A radical articulation of Woolf''s pacifist politics, it investigates the causes of gender inequalities and the ways in which women''s historic outsider position make them crucial in the prevention of war. Both these works started life as talks to groups of young women, and their

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Book Synopsis90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin BooksI walked in a daze of illusions toward my future.'Deeply felt and told with an intrepid spirit, Tales from the Heart are the intimate, formative stories from the childhood of the legendary Caribbean writer, Maryse Condé. These affecting vignettes follow Condé's early encounters with love, grief, friendship, as she navigates the pernicious legacy of slavery and colonialism in her home of Guadeloupe and as a student in Paris.

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Book SynopsisDistrust That Particular Flavor - an acclaimed nonfiction collection by William Gibson, bestselling author of Neuromancer''The future''s already here: it''s just not evenly distributed''William Gibson was writing fiction when he predicted the internet. And as his stories bled into reality so he became one of the first to report on the real-world consequences of cyberspace''s growth and development.Now, with the dust settling on the first internet revolution, comes Gibson''s first collection of non-fiction - essays from the technological and cultural frontiers of this new world. Covering a variety of subjects, they include:- Metrophagy - the Art and Science of Digesting Great Cities- An account of obsession in ''the world''s attic'' - eBay- Reasons why ''The Net is a Waste of Time''- Singapore as ''Disneyland with the Death Penalty'' - A primer on Japan, our default setting for the future Trade ReviewA terrific writer. Gibson is a prophet and a satirist, a black comedian and an astounding architect of cool. He's also responsible for much of the world we live in * Spectator *

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Book SynopsisA selection of the most popular and relevant essays from Adam Phillips, the man New Yorker called ''Britain''s foremost psychoanalytic writer''''Phillips''s prose is poetic in the best sense: it is muscular, resonant, and thrums with a dark music that is all its own'' John BanvilleIn the twenty essays gathered here, ranging across his entire oeuvre, psychoanalyst Adam Phillips offers a vivid introduction to his discipline as well as his own unique thinking. Investigating subjects as diverse as desire, family, happiness, tickling, forgetting and even boredom, Phillips proves himself to be not only one of our most engaging writers but also a fascinating and provocative guide to our obsessions as human beings.Trade ReviewPhillips is one of the finest prose stylists at work in the language, an Emerson for our timeReading Phillips, you may be amused, vexed, dazzled. But the one thing you will never be is bored * Observer *"Phillipsian" would evoke a vivid, paradoxical style that led you to think that you had picked up an idea by the head, only to find you were holding it by the tail * Guardian *He is perhaps single-handedly continuing the tradition of the world's best essayists * Observer *Phillips radiates infectious charm. The brew of gaiety, compassion, exuberance and idealism is heady and disarming * Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In this anthology, shape matters. It turns the essay into a resistant form, pushing against the myth of the ‘disappearing Native’ and asserting a new narrative, one that isn’t subject to colonizing. . . . Shapes of Native Nonfiction is full of cognitive and emotional work. It turns the essay into something alive and breathing." * Cincinnati Review *"The medium is the message in this formally daring anthology of essays from Native writers, organized into basket-weaving themes such as ‘coiling’ and ‘plaiting.’ In these 27 essays by writers hailing from multiple tribal nations, some established and some newcomers, the Native experience is interrogated, elucidated, and celebrated." * Esquire *"It’s not hard to imagine this work as a staple of creative writing course syllabi for years to come. A must for any library." * Library Journal *"In gathering contemporary Native nonfiction, this book elucidates the roots of the form-conscious essay and brings together the exciting current work of Native writers. In a sweeping decolonizing gesture, this anthology challenges the nonfiction canon as it’s been taught and creates a porous new space in its place." * Essay Daily *"Shapes of Native Nonfiction is. . . an accessible, engaging book, both for those who have read widely on the subject and for those seeking a place to begin." * New York Journal of Books *"The volume seems to be the work of a master weaver expertly managing the warp and weft of the threads—everything in its place, everything serving its purpose. These vibrant essays and writings acknowledge the wounds of the past but are not confined or defined by them. Rather, the contributors, who include Siku Allooloo, Natanya Ann Pulley, Ernestine Hayes, Chip Livingston, and Michael Wasson, narrate a living, dynamic future." * Choice *"This new collection of essays from established and emerging contemporary Indigenous writers is stunning both in depth and scope. . . . The collection, expertly curated and structured by writer and Cowlitz Indian Tribe member Elissa Washuta (whose incredible essay Apocalypse Logic also appears here) and literary scholar Theresa Warburton, shines in every piece and in its existence as a whole. . . . In these pages, storytelling is a way of developing new Native nonfiction literary possibility." * Literary Hub *"Shapes of Native Nonfiction introduces the reader to a unique collection of voices, telling stories that shift from lost to living language, from history to lived experience. These shifts create new shapes for Indigenous writers to inhabit, explore and share. In this anthology, that shaping makes for a powerful read, and an absolutely necessary one." * High Country News *"A veritable feast of First Nations and Native American writers that readers may otherwise never have discovered." * World Literature Today (WLT) *"In this far-ranging collection of essays, Indigenous writers explore family, home, landscape, identity, trauma, history, and memory. Some of the essays are about writing itself. Others tell stories about particular experiences or moments. Still others are more outwardly focused, exploring art, culture, and politics. Part of what makes this book so unique is the various innovative forms the essays take." * Book Riot *

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Book SynopsisAcerbic, wisecracking and hilarious, this is the definitive essay collection from New York legend and satirist, Fran Lebowitz, star of Martin Scorsese''s hit Netflix series, Pretend It''s a City.''The gold standard for intelligence, efficiency and humour. Now and forever'' DAVID SEDARIS''She''s inexhaustible - her personality, her knowledge, her brilliance, most of all her humour'' MARTIN SCORSESE''The rare example of a legend living up to her own mythology. She really is THAT funny'' HADLEY FREEMANLebowitz turns her trademark caustic wit to the vicissitudes of life - from children (''rarely in the position to lend one a truly interesting sum of money'') to landlords (''it is the solemn duty of every landlord to maintain an adequate supply of roaches''). And her attitude to work is the perfect antidote to our exhausting culture of self-betterment (''3.40pm. I consider getting out of bed. I reject the notion as being unduly vTrade ReviewThe gold standard for intelligence, efficiency and humour. Now and forever -- David SedarisShe's inexhaustible - her personality, her knowledge, her brilliance, most of all her humour -- Martin ScorseseFran Lebowitz is the rare example of a legend living up to her own mythology. She really is THAT funny -- Hadley FreemanIn a world of humming, hawing, couching and obfuscating, there's nothing more refreshing than a dose of Fran Lebowitz -- Caroline O’DonoghueUnique .... Lebowitz offers vocational guides for aspiring heiresses, popes, empresses; manuals for landlords; guidance to the rich who wish to meet the poor * Vogue *The funniest woman in America * Washington Post *Despite now being over 40 years old, the essays still glitter, every bone-dry sentence pared down and packed with her unmistakeable personality -- Hadley Freeman * Guardian *A forcefield of comic self-certainty in a world of anxious uncertainty * Guardian *Right on the mark ... Among the things she hates ... baggage-claim areas, high tech, after-shave lotion, adults who roller skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan * Newsweek *Hilarious ... an unlikely and perhaps alarming combination of Mary Hartman and Mary McCarthy.... To a dose of Huck Finn add some Lenny Bruce, Oscar Wilde and Alexis de Tocqueville, a dash of cabdriver, an assortment of puns, minced jargon, and top it off with smarty pants * The New York Times *'the most well-connected iconoclast since Dorothy Parker' -- Jane Mulkerrins * The Times *In a world of humming, hawing, couching and obfuscating, there's nothing more refreshing than a dose of Fran Lebowitz -- Caroline O'DonoghueA marvellous raconteur, full of wit, wisdom and rebellion. Genuinely one of the funniest people in the world -- Irenosen OkojieAs witty, original, and impeccably discerning as the woman herself, The Fran Lebowitz Reader is a modern classic set to be read for generations to come -- Otegha Uwagba

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Book Synopsis''Turns female celebrity inside-out. One of the most enjoyable books of the year'' Nicole Flattery, author of Show Them A Good Time''Wildly entertaining'' Dazed''A brutal and brilliant study of female celebrity ... a joy to read, fizzing with intelligence'' Megan Nolan, Telegraph---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------How does an icon become an icon? How did Anna Nicole Smith model herself on Marilyn Monroe? What connects Lindsay Lohan with Elizabeth Taylor? How is self-made beauty Pamela Anderson like trans bond girl Caroline ''Tula'' Cossey?In a series of interconnected essays about pairs of famous women, award-nominated essayist and art critic Philippa Snow explores the echoes and connections between a constellation of female stars and lays bare the artful and gruelling demands of femininity - from the golden age of Hollywood to the Instagram era. Full of the fascinating, entertaining and lurid details you might expect from the lives of mega-famous celebrities, dissected with icicle-sharp intelligence and rendered in stylish, flamboyant prose, Philippa Snow''s first full-length non-fiction work is a radically insightful book about the complex meanings and layers of femininity in a male-dominated world.

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Book SynopsisFinders Keepers is a gathering of Seamus Heaney''s prose of three decades. Whether autobiographical, topical or specifically literary, these essays and lectures circle the central preoccupying questions: How should a poet properly live and write? What is his relationship to be to his own voice, his own place, his literary heritage and the contemporary world?As well as being a selection from the poet''s three previous collections of prose (Preoccupations, The Government of the Tongue and The Redress of Poetry), the present volume includes material from ''The Place of Writing'', a series of lectures delivered at Emory University in 1988. Also included are a rich variety of pieces not previously collected in volume form, ranging from short newspaper articles to more extended lectures and contributions to books. In its soundings of a wide range of poets - Irish and British, American and East European, predecessors and contemporaries - Finders KeepeTrade Review'His essays are essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the relation of poetic work to a poetic life.' Literary Review; 'Heaney has argued for - and demonstrated through his own work - the importance of the art of poetry.' Spectator

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisA selection of Gramsci's writings in one volume including his most important political, cultural and historical work. The collection focuses on key concepts - such as hegemony, passive revolution, civil society, common sense - and important texts on Americanism and Fordism, and popular culture.

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