Search results for ""Author John Minford""
Penguin Books Ltd Wailing Ghosts
'...revealing great shining fangs more than three inches long.'Some of the most macabre and wonderful of all Chinese stories, including 'The Golden Goblet', 'Scorched Moth the Daoist' and 'The Black Beast'Introducing 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.Pu Songling (1640-1715). Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio is available in Penguin Classics.
£5.28
Penguin Books Ltd The Art of War
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.Offering ancient wisdom on how to use skill, cunning, tactics and discipline to outwit your opponent, this bestselling 2000-year-old military manual is still worshipped by soldiers on the battlefield and managers in the boardroom as the ultimate guide to winning.
£8.42
Penguin Books Ltd I Ching
A landmark new translation of the ancient Chinese oracle and book of wisdom, in a stunning Penguin Classics Deluxe EditionThe I Ching, or Book of Change, has been consulted through the ages, in both China and the West, for answers to fundamental questions about the world and our place in it. The oldest extant book of divination, it dates back three thousand years to ancient shamanistic practices involving the ritual preparation of the shoulder bones of oxen. From this early form of communication with the other world, it has become the Chinese spiritual book par excellence. An influence on such cultural icons as Bob Dylan, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Philip K. Dick, and Philip Pullman, the I Ching is turned to by millions around the world for insights on spiritual growth, business, medicine, genetics, game theory, strategic thinking, and leadership, and of course for the window it opens on China.This new translation, over a decade in the making, is informed by the latest archaeological discoveries and features a gorgeously rendered codex of divination signs-the I Ching's sixty-four Tarot-like hexagrams. It captures the majesty and mystery of this legendary work and charts an illuminating path to self-knowledge.
£22.01
Penguin Books Ltd The Art of War
For more than 2,000 years, Sun Tzu's The Art of War has provided leaders with essential advice on battlefield tactics, managing troops and terrain, and employing cunning and deception. An elemental part of Chinese culture, it has also become a touchstone for the Western struggle for survival and success, whether in battle, in business or in relationships. Now, in this crisp, accessible new translation, John Minford brings this seminal work to life for today's readers. A lively, learned introduction, chronologies and suggested further reading are among the valuable apparatus included in this authoritative volume. Even those readers familiar with The Art of War will experience it anew, finding it more fascinating - and more chilling - than ever.Little is known about Sun Tzu (544-496 B.C.) and his life during the Warring States period after the decline of the Zhou dysnasty, but his classic, The Art of War, has been one of the central works of Chinese literature for 2500 years.John Minford studied Chinese at Oxford and at the Australian National University and has taught in China, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. He edited (with Geremie Barme) Seeds of Fire: Chinese Voices of Conscience and (with Joseph S. M. Lau) Chinese Classical Literature: An Anthology of Translations. He has translated numerous works from the Chinese, including the last two volumes of the Penguin Classics edition of Cao Xueqin's eighteenth-century novel The Story of the Stone and the martial-arts fiction of the contemporary Hong Kong novelist Louis Cha.
£14.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Art of War
Still a source of inspiration for soldiers on the battlefield and managers in the boardroom 2000 years after it was written, Sun-Tzu's The Art of War is the most influential book of strategy in the world, translated from the Chinese by John Minford in Penguin Classics.'Ultimate excellence lies not in winning every battle, but in defeating the enemy without ever fighting'For more than two thousand years, Sun-Tzu's The Art of War has provided leaders with profound insights into the use of skill, tactics, psychology and discipline to outwit opponents. Said to have inspired Napoleon, and used by Mao Zedong and General Douglas MacArthur, as well as many famous business gurus, politicians and sports stars, its ancient words of wisdom provide a touchstone for today's managers and executives fighting their boardroom battles. This best-selling book offers ancient wisdom on how to use skill, cunning, tactics and discipline to outwit your opponent.Little is known for definite about Sun Tzu (544-496 B.C.) and his life during the Warring States period after the decline of the Zhou dynasty, but his classic The Art of War has been one of the central works of Chinese literature for 2500 years.If you enjoyed The Art of War, you might like Machiavelli's The Prince, also available in Penguin Classics.'Absorb this book, and you can throw out all those contemporary books about management leadership'Newsweek'Reflecting on Sun-Tzu's work is to the business manager what weight lifting is to the champion athlete - an exercise that makes one stronger'John Kohut, Beijing Bureau Chief, South China Post
£7.78
Penguin Books Ltd The Art of War
For more than two thousand years, Sun-tzu's The Art of War has provided leaders with essential advice on battlefield tactics, managing troops and terrain, and employing cunning and deception. An elemental part of Chinese culture, it has also become a touchstone for the Western struggle for survival and success, whether in battle, in business or in relationships. Now, in this crisp, accessible new translation, John Minford brings this seminal work to life for today's readers. Capturing the literary quality of The Art of War - its lucid, epigrammatic, almost poetic style - as well as its philosophical and strategic content, Minford present the core text in two different formats. First, the unadorned thirteen chapters allow readers to form their own first impressions of the ancient words of wisdom ascribed to Sun-tzu. Then the same text appears with extensive running commentary from the canon of traditional Chinese commentators and others, providing context and subtext to the work. A lively, learned introduction, chronologies, suggested readings, and other valuable apparatus round this authoritative volume. Even those readers familiar with The Art of War will experience it anew, finding it more fascinating - and more chilling - than ever.
£12.99
Penguin Books Ltd Tao Te Ching
The acclaimed translation of Taoism's founding text in a beautiful Penguin Classics Deluxe editionThe most translated book in the world after the Bible, the Tao Te Ching, or 'Book of the Way', is the essential text of Taoism, one of the three great religions of China. Through aphorisms and parable, it guides its readers toward the Tao, or the 'Way': living in harmony with the life force of the universe. Traditionally attributed to Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher who was a contemporary of Confucius, it offers a practical model for living based on modesty, self-restraint and balance and is an insightful guide for anyone seeking to open their minds, free their thoughts, and attain greater self-awareness.John Minford's celebrated translation emphasises the calm, meditative quality of the Tao Te Ching, as well as its use as a guide to everyday living. This edition is accompanied by illuminating commentary and interpretation, as well as beautifully illustrated Chinese characters.
£14.99
Penguin Books Ltd Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio
The Strange Tales of Pu Songling (1640-1715) are exquisite and amusing miniatures that are regarded as the pinnacle of classical Chinese fiction. With their elegant prose, witty wordplay and subtle charm, the 104 stories in this selection reveal a world in which nothing is as it seems. Here a Taoist monk conjures up a magical pear tree, a scholar recounts his previous incarnations, a woman out-foxes the fox-spirit that possesses her, a child bride gives birth to a thimble-sized baby, a ghostly city appears out of nowhere and a heartless daughter-in-law is turned into a pig. In his tales of humans coupling with shape-shifting spirits, bizarre phenomena, haunted buildings and enchanted objects, Pu Songling pushes back the boundaries of human experience and enlightens as he entertains.
£12.99
Oxford University Press The Deer and the Cauldron: 3-volume set
Written in 1967-72,The Deer and the Cauldron was Louis Cha's last, and by many considered his best, Martial Arts novel. It is a sprawling work covering twenty odd years of the early reign of the Emperor Kangxi. In historical terms, the novel begins sometime after the death of Koxinga in 1662 and the Ming History purge of 1682/3, and before the death of Oboi in 1669. It covers the period of the rebellion of the "Three Feudatories" , and the surrender of Formosa to the Manchus in 1683, before ending shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Nertchinsk in 1689. The plot moves from the pleasure-houses of Yangzhou to Peking and the Imperial Court and the sacred mountain of Wu-tai-shan to a desolate island off the north-east coast of China, base for the fanatical drug-taking Sect of the Mystic Dragon, through the frozen north-east to Fort Albazin to Moscow and the boudoir of Princess Sophia; before finally returning to the birthplace of the protagonist, Yangzhou. The Deer and the Cauldron introduces a vast array of underworld characters, all of them members of the so-called Brotherhood of River and Lake -- material arts practitioners of every school and shape and size, outlaw secret society members (especially the Triads), singsong girls, innkeepers, gamblers, beggars, salt-smugglers, itinerant (and often fighting) monks and Taoists, herbalists, butchers, and boatmen. We also encounter dissident literati (Gu Yanwu, Huang Zongxi, Lu Liuliang), corrupt magistrates, ruthless petty Yamen officers, members of the fallen Imperial family of the Ming dynasty, the Paladins of Prince Mu, the descendants of Koxinga, eunuchs (including one aged and wheezing eunuch who practices a particularly lethal form of kungfu), Tibetans, Mongols, Cossacks, the Emperor Kangxi himself, the Dowagers Empress and a host of pretty girls of various origins. The novel's protagonist, a young rogue called Trinket, was born in a Yangzhou whorehouse. His nom de guerre is Little White Dragon but he has many guises and is also known as Grand Master of the Greenwood Lodge of the Triad Society, the eunuch Brightie, the Bannerman Captain Huachahuacha, the Zen Brother Claritas, Duke of Albazin, Grand Patriarch of the Sect of the Mystic Dragon, among others. Trinket is one of the truly unforgettable characters in Chinese fiction; he is the prankster, the larrikin, the trickster who breaks every known convention (of both worlds he inhabits, the high and low), the singsong girls's son whose ultimate dream is to run his own bordello, the perfect anti-hero, the subversive antithesis of the true xia, the apotheosis of the liumang. And yet he has a highly developed sense of friendship, loyalty and honour. His ambivalent, and touching, relationship with the emperor Kangxi is one of the recurring themes of The Deer and the Cauldron.
£59.96