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books tagged “death”
books tagged “death”
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AMOK Journal : Senssurround Edition, a Compendium of Physio-Psychological Investigationsby Stuart SwezeyISBN 187892303X (1-878923-03-X)
Hardcover, Amok Books
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Animal Farmby Ian Woodldridge, George OrwellISBN 1854597892 (1-85459-789-2)
Softcover, Hern Books, Limited, Nick
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Animal Farm'Book summary:Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson [via]
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Antony and Cleopatraby William ShakespeareISBN 1853260754 (1-85326-075-4)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
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The Art of Suicideby Ron BrownISBN 1861891059 (1-86189-105-9)
Hardcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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The Aspern Papers and the Turn of the Screwby Henry JamesISBN 185326069X (1-85326-069-X)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Aspern Papers and the Turn of the Screw'Book summary:Introduction and Notes by Dr Claire Seymour, University of Kent at Canterbury The Turn of the Screw is the classic ghost story for which James is most remembered. Set in a country house, it is a chilling tale of the supernatural. The Aspern Papers is a tale of Americans in Europe, cleverly evoking the drama of comedie humaine against the settings of a Venetian palace. [via]
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Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplayby Annie ProulxISBN 1857029402 (1-85702-940-2)
Softcover, Fourth Estate
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Brothers Grimmby Wilhelm Grimm, GrimmISBN 1853268984 (1-85326-898-4)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Brothers Grimm'Book summary:Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and his brother Wilhelm (1786-1859) were philologists and folklorists. The brothers rediscovered a host of fairy tales, telling of princes and princesses in their castles, witches in their towers and forests, of giants and dwarfs, of fabulous animals and dark deeds. Together with the well-known tales of 'Rapunzel', 'The Goose Girl', Sleeping Beauty', 'Hansel and Gretel' and 'Snow White', there are the darker tales such as 'Death's Messengers' which deserve to be better known, and which will appeal not only to all who are interested in the history of folklore, but also to all those who simply love good story-telling. [via]
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Counselling in Terminal Care and Bereavementby Colin M. Parkes, Marilyn Relf, Ann CouldrickISBN 1854331787 (1-85433-178-7)
Softcover, Stylus Publishing, LLC
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A Coven of Vampiresby Brian LumleyISBN 1878252372 (1-878252-37-2)
Hardcover, Fedogan & Bremer
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Dead Soulsby Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky, Nikolai Vasilevich GogolISBN 1857152808 (1-85715-280-8)
Hardcover, Everyman's Library
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Death, Memory and Material Cultureby Elizabeth Hallam, Danny Miller, Jennifer Lorna HockeyISBN 1859733794 (1-85973-379-4)
Softcover, Berg Pub Ltd
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Dictionary of Phrase and Fableby E. C. BrewerISBN 1853263001 (1-85326-300-1)
Softcover, Wordsworth Edition
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dictionary of Phrase and Fable'Book summary:Explains the origins of the familiar and unfamiliar in phrase and fable. [via]
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Don't Look Backby Karin FossumISBN 1860469779 (1-86046-977-9)
Hardcover, Harvill Press
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydeby Robert Louis StevensonISBN 1853260614 (1-85326-061-4)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'Book summary:The young Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from repeated nightmares of living a double life, in which by day he worked as a respectable doctor and by night he roamed the back alleys of old-town Edinburgh. In three days of furious writing, he produced a story about his dream existence. His wife found it too gruesome, so he promptly burned the manuscript. In another three days, he wrote it again. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published as a "shilling shocker" in 1886, and became an instant classic. In the first six months, 40,000 copies were sold. Queen Victoria read it. Sermons and editorials were written about it. When Stevenson and his family visited America a year later, they were mobbed by reporters at the dock in New York City. Compulsively readable from its opening pages, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is still one of the best tales ever written about the divided self.
This University of Nebraska Press edition is a small, exquisitely produced paperback. The book design, based on the original first edition of 1886, includes wide margins, decorative capitals on the title page and first page of each chapter, and a clean, readable font that is 19th-century in style. Joyce Carol Oates contributes a foreword in which she calls Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a "mythopoetic figure" like Frankenstein, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland, and compares Stevenson's creation to doubled selves in the works of Plato, Poe, Wilde, and Dickens.
This edition also features 12 full-page wood engravings by renowned illustrator Barry Moser. Moser is a skillful reader and interpreter as well as artist, and his afterword to the book, in which he explains the process by which he chose a self-portrait motif for the suite of engravings, is fascinating. For the image of Edward Hyde, he writes, "I went so far as to have my dentist fit me out with a carefully sculpted prosthetic of evil-looking teeth. But in the final moments I had to abandon the idea as being inappropriate. It was more important to stay in keeping with the text and, like Stevenson, not show Hyde's face." (Also recommended: the edition of Frankenstein illustrated by Barry Moser) --Fiona Webster [via]
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Ethan Fromeby Edith WhartonISBN 1853812285 (1-85381-228-5)
Softcover, Little, Brown Book Group Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ethan Frome'Book summary:On a poor farm near Starkfield in western Massachusetts, Ethan Frome struggles to wrest a living from the land, unassisted by his whining and hypochondriacal wife Zeena. When Zeena's young cousin Mattie Silver is left destitute, the only place she can go is to Ethan's farm. [via]
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Faustby Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, John CliffordISBN 1854599224 (1-85459-922-4)
Softcover, Theatre Communications Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Faust'Book summary:Goethe's masterpiece and perhaps the greatest work in German literature, "Faust" has made the legendary German alchemist one of the central myths of the Western world. Here indeed is a monumental Faust, an audacious man boldly wagering with the devil, Mephistopheles, that no magic, sensuality, experience or knowledge can lead him to a moment he would wish to last forever. Here, in "Faust," "Part 1," the tremendous versatility of Goethe's genius creates some of the most beautiful passages in literature. Here too we experience Goethe's characteristic humor, the excitement and eroticism of the witches' Walpurgis Night, and the moving emotion of Gretchen's tragic fate.
This newly revised edition, which offers Peter Salm's wonderfully readable translation as well as the original German on facing pages, brings us "Faust" in a vital, rhythmic American idiom that carefully preserves the grandeur, integrity, and poetic immediacy of Goethe's words. [via]
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Faust I and IIby Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Robert D. MacDonaldISBN 1870259114 (1-870259-11-4)
Softcover, Oberon Books, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Faust I and II'Book summary:Perhaps some apology ought to be given to English scholars, that is, those who do not know German, (to those, at least, who do not know what sort of a thing Faust is in the original,) for offering another translation to the public, of a poem which has been already translated, not only in a literal prose form, but also, twenty or thirty times, in metre, and sometimes with great spirit, beauty, and power.
The author of the present version, then, has no knowledge that a rendering of this wonderful poem into the exact and ever-changing metre of the original has, until now, been so much as attempted. To name only one defect, the very best versions which he has seen neglect to follow the exquisite artist in the evidently planned and orderly intermixing of male and female rhymes, i.e. rhymes which fall on the last syllable and those which fall on the last but one. Now, every careful student of the versification of Faust must feel and see that Goethe did not intersperse the one kind of rhyme with the other, at random, as those translators do; who, also, give the female rhyme (on which the vivacity of dialogue and description often so much depends,) in so small a proportion.
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The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religionby James George FrazerISBN 1853263109 (1-85326-310-9)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion'Book summary:Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941) is rightly regarded as one of the founders of modern anthropology. The Golden Bough, his masterpiece, appeared in twelve volumes between 1890 and 1915. This volume is the author's own abridgement of his great work, and was first published in 1922. Remarkable for its vast assembly of facts and its charm of presentation, it offers the thesis that man progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought. It discusses fertility rites, human sacrifice, the dying god, the scapegoat and many other symbols and practices which have influenced a whole generation of 20th century writers, including D.H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. [via]
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The Good Death Guide: Everything You Wanted to Know but Were Afraid to Askby Michael DunnISBN 1857035593 (1-85703-559-3)
Softcover, Parkwest Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Good Death Guide: Everything You Wanted to Know but Were Afraid to Ask'Book summary:Death is a practical fact of all our lives and this handbook aims to equip anyone to be less fearful, more dispassionate and better prepared for death and bereavement. This family reference aims to remove much of the mystique surrounding the subject of death and bereavement. It offers information about the facts, processes and the emotional implication of death and includes practical help on making a will, living wills, organ and body donation and funeral planning. It explores the consequences for others of different sorts of death such as the death of a parent or a child, miscarriage, suicide, HIV/Aids and discusses death in a variety of cultures and traditions. It also includes lists of addresses and direction for further information. [via]
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The Good Grief Guide: How to Come Through Bereavement With Hope for the Future and at Peace With the Pastby Michael DunnISBN 1857036417 (1-85703-641-7)
Softcover, Parkwest Pubns
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Grave Mattersby Mark C. Taylor, Dietrich Christian LammertsISBN 1861891172 (1-86189-117-2)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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Great Expectationsby Charles DickensISBN 1853260045 (1-85326-004-5)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Great Expectations'Book summary:Considered by many to be Dickens' finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book's narrator, Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character. From its famous dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with some of Dickens' most memorable characters. Among them are the kindly blacksmith Joe Gargery, the mysterious convict Abel Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Haversham and her beautiful ward Estella, Pip's good-hearted room-mate Herbert Pocket and the pompous Pumblechook. As Pip unravels the truth behind his own 'great expectations' in his quest to become a gentleman, the mysteries of the past and the convolutions of fate through a series of thrilling adventures serve to steer him towards maturity and his most important discovery of all - the truth about himself. [via]
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Grendelby Matt Wagner, Patrick McEownISBN 1878574892 (1-878574-89-2)
Softcover, Dark Horse Comics
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Grimm's Fairy Talesby Jacob W. Grimm, Wilhelm K. GrimmISBN 1853261017 (1-85326-101-7)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Grimm's Fairy Tales'Book summary:The Brothers Grimm rediscovered a host of fairy tales, telling of princes and princesses in their castles, witches in their towers and forests, of giants and dwarfs, of fabulous animals and dark deeds. This selection of their folk tales was made and translated by Lucy Crane, and includes firm favourites such as Rapunzel, The Goose Girl, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel and Snow White. It is illustrated throughout by Walter Crane's charming line drawings. [via]
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A Guide to Practical Pastoringby Barney CoombsISBN 1852402407 (1-85240-240-7)
Hardcover, Send the Light Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Guide to Practical Pastoring'Book summary:A 'hands-on' reference for those who are involved in the work of leading or pastoring a congregation. It takes an honest look at the problems that may occur and gives biblical guidelines for dealing with them, as well as the benefit of many years experience. [via]
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Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956ISBN 186046632X (1-86046-632-X)
Softcover, Harvill Pr
Find This BookBook summary:[This is the MP3CD audiobook format of VOLUME 2 in vinyl case.]
**Time Magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of the 20th Century**
In this masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn has orchestrated thousands of incidents and individual histories into one narrative of unflagging power and momentum. Written in a tone that encompasses Olympian wrath, bitter calm, savage irony, and sheer comedy, it combines history, autobiography, documentary, and political analysis as it examines in its totality the Soviet apparatus of repression from its inception following the October Revolution of 1917.
This second volume in Solzhenitsyn's narrative chronicles the appalling inhumanity of the Soviets' ''destructive-labor camps'' and the fate of prisoners in them--felling timber, building canals and railroads, and mining gold without equipment or adequate food and clothing, and subject always to the caprices of the camp authorities. Most tragic of all is the life of the women prisoners and the luckless children they bear.
Once again, this chronicle of appalling inhumanity is made endurable by the vitality and emotional range of the writing. In one truly remarkable chapter, a parody of an anthropological treatise, Solzhenitsyn achieves new heights of sardonic wit. In the final section the music changes, and he provides a magnificent coda on the possibilities of redemption and purification through suffering. [via]More editions of Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956:
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Hedda Gablerby Henrik Ibsen, Kenneth McLeishISBN 1854591843 (1-85459-184-3)
Softcover, Theatre Communications Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hedda Gabler'Book summary:A brand new translation of Ibsen's classic work[via]More editions of Hedda Gabler:
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Homer: Iliad I-XIIby Malcom M. WillcockISBN 185399507X (1-85399-507-X)
Softcover, Intl Pub Marketing Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Homer: Iliad I-XII'Book summary:The 'red Macmillan' Iliad in the edition of W. Leaf, which had served since the 1880s, was replaced by this classic two-volume edition of M.M. Willcock. Coverage of twelve books of the Iliad in each volume demands a concise introduction and commentary. The editor also includes, for example, mention of significant aspects of Homeric diction more fully in the early lines of each book, so that the student may begin on any particular line. Although the book is designed for students at sixth form and undergraduates, the tight compass of these books does not prevent the editor engaging in - or referring to - problems of composition or text addressed by more advanced scholars.[via]More editions of Homer: Iliad I-XII:
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The House of Mirthby Edith WhartonISBN 1853265772 (1-85326-577-2)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The House of Mirth'Book summary:"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth," warns Ecclesiastes 7:4, and so does the novel by Edith Wharton that takes its title from this call to heed. New York at the turn of the century was a time of opulence and frivolity for those who could afford it. But for those who couldn't and yet wanted desperately to keep up with the whirlwind, like Wharton's charming Lily Bart, it was something else altogether: a gilded cage rather than the Gilded Age.
One of Wharton's earliest descriptions of her heroine, in the library of her bachelor friend and sometime suitor Lawrence Selden, indicates that she appears "as though she were a captured dryad subdued to the conventions of the drawing room." Indeed, herein lies Lily's problem. She has, we're told, "been brought up to be ornamental," and yet her spirit is larger than what this ancillary role requires. By today's standards she would be nothing more than a mild rebel, but in the era into which Wharton drops her unmercifully, this tiny spark of character, combined with numerous assaults by vicious society women and bad luck, ultimately renders Lily persona non grata. Her own ambivalence about her position serves to open the door to disaster: several times she is on the verge of "good" marriage and squanders it at the last moment, unwilling to play by the rules of a society that produces, as she calls them, "poor, miserable, marriageable girls.
Lily's rather violent tumble down the social ladder provides a thumbnail sketch of the general injustices of the upper classes (which, incidentally, Wharton never quite manages to condemn entirely, clearly believing that such life is cruel but without alternative). From her start as a beautiful woman at the height of her powers to her sad finale as a recently fired milliner's assistant addicted to sleeping drugs, Lily Bart is heroic, not least for her final admission of her own role in her downfall. "Once--twice--you gave me the chance to escape from my life and I refused it: refused it because I was a coward," she tells Selden as the book draws to a close. All manner of hideous socialite beasts--some of whose treatment by Wharton, such as the token social-climbing Jew, Simon Rosedale, date the book unfortunately--wander through the novel while Lily plummets. As her tale winds down to nothing more than the remnants of social grace and cold hard cash, it's hard not to agree with Lily's own assessment of herself: "I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else." Nevertheless, it's even harder not to believe that she deserved better, which is why The House of Mirth remains so timely and so vital in spite of its crushing end and its unflattering portrait of what life offers up. --Melanie Rehak [via]
I Could Read the Skyby Timothy O'Grady, Steve PykeISBN 1860465080 (1-86046-508-0)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square
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The Infernoby Dante Alighieri, Henry Francis Cary, Claire HonessISBN 1853267872 (1-85326-787-2)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Inferno'Book summary:Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is one of the most important and innovative figures of the European Middle Ages. Writing his Comedy (the epithet 'Divine' was added by later admirers) in exile from his native Florence, he aimed to address a world gone astray both morally and politically. At the same time, he sought to push back the restrictive rules which traditionally governed writing in the Italian vernacular, to produce a radically new and all-encompassing work. The Comedy tells the story of the journey of a character who is at one and the same time both Dante himself and Everyman. In The Inferno, Dante's protagonist - and his reader - is presented with a graphic vision of the dreadful consequences of sin, and encounters an all-too-human array of noble, grotesque, beguiling, ridiculous and horrific characters. [via]
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Jorge Luis Borges: El Aleph/ Ficciones/ Antologia Poetica / El Aleph/ Fictions/ Poetic Anthologyby Jorge Luis BorgesISBN 1853995908 (1-85399-590-8)
Softcover, Duckbacks
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Last Landscapes: The Architecture of the Cemetery in the Westby Ken Worpole, Larraine WorpoleISBN 186189161X (1-86189-161-X)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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Le Morte D'Arthurby Thomas MaloryISBN 1853264636 (1-85326-463-6)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Le Morte D'Arthur'Book summary:The legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table is one of the most enduring and influential stories in world literature. Its themes - love, war, religion, treachery and family loyalty - are timeless, as are the reputations of its major characters, Arthur, Merlin, Guenever and Launcelot. Malory's Le Morte Darthur is a story of noble knights, colourful tournaments and fateful love, set in a courtly society which is outwardly secure and successful, but in reality torn by dissent and, ultimately, treachery. Originally published in 1485, Malory's Le Morte Darthur is here presented in modern spelling and is accompanied by an Introduction and helpful Glossary [via]
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Lenin's Embalmersby Ilya Zbarsky, Samuel Hutchinson, Barbara BrayISBN 1860466559 (1-86046-655-9)
Softcover, Random House
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Life and Death in Spitalfields, 1700-1850by Margaret Cox, Council for British ArchaeologyISBN 1872414621 (1-872414-62-1)
Hardcover, Council for British Archaeology
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The Little Princeby Irene Testot-Ferry, A. ExuperyISBN 1853261580 (1-85326-158-0)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Little Prince'Book summary:Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his Lockheed P-38 vanished over the Mediterranean during a reconnaissance mission. More than a half century later, this fable of love and loneliness has lost none of its power. The narrator is a downed pilot in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the apparition of a little, well, prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. "In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don't dare disobey," the narrator recalls. "Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket." And so begins their dialogue, which stretches the narrator's imagination in all sorts of surprising, childlike directions.
The Little Prince describes his journey from planet to planet, each tiny world populated by a single adult. It's a wonderfully inventive sequence, which evokes not only the great fairy tales but also such monuments of postmodern whimsy as Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. And despite his tone of gentle bemusement, Saint-Exupéry pulls off some fine satiric touches, too. There's the king, for example, who commands the Little Prince to function as a one-man (or one-boy) judiciary:
I have good reason to believe that there is an old rat living somewhere on my planet. I hear him at night. You could judge that old rat. From time to time you will condemn him to death. That way his life will depend on your justice. But you'll pardon him each time for economy's sake. There's only one rat.
The author pokes similar fun at a businessman, a geographer, and a lamplighter, all of whom signify some futile aspect of adult existence. Yet his tale is ultimately a tender one--a heartfelt exposition of sadness and solitude, which never turns into Peter Pan-style treacle. Such delicacy of tone can present real headaches for a translator, and in her 1943 translation, Katherine Woods sometimes wandered off the mark, giving the text a slightly wooden or didactic accent. Happily, Richard Howard (who did a fine nip-and-tuck job on Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma in 1999) has streamlined and simplified to wonderful effect. The result is a new and improved version of an indestructible classic, which also restores the original artwork to full color. "Trying to be witty," we're told at one point, "leads to lying, more or less." But Saint-Exupéry's drawings offer a handy rebuttal: they're fresh, funny, and like the book itself, rigorously truthful. --James Marcus [via]More editions of The Little Prince:
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Macbethby William ShakespeareISBN 1853260355 (1-85326-035-5)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Macbeth'Book summary:One of Shakespeare's greatest, but also bloodiest tragedies, was written around 1605/06. Many have seen the story of Macbeth's murder and usurpation of the legitimate Scottish King Duncan as having obvious connection to contemporary issues regarding King James I (James VI of Scotland), and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. King James was particularly fascinated with witchcraft, so the appearance of the witches chanting "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" at the opening of the play seemed particularly topical, as was Macbeth's betrayal of Banquo, from whom James claimed direct descent.
However, the play is clearly far more than a piece of royal entertainment. It is also a fast-moving and dramatically satisfying piece of theatre. Macbeth's existential struggle between loyalty to his King and his "Vaulting ambition" is fascinating to watch, as his is struggle with Lady Macbeth, and her own terrifying refusal of her maternal role. The play shows an intensification of Shakespeare's interest in mothers and their effect upon ruling masculinity, and also contains some of the most memorable speeches in the entire canon, including Macbeth's reflections that ultimately life "is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing". --Jerry Brotton [via]
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Magic Mountainby Thomas Mann, John E. WoodsISBN 1857152891 (1-85715-289-1)
Hardcover, A.A. Knopf
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Magic Mountain'Book summary:With this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Thomas Mann rose to the front ranks of the great modern novelists, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. The Magic Mountain takes place in an exclusive tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps-a community devoted to sickness that serves as a fictional microcosm for Europe in the days before the First World War. To this hermetic and otherworldly realm comes Hans Castorp, an "ordinary young man" who arrives for a short visit and ends up staying for seven years, during which he succumbs both to the lure of eros and to the intoxication of ideas. [via]
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Medeaby Euripides, Kenneth McLeish, Frederic RaphaelISBN 1854591649 (1-85459-164-9)
Softcover, Nick Hern Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Medea'Book summary:A play of psychologically and physically murderous vengeance, Medea is one of the most powerful and perennially produced of all ancient drama. [via]
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Meditationsby Marcus AureliusISBN 1853264865 (1-85326-486-5)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Meditations'Book summary:The "Meditations" of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius are a readable exposition of the system of metaphysics known as stoicism. Stoics maintained that by putting aside great passions, unjust thoughts and indulgence, man could acquire virtue and live at one with nature. [via]
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Melancholy Madness: A Coroner's Casebookby Michelle McGoff-McCannISBN 1856354245 (1-85635-424-5)
Hardcover, Mercier
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Melancholy Madness: A Coroner's Casebook'Book summary:Bizarre tales of murder and investigation in the drumlins, valleys and towns of Monaghan in the nineteenth century, based upon a casebook just recently discovered that has never been lodged in any archive anywhere. This is NEW information and highlights such cases as: The Illigitimate Half-Sisters Of Oscar Wilde - Emily and Mary Wilde died tragically at Drumaconner House while dancing by the fire - their deaths are kept quiet so as not to shame Sir William Wilde. The Legend Of The Sleepwalking Nun - Sister Mary Keogh is discovered drowned in the Convent lake near the Crannog - to this day, local legend tells the story of her death. [via]
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The Mill on the Flossby George EliotISBN 1853260746 (1-85326-074-6)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mill on the Floss'Book summary:Literary Studies, Classic Literature [via]
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Mrs Dallowayby Virginia WoolfISBN 1853261912 (1-85326-191-2)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mrs Dalloway'Book summary:As Clarissa Dalloway walks through London on a fine June morning, a sky-writing plane captures her attention. Crowds stare upwards to decipher the message while the plane turns and loops, leaving off one letter, picking up another. Like the airplane's swooping path, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway follows Clarissa and those whose lives brush hers--from Peter Walsh, whom she spurned years ago, to her daughter Elizabeth, the girl's angry teacher, Doris Kilman, and war-shocked Septimus Warren Smith, who is sinking into madness.
As Mrs. Dalloway prepares for the party she is giving that evening, a series of events intrudes on her composure. Her husband is invited, without her, to lunch with Lady Bruton (who, Clarissa notes anxiously, gives the most amusing luncheons). Meanwhile, Peter Walsh appears, recently from India, to criticize and confide in her. His sudden arrival evokes memories of a distant past, the choices she made then, and her wistful friendship with Sally Seton.
Woolf then explores the relationships between women and men, and between women, as Clarissa muses, "It was something central which permeated; something warm which broke up surfaces and rippled the cold contact of man and woman, or of women together.... Her relation in the old days with Sally Seton. Had not that, after all, been love?" While Clarissa is transported to past afternoons with Sally, and as she sits mending her green dress, Warren Smith catapults desperately into his delusions. Although his troubles form a tangent to Clarissa's web, they undeniably touch it, and the strands connecting all these characters draw tighter as evening deepens. As she immerses us in each inner life, Virginia Woolf offers exquisite, painful images of the past bleeding into the present, of desire overwhelmed by society's demands. --Joannie Kervran Stangeland [via]
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The Naked Madonnaby Jan Wiese, Tom GeddesISBN 1860461492 (1-86046-149-2)
Softcover, Harvill Pr
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The Naked Madonnaby Tom Geddes, Jan WieseISBN 1860460259 (1-86046-025-9)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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Necrologueby Helen SandlerISBN 1873741871 (1-873741-87-1)
Softcover, Millivres Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Necrologue'Book summary:The first themed collection from Diva Books ranges from death on the bus to sex in the graveyard, via self-cannibalism and mind-reading, ghosties and Ouija, vampires and ashes.
Appealing to a literary readership as well as horror fans, Necrologue builds on the success of the first two Diva collections by interpreting the themes of mortality, the occult and the unknowable in broad and surprising ways.
Praise for Groundswell: The Diva Book of Short Stories 2:
"Helen Sandler has outdone herself with a wonderful mix of short stories by British, American, and Canadian lesbian authors."-Gay City News
"Plenty of good stuff."-Guardian
"An impressive cast list."-Time Out
"Proof that new lesbian fiction is alive and kicking . . . A real accomplishment."-Rainbow Network
Helen Sandler won a Lambda Literary Award for The Diva Book of Short Stories, and also edited the second book in this series, Groundswell. She is the author of The Touch Typist (Diva, 2001) and Big Deal (Sapphire/Virgin, 1999).
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Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Russiaby Catherine MerridaleISBN 1862073740 (1-86207-374-0)
Hardcover, Granta Books
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Night's Liesby Gesualdo BufalinoISBN 1860461107 (1-86046-110-7)
Softcover, Harvill Pr
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Notes from Undergroundby Richard Pevear, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Larissa VolokhonskyISBN 1857152719 (1-85715-271-9)
Hardcover, Everyman's Library Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Notes from Underground'Book summary:Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation is the only translation that counts. They are the only translators who succeed in making Dostoevsky accessible to a 21st century audience, thanks to their ruthless attention to detail at the expense of alterations which can dilute Dostoevsky's unique and flowing style of writing. The great appeal this book retains even today is in part due to Pevear and Volokhonsky, as well as to Dostoevsky himself. Furthermore, Richard Pevear's substantial introduction is essential reading. It explains the purpose of the book and the historical significance of its ideas. Dostoevsky was writing at a time when Russia had reason to be optimistic, but the warning signs in his fiction perhaps leave us clues as to why Russia still has social problems today - and why, less than 40 years after Dostoevsky's death, Russia embraced Communism and destroyed the society in which Dostoevsky had lived [via]
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The Odysseyby Homer, T. E. LawrenceISBN 1853260258 (1-85326-025-8)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Odyssey'Book summary:With an Introduction and Notes by Adam Roberts Royal Holloway, University of London Homer's great epic describes the many adventures of Odysseus, Greek warrior, as he strives over many years to return to his home island of Ithaca after the Trojan War. His colourful adventures, his endurance, his love for his wife and son have the same power to move and inspire readers today as they did in Archaic Greece, 2800 years ago. This poem has been translated many times over the years, but Chapman's sinewy, gorgeous rendering (1616) stands in a class of its own. Chapman believed himself inspired by the spirit of Homer himself, and matches the breadth and power of the original with a complex and stunning idiom of his own. John Keats expressed his admiration for the resulting work in the famous sonnet, 'On first looking into Chapman's Homer': 'Much have I travelled in the realms of gold...' [via]
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An Olympic Deathby Ed Emery, Manuel Vazquez MontalbanISBN 1852427590 (1-85242-759-0)
Softcover, Serpents Tail
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An Olympic Deathby Manuel Vazquez MontalbanISBN 1852422572 (1-85242-257-2)
Softcover, Serpents Tail
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An Olympic Death'Book summary:As Barcelona prepares for the Olympics, the city is turned over to make way for new roads, new stadiums and urban renovation.
Pepe Carvalho who loves Barcelona with a lover's passion is forced to work for Olympic entrepreneurs whose only game plan is to make a fast buck. As Carvalho tries to come to terms with the new values of the present, he has to confront the disillusion of middle age. [via]
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Only Humanby Tom HoltISBN 1857239490 (1-85723-949-0)
Softcover, Little Brown Uk
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Paint Your Dragonby Tom HoltISBN 1857234561 (1-85723-456-1)
Softcover, Orbit
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Pair of Blue Eyesby Thomas HardyISBN 1853262773 (1-85326-277-3)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pair of Blue Eyes'Book summary:With a new Introduction by Cedric Watts, Research Professor of English, University of Sussex. A Pair of Blue Eyes, though early in the sequence of Hardy s novels, is lively and gripping. Its dramatic cliff-hanging episode, for example, is at once tense, ironic, feministic and erotic. With settings in Wessex and London, the novel also has some strongly autobiographical features, as the blue-eyed heroine, Elfride Swancourt, is based largely on Emma Gifford, who became Thomas Hardy s first wife. Elfride s vivacious nature attracts several lovers, but she is beset by sexual prejudice, and the ensuing ironies reveal the constraints of her times. A Pair of Blue Eyes provides an engaging and moving experience for today s readers. [via]
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Pedro Paramoby Juan Rulfo, Margaret Sayers PendenISBN 1852427264 (1-85242-726-4)
Softcover, Serpents Tail
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Phantom Of The Operaby Gaston LerouxISBN 1853262730 (1-85326-273-0)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Phantom Of The Opera'Book summary:One of the greatest horror stories of all time, "The Phantom of the Opera" makes compulsive reading. It abounds with wonderful descriptions, extraordinary events, tragedy, horror, pathos, humour and a gallery of charming minor characters. Leroux's portrait of the hideous musician, crazed by his own extreme ugliness, shows compassionate insight into the criminally insane mind. [via]
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The Poems of Wilfred Owenby W. Owen, Douglas KerrISBN 1853264237 (1-85326-423-7)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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The Prophetby Kahlil GibranISBN 1853264857 (1-85326-485-7)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
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The Republicby PlatoISBN 1853264830 (1-85326-483-0)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Republic'Book summary:The ideas of Plato (c429-347BC) have influenced Western philosophers for over two thousand years. Such is his importance that the twentieth-century philosopher A.N. Whitehead described all subsequent developments within the subject as foot-notes to Plato's work. Beyond philosophy, he has exerted a major influence on the development of Western literature, politics and theology. The Republic deals with the great range of Plato's thought, but is particularly concerned with what makes a well-balanced society and individual. It combines argument and myth to advocate a life organized by reason rather than dominated by desires and appetites. Regarded by some as the foundation document of totalitarianism, by others as a call to develop the full potential of humanity, the Republic remains a challenging and intensely exciting work. [via]
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Revenger's Tragedyby TourneurISBN 1854593307 (1-85459-330-7)
Softcover, Theatre Communications Group
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Rings of Saturnby W. G. SebaldISBN 1860463991 (1-86046-399-1)
Softcover, Harvill Pr
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Selected Poems by Gwen Hardwoodby Gwen HarwoodISBN 187589229X (1-875892-29-X)
Softcover, Univ of Washington Pr
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Shadow of the Minotaurby Alan GibbonsISBN 1858817218 (1-85881-721-8)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square Books
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Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Stories With Illustrations from the Strand Magazineby Arthur Conan DoyleISBN 1853268968 (1-85326-896-8)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Stories With Illustrations from the Strand Magazine'Book summary:It is more than a century since the ascetic, gaunt and enigmatic detective, Sherlock Holmes, made his first appearance in A Study in Scarlet. From 1891, beginning with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the now legendary and pioneering Strand Magazine began serialising Arthur Conan Doyle's matchless tales of detection, featuring the incomparable sleuth patiently assisted by his doggedly loyal and lovably pedantic friend and companion, Dr Watson. The stories are illustrated by the remarkable Sydney Paget from whom our images of Sherlock Holmes and his world derive and who first equipped Holmes with his famous deerstalker hat. The literary cult of Sherlock Holmes shows no sign of fading with time as each new generation comes to love and revere the penetrating mind and ruthless logic which were the undoing of so many Victorian master criminals. [via]
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Snow White and the Seven Samuraiby Tom HoltISBN 1857239881 (1-85723-988-1)
Softcover, Little Brown Uk
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So That Your Values Live on: Ethical Wills and How to Prepare Themby Jack Riemer, Nathaniel StampferISBN 1879045346 (1-879045-34-6)
Softcover, Jewish Lights Pub
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Tales from the Arabian Nightsby C. Lang, Andrew LangISBN 1853261149 (1-85326-114-9)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tales from the Arabian Nights'Book summary:The beautiful Scheherazade's royal husband threatens to kill her, so each night she diverts him by weaving wonderful tales of fantastic adventure, leaving each story unfinished so that he spares her life to hear the ending the next night. This is the background to the Arabian Nights. In this selection made by that master of folklore and fairy-tale Andrew Lang, the reader meets Aladdin with his wonderful lamp, the Enchanted Horse, the Princess Badoura, Sinbad the Sailor, and the great Caliph of Bagdad, Haroun-al-Raschid. [via]
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Tender Is The Night, 1934by F. Scott FitzgeraldISBN 1853260975 (1-85326-097-5)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tender Is The Night, 1934'Book summary:In the wake of World War I, a community of expatriate American writers established itself in the salons and cafes of 1920s Paris. They congregated at Gertrude Stein's select soirees, drank too much, married none too wisely, and wrote volumes--about the war, about the Jazz Age, and often about each other. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, were part of this gang of literary Young Turks, and it was while living in France that Fitzgerald began writing Tender Is the Night. Begun in 1925, the novel was not actually published until 1934. By then, Fitzgerald was back in the States and his marriage was on the rocks, destroyed by Zelda's mental illness and alcoholism. Despite the modernist mandate to keep authors and their creations strictly segregated, it's difficult not to look for parallels between Fitzgerald's private life and the lives of his characters, psychiatrist Dick Diver and his former patient turned wife, Nicole. Certainly the hospital in Switzerland where Zelda was committed in 1929 provided the inspiration for the clinic where Diver meets, treats, and then marries the wealthy Nicole Warren. And Fitzgerald drew both the European locale and many of the characters from places and people he knew from abroad.
In the novel, Dick is eventually ruined--professionally, emotionally, and spiritually--by his union with Nicole. Fitzgerald's fate was not quite so novelistically neat: after Zelda was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and committed, Fitzgerald went to work as a Hollywood screenwriter in 1937 to pay her hospital bills. He died three years later--not melodramatically, like poor Jay Gatsby in his swimming pool, but prosaically, while eating a chocolate bar and reading a newspaper. Of all his novels, Tender Is the Night is arguably the one closest to his heart. As he himself wrote, "Gatsby was a tour de force, but this is a confession of faith." [via]
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The Tragedy of Julius Caesarby William ShakespeareISBN 1853260223 (1-85326-022-3)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tragedy of Julius Caesar'Book summary:Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, research Professor of English, University of Sussex Julius Caesar is among the best of Shakespeare's historical and political plays. Dealing with events surrounding the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., the drama vividly illustrates the ways in which power and corruption are linked. The cry 'Peace, freedom and liberty!' is used to exculpate brutal realities, while personal ambitions taint public actions. Rich in characterisation and replete with eloquent rhetoric, Julius Caesar remains engrossing and topical: a play for today. [via]
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Valhallaby Tom HoltISBN 1857239830 (1-85723-983-0)
Hardcover, Orbit
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Vanity Fairby William Makepeace ThackeryISBN 1853260193 (1-85326-019-3)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Vanity Fair'Book summary:Set in the years before and after Waterloo, the novel tells the parallel stories of two schoolfriends - the quiet, long-suffering Amelia and her brilliant, scheming friend, Becky Sharp. The novel portrays all the corruption and decadence of 19th-century England. [via]
Victoryby Joseph ConradISBN 1853262560 (1-85326-256-0)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Victory: An Island Tale'Book summary:Victory is a sombre study of good and evil i n Conrad''s mature manner. The characteristic theme of a man reaching out from his apparently total solitude in sympathy for another human being is explored through the story of Axe l Heyst. ' [via]
Who Lies Where : A Guide to Famous Gravesby Michael KerriganISBN 1857022580 (1-85702-258-0)
Softcover, Zondervan
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The Wind-Up Bird Chronicleby Haruki MurakamiISBN 1860464696 (1-86046-469-6)
Softcover, Harvill Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle'Book summary:Bad things come in threes for Toru Okada. He loses his job, his cat disappears, and then his wife fails to return from work. His search for his wife (and his cat) introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters, including two psychic sisters, a possibly unbalanced teenager, an old soldier who witnessed the massacres on the Chinese mainland at the beginning of the Second World War, and a very shady politician.
Haruki Murakami is a master of subtly disturbing prose. Mundane events throb with menace, while the bizarre is accepted without comment. Meaning always seems to be just out of reach, for the reader as well as for the characters, yet one is drawn inexorably into a mystery that may have no solution. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is an extended meditation on themes that appear throughout Murakami's earlier work. The tropes of popular culture, movies, music, detective stories, combine to create a work that explores both the surface and the hidden depths of Japanese society at the end of the 20th century.
If it were possible to isolate one theme in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, that theme would be responsibility. The atrocities committed by the Japanese army in China keep rising to the surface like a repressed memory, and Toru Okada himself is compelled by events to take responsibility for his actions and struggle with his essentially passive nature. If Toru is supposed to be a Japanese Everyman, steeped as he is in Western popular culture and ignorant of the secret history of his own nation, this novel paints a bleak picture. Like the winding up of the titular bird, Murakami slowly twists the gossamer threads of his story into something of considerable weight. --Simon Leake [via]
Wisdom of Dying: Practices for Livingby N. Michael MurphyISBN 1862045798 (1-86204-579-8)
Hardcover, Element Books Ltd
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Wish You Were Hereby Tom HoltISBN 1857236874 (1-85723-687-4)
Softcover, Little, Brown Book Group Limited
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The Woman in Whiteby Wilkie CollinsISBN 1853260770 (1-85326-077-0)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Woman in White'Book summary:With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Scott Brewster, University of Central Lancashire Wilkie Collins is a master of mystery, and The Woman in White is his first excursion into the genre. When the hero, Walter Hartright, on a moonlit night in North London, encounters a solitary, terrified and beautiful woman dressed in white, he feels impelled to solve the mystery of her distress. The intricate plot is peopled with a finely characterised cast, from the peevish invalid Mr Fairlie to the corpulent villain Count Fosco and the enigmatic woman herself. [via]
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Women in Loveby D. H. LawrenceISBN 185326007X (1-85326-007-X)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Women in Love'Book summary:Introduction and Notes by Dr Jeff Wallace, University of Glamorgan Lawrence's finest, most mature novel initially met with disgust and incomprehension. In the love affairs of two sisters, Ursula with Rupert, and Gudrun with Gerald, critics could only see a sorry tale of sexual depravity and philosophical obscurity. Women in Love is, however, a profound response to a whole cultural crisis. The 'progress' of the modern industrialised world had led to the carnage of the First World War. What, then, did it mean to call ourselves 'human'? On what grounds could we place ourselves above and beyond the animal world? What are the definitive forms of our relationships - love, marriage, family, friendship - really worth? And how might they be otherwise? Without directly referring to the war, Women in Love explores these questions with restless energy. As a sequel to The Rainbow, the novel develops experimental techniques which made Lawrence one of the most important writers of the Modernist movement. [via]
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Wordsworth Dictionary of Piratesby Jan RogozinskiISBN 1853263842 (1-85326-384-2)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions, Limited
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The Works of Emily Dickinsonby Emily DickinsonISBN 1853264199 (1-85326-419-9)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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The Works of Walt Whitmanby WhitmanISBN 1853264334 (1-85326-433-4)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
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