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books tagged “essay”
books tagged “essay”
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The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Presentby Phillip Lopate, Teachers & Writers CollaborativeISBN 038542339X (0-385-42339-X)
Softcover, Anchor Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present'Book summary:For more than four hundred years, the personal essay has been one of the richest and most vibrant of all literary forms. Distinguished from the detached formal essay by its friendly, conversational tone, its loose structure, and its drive toward candor and self-disclosure, the personal essay seizes on the minutiae of daily life-vanities, fashions, foibles, oddballs, seasonal rituals, love and disappointment, the pleasures of solitude, reading, taking a walk -- to offer insight into the human condition and the great social and political issues of the day. The Art of the Personal Essay is the first anthology to celebrate this fertile genre. By presenting more than seventy-five personal essays, including influential forerunners from ancient Greece, Rome, and the Far East, masterpieces from the dawn of the personal essay in the sixteenth century, and a wealth of the finest personal essays from the last four centuries, editor Phillip Lopate, himself an acclaimed essayist, displays the tradition of the personal essay in all its historical grandeur, depth, and diversity. [via]
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The Best American Essays of the Centuryby Joyce Carol Oates, Robert AtwanISBN 0618155872 (0-618-15587-2)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Best American Essays of the Century'Book summary:The title The Best American Essays of the Century seems transparent enough, but don't be deceived. What Joyce Carol Oates has assembled is not so much a diverse collection as a sonorous march through what keeps getting called the American century. Read this not as a collection to dip into but as a history--a history of race in America. Oates says it best herself in her introduction: "It can't be an accident that essays in this volume by men and women of ethnic minority backgrounds are outstanding; to paraphrase Melville, to write a 'mighty' work of prose you must have a 'mighty' theme." The mighty pens at work here belong to, among others, Zora Neale Hurston ("How It Feels to Be Colored Me"), Langston Hughes ("Bop"), and James Baldwin ("Notes of a Native Son"). Oates has opted not for the most unexpected but for the most important and stirring essays of our time.
Other chords sound repeatedly as well: the problem of our relationship with nature (Annie Dillard, John Muir, and Gretel Ehrlich); the difficulty of identity in disrupted times (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joan Didion, and Michael Herr). In her essay "The White Album," Didion famously declares: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." The stories Oates has collected are not easy. Here is the hard-won truth, from writers unwilling to forgive even themselves. Even Martin Luther King Jr. doesn't let himself off the hook, as he writes in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail": "If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me." --Claire Dederer [via]
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Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Lifeby Anne LamottISBN 0385480016 (0-385-48001-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life'Book summary:Think you've got a book inside of you? Anne Lamott isn't afraid to help you let it out. She'll help you find your passion and your voice, beginning from the first really crummy draft to the peculiar letdown of publication. Readers will be reminded of the energizing books of writer Natalie Goldberg and will be seduced by Lamott's witty take on the reality of a writer's life, which has little to do with literary parties and a lot to do with jealousy, writer's block and going for broke with each paragraph. Marvelously wise and best of all, great reading. [via]
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A Collection of Essaysby George OrwellISBN 0156186004 (0-15-618600-4)
Softcover, Harvest Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Collection of Essays'Book summary:Imagine any of today's writers of "creative nonfiction" dispatching a rogue elephant before an audience of several thousand. Now, imagine the essay that would result. Can we say "narcissism"? As part of the Imperial Police in Burma, George Orwell actually found himself aiming the gun, and his record--first published in 1936--comprises eight of the highest voltage pages of English prose you'll ever read. In "Shooting an Elephant," Orwell illumines the shoddy recesses of his own character, illustrates the morally corrupting nature of imperialism, and indicts you, the reader, in the creature's death, a process so vividly reported it's likely to show up in your nightmares ever after. "The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing.... Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth much more than any damn Coringhee coolie."
This essay alone would be worth the cover price, and the dozen other pieces collected here prove that, given the right thinker/writer, today's journalism actually can become tomorrow's literature. "The Art of Donald McGill," ostensibly an appreciation of the jokey, vaguely obscene illustrated postcards beloved of the working classes, uses the lens of popular culture to examine the battle lines and rules of engagement in the war of the sexes, circa 1941. "Politics and the English Language" is a prose working-out of Orwell's perceptions about the slippery relationship of word and thought that becomes a key premise of 1984. "Looking Back on the Spanish War" is as clear-eyed a veteran's memoir of the nature of war as you're likely to find, and Orwell's long ruminations on the wildly popular "good bad" writers Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling showcase his singular virtues--searing honesty and independent thinking. From English boarding schools to Gandhi's character to an early appreciation of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, these pieces give an idiosyncratic tour of the first half of the passing century in the company of an articulate and engaged guide. Don't let the idea that Orwell is an "important" writer put you off reading him. He's really too good, and too human, to miss. --Joyce Thompson [via]
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Complete Essays of Montaigneby Michel E. De MontaigneISBN 0804704864 (0-8047-0486-4)
Softcover, Stanford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Complete Essays of Montaigne'Book summary:A faithful translation is rare; a translation which preserves intact the original text is very rare; a perfect translation of Montaigne appears impossible. Yet Donald Frame has realized this feat. One does not seem to be reading a translation, so smooth and easy is the style; at each moment, one seems to be listening to Montaigne himselfthe freshness of his ideas, the unexpected choice of words. Frame has kept everything. Andre Maurois, The New York Times Book Review [via]
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Consider the Lobster: and Other Essaysby David Foster WallaceISBN 0316013323 (0-316-01332-3)
Softcover, Back Bay Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Consider the Lobster: and Other Essays'Book summary:Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of a vicious presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters. [via]
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Desert Solitaireby Edward AbbeyISBN 0345326490 (0-345-32649-0)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Desert Solitaire'Book summary:With language as colorful as a Canyonlands sunset and a perspective as pointed as a prickly pear, Cactus Ed captures the heat, mystery, and surprising bounty of desert life. Desert Solitaire is a meditation on the stark landscapes of the red-rock West, a passionate vote for wilderness, and a howling lament for the commercialization of the American outback. [via]
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Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wildernessby Edward AbbeyISBN 0671695886 (0-671-69588-6)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness'Book summary:With language as colorful as a Canyonlands sunset and a perspective as pointed as a prickly pear, Cactus Ed captures the heat, mystery, and surprising bounty of desert life. Desert Solitaire is a meditation on the stark landscapes of the red-rock West, a passionate vote for wilderness, and a howling lament for the commercialization of the American outback. [via]
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Essaisby De MontaigneISBN 2035881978 (2-03-588197-8)
Softcover, Distribooks Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Essais'Book summary:"Lecteur, je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre" : c'est ce surprenant aveu de subjectivité qui ouvre l'un des textes les plus modernes de la littérature française, quoique l'un des plus anciens. À la mort de son ami La Boétie, Montaigne décide en effet de prendre la plume pour perpétuer leurs discussions si fécondes. Sur ce mode autobiographique, tous les sujets seront abordés, de l'amitié à l'éducation, de la philosophie à la lecture, de la religion à la mort des hommes. En s'observant lui-même, Montaigne fait ainsi le tour de l'homme, proposant une réflexion essentielle sur sa place dans le monde et sur le champ d'action de la pensée humaine.
Au siècle de Rabelais, des poètes de la Pléiade et de l'humanisme européen, l'oeuvre de Montaigne reste une météorite inclassable, entre écriture personnelle et monument philosophique. Oeuvre d'un homme engagé dans son temps, les Essais allaient fonder toute une tradition d'écriture à la française, de Pascal à Malraux, de Rousseau à Camus. --Karla Manuele [via]
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Essaysby Michel E. De Montaigne, Percival Chubb, John FlorioISBN 1591022703 (1-59102-270-3)
Softcover, Prometheus Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Essays'Book summary:Living at a time of religious strife and the decline of the intellectual optimism that had begun in the Renaissance, Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592) expressed in his writings both a deep skepticism about human affairs and a wide-ranging intellectual curiosity reflective of the age. Having witnessed firsthand the bloody armed conflicts, fanaticism, and persecutions that arose out of religious differences between French Catholics and Protestant Huguenots, Montaigne was especially skeptical about human claims to knowledge. For this reason he published, not systematic philosophy, but mere attempts at knowledge, essays in understanding, or essais, as he called them in French. He thus inaugurated a new literary genre that proved to be very influential.
Despite his skepticism Montaigne realized that the intellectual horizon of his day was full of exciting new developments. The New World had only recently been discovered and explorers to many parts of the hitherto undiscovered world were bringing back reports of strange lands, people, and customs. At the same time the intellectual discoveries of the Renaissance had uncovered the powerful works of ancient Greek and Latin authors, and science, still in its infancy, was beginning to ask important new questions.
The essays reflect all these interests, plus a refreshing honesty about the frailties of human nature. Montaigne writes about vanity, the value of friendship, constancy, idleness, liars, virtue, cowardice, prognostication, cannibals, the greatness of Rome, "That to Study Philosophy Is to Learn to Die," and a host of other topics.
Filled with insights and keen observations that have inspired later writers as diverse as Shakespeare, Bacon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Flaubert, Virginia Woolf, and Roland Barthes, the Essays of Montaigne should be on the shelf of every student, scholar, and book lover. [via] -
The Essays of Michel De Montaigneby Michel De Montaigne, M. A. ScreechISBN 0713990724 (0-7139-9072-4)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Essays of Michel De Montaigne'Book summary:Catalog of a private collection of mostly post-archaic Chinese jade carvings, including many very fine animals and human figures. [via]
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Fraudby David RakoffISBN 0767906314 (0-7679-0631-4)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fraud: Essays'Book summary:Let's get this out of the way: David Rakoff is not David Sedaris. When you hear him being incredibly smart and funny on This American Life, you invariably think, "Oh, it's David Sedaris." But if you listen closely, you can tell the difference. Rakoff, while no less witty or nasal, is a little more disappointed. In his first collection--a series of pieces for public radio and for various magazines--he positively revels in his world-weariness. Whether he's investigating the Loch Ness monster, attending a comedy festival in Aspen, Colorado, visiting a New Age retreat hosted by Steven Seagal, or just, you know, playing Freud in a department-store window at Christmastime, Rakoff tends to get comically depleted. Watching the comic Dan Castellaneta, for example, he writes, "It's a bad sign when I start counting the unused props on stage. Only two wigs, one stool, an easel, and a dropcloth to go. I begin to pray to an unfeeling God to please make Castellaneta multitask." In a piece where he attempts to climb a mountain (well... a very short hill), Rakoff immediately nips any Sierra Club fantasies in the bud: "I do not go outdoors. Not more than I have to. As far as I'm concerned, the whole point of living in New York City is indoors. You want greenery? Order the spinach." But in the end, what makes him such a terrific writer is that he's not only onto everyone else, he's onto himself. No wonder his visit to a kibbutz becomes the occasion for some supremely self-conscious amusement: "I know I sound like the Central Casting New Yorker I've turned myself into with single-minded determination when I say this, but the main problem with working in the fields is that the sun is just always shining." --Claire Dederer [via]
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Great Books of the Western Worldby Encyclopdia Britannica, inc., Robert Maynard HutchinsISBN 0852291639 (0-85229-163-9)
Hardcover, Encyclopdia Britannica
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Great Books of the Western World'Book summary:The Iliad (Ancient Greek ?????, Ilias) is, together with the Odyssey, one of two ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer, a supposedly blind Ionian poet. The epics are considered by most modern scholars to be the oldest literature in the Greek language. The Iliad concerns events during the tenth and final year in the siege of the city of Ilion, or Troy, by the Greeks. The Odyssey (Greek: ????????, Odusseia)is commonly dated circa 800 to 600 BC. The poem is, in part, a sequel to Homer's Iliad and mainly concerns the events that befall the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses) in his long journeys after the fall of Troy and when he at last returns to his native land of Ithaca. [via]
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High Tide in Tucsonby Barbara Kingsolver, Paul MirochaISBN 0786206306 (0-7862-0630-6)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'High Tide in Tucson'Book summary:The bestselling author of Animal Dreams and Pigs in Heaven brings her acclaimed voice to the essay, in a handsomely designed book. High Tide in Tucson provides readers with a reflection of Kingsolver's sensibility and creativity, as she constantly examines the urgent business of being alive. 25 line drawings. [via]
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Holy Places & Temples of Indiaby John HowleyISBN 0965385809 (0-9653858-0-9)
Softcover, Ten Speed Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Holy Places & Temples of India'Book summary:India has a vast array of cultures, religions and interests. But many people miss the real meaning and value of India-the spiritual side. This is not due to a lack of interest, but because it is difficult to find an easily understandable book on this subject. This book is different. It goes deeper into the heart of India-its spiritual side. What yogis and ascetics have been realizing for centuries. [via]
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How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essaysby Umberto Eco, William Weaver, Diane SterlingISBN 015600125X (0-15-600125-X)
Softcover, Harcourt
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› Find signed collectible books: 'How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays'Book summary:By the author of "The Name of the Rose", this collection of essays offers advice on a wide range of unusual subjects - how to recognize a porno film, how to take an intelligent holiday, how not to talk about football, how to protect oneself from widows - as well as discussing weightier matters of history, politics, economics, literature and philosophy, in such pieces as "On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1" and "Three Owls on a Chest of Drawers". [via]
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Illness As Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphorsby Susan SontagISBN 0394728440 (0-394-72844-0)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Illness As Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors'Book summary:This text is an examination of the fantasies concocted around conditions such as cancer and tuberculosis in our cultural history. The author argues that illness is not a metaphor and that the most truthful way of regarding illness - and the healthiest way of being ill - is to resist such thinking. Her examples of metaphors and images of illness are taken from medical and psychiatric thinking as well as from sources ranging from Greek and medieval writings to Dickens, Thomas Mann, Henry James, Frank Lloyd Wright, Auden and others. "AIDS and its Metaphors", the sequel to "Illness as Metaphor", is written in the light of the AIDS crisis. Sontag states that our metaphors for AIDS and its effects may be damaging because they suggest an apocalypse in personal and social terms, and therefore threaten not only the victims of the disease but all of society. [via]
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In Praise of Shadowsby Junichiro TanizakISBN 0918172020 (0-918172-02-0)
Softcover, Leete's Island Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In Praise of Shadows'Book summary:[via]An essay on aesthetics by the Japanese novelist, this book explores architecture, jade, food, and even toilets, combining an acute sense of the use of space in buildings. The book also includes descriptions of laquerware under candlelight and women in the darkness of the house of pleasure.More editions of In Praise of Shadows:
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In the Beginning...Was the Command Lineby Neal StephensonISBN 0380815931 (0-380-81593-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In the Beginning...Was the Command Line'Book summary:Neal Stephenson, author of the sprawling and engaging Cryptonomicon, has written a manifesto that could be spoken by a character from that brilliant book. Primarily, In the Beginning ... Was the Command Line discusses the past and future of personal computer operating systems. "It is the fate of manufactured goods to slowly and gently depreciate as they get old," he writes, "but it is the fate of operating systems to become free." While others in the computer industry express similarly dogmatic statements, Stephenson charms the reader into his way of thinking, providing anecdotes and examples that turn the pages for you.
Stephenson is a techie, and he's writing for an audience of coders and hackers in Command Line. The idea for this essay began online, when a shortened version of it was posted on Slashdot.org. The book still holds some marks of an e-mail flame gone awry, and some tangents should have been edited to hone his formidable arguments. But unlike similar writers who also discuss technical topics, he doesn't write to exclude; readers who appreciate computing history (like Dealers of Lightning or Fire in the Valley) can easily step into this book.
Stephenson tackles many myths about industry giants in this volume, specifically Apple and Microsoft. By now, every newspaper reader has heard of Microsoft's overbearing business practices, but Stephenson cuts to the heart of new issues for the software giant with a finely sharpened steel blade. Apple fares only a little better as Stephenson (a former Mac user himself) highlights the early steps the company took to prepare for a monopoly within the computer market--and its surprise when this didn't materialize. Linux culture gets a thorough--but fair--skewering, and the strengths of BeOS are touted (although no operating system is nearly close enough to perfection in Stephenson's eyes).
As for the rest of us, who have gladly traded free will and an intellectual understanding of computers for a clutter-free, graphically pleasing interface, Stephenson has thoughts to offer as well. He fully understands the limits nonprogrammers feel in the face of technology (an example being the "blinking 12" problem when your VCR resets itself). Even so, within Command Line he convincingly encourages us as a society to examine the metaphors of technology--simplifications that aren't really much simpler--that we greedily accept. --Jennifer Buckendorff [via]
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L'Homme Revolteby Albert CamusISBN 0685112349 (0-685-11234-9)
Softcover, French & European Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'L'Homme Revolte'Book summary:Essai majeur de l'oeuvre d'Albert Camus, L'Homme révolté est un livre prophétique sur la situation politique et sociale de la France des années cinquante. Marquant l'engagement philosophique de Camus, cet ouvrage est une relecture personnelle des grandes étapes de l'esprit de révolte, de la Révolution française à la Révolution russe. Les grands penseurs, de Sade à Nietzsche en passant par Marx ou Saint-Just sont évoqués et analysés, de même que les grands courants de pensée à la marge ou aux extrêmes, des nihilistes aux surréalistes en passant par les anarchistes ou les royalistes.
Grand essai érudit et cultivé, dans l'esprit de l'honnête homme, cet ouvrage aborde la révolte sous ses aspects métaphysique, historique, et artistique. Plus que de toutes autres de ses oeuvres, on retrouve ici exprimée l'évolution de l'esprit contestataire de Camus, qui fait de cet essai un classique absolu. L'Homme révolté est une sorte de Lipstick Traces avant l'heure, en moins rock'n'roll certes mais tout aussi remarquable. --Florent Mazzoleni [via]
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Letters from the Earthby Mark Twain, Bernard Augustine De VotoISBN 0060518650 (0-06-051865-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Letters from the Earth'Book summary:If you're already familiar with Finn and Sawyer, perhaps this collection of fragments, short stories, and essays--assembled posthumously some few decades ago now, but still fresh--will enhance your sense of Twain's true range. A particular favorite: his essay "The Damned Human Race," wherein he proves, rather convincingly, that an anaconda snake is a higher form of life than an English Earl. [via]
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On Bullshitby Harry G. FrankfurtISBN 0691122946 (0-691-12294-6)
Hardcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Bullshit'Book summary:Una de las características más sobresalientes de nuestra cultura es la gran abundancia de fantochadas. Todos lo sabemos y todos contribuimos a ello. Pero el fenómeno aún no ha despertado demasiadas preocupaciones. No tenemos ninguna comprensión clara de cuál es la sustancia de la que están hechas las fantochadas, de por qué abundan tanto o qué papel desempeñan. Y carecemos de una verdadera conciencia sobre lo que significan para nosotros. Es decir, como dice Harry Frankfurt: «No tenemos ninguna teoría». Frankfurt, uno de los filósofos morales más influyentes del mundo, procura construir aquí esa teoría. Con su combinación característica de pasión filosófica, penetración psicológica y maliciosa ironía, explora los modos en que la fantochada puede distinguirse de la tergiversación deliberada. Y concluye que puede tomar muchas formas inocentes, pero en realidad es mucho más perniciosa para la verdad que las propias mentiras. [via]
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On Photographyby Susan SontagISBN 0312420099 (0-312-42009-9)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Photography'Book summary:Winner of the National Book Critics' Circle Award for Criticism (1977), this is "a brilliant analysis of the profound changes photographic images have made in our way of looking of the world and ourselves over the lost 140 years."-Washington Post BOOK WORLD [via]
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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craftby Stephen KingISBN 1416549862 (1-4165-4986-2)
Softcover, Pocket Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On Writing'Book summary:Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You're right there with the young author as he's tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. "I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash." But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of "I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber." As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). "There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing."
King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's "tool kit": a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote.
King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher. --Tim Appelo [via]
More editions of On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft:
- On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft: ISBN 0671024256 (0-671-02425-6)
Softcover, Pocket Books - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft: ISBN 0743455967 (0-7434-5596-7)
Softcover, Pocket Books - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft: ISBN 0684853523 (0-684-85352-3)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft: ISBN 0743204360 (0-7432-0436-0)
Hardcover, Simon & Schuster - On Writing: ISBN 1416549862 (1-4165-4986-2)
Softcover, Pocket Books
- On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft: ISBN 0671024256 (0-671-02425-6)
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Pilgrim at Tinker Creekby Annie DillardISBN 1568497067 (1-56849-706-7)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'Book summary:An exhilarating meditation on nature and its seasons-a personal narrative highlighting one year's exploration on foot in the author's own neighborhood in Tinker Creek, Virginia. In the summer, Dillard stalks muskrats in the creek and contemplates wave mechanics; in the fall she watches a monarch butterfly migration and dreams of Arctic caribou. She tries to con a coot; she collects pond water and examines it under a microscope. She unties a snake skin, witnesses a flood, and plays -King of the Meadow' with a field of grasshoppers. [via]
More editions of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:
- Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: ISBN 0060953020 (0-06-095302-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: ISBN 0072434171 (0-07-243417-1)
Softcover, McGraw-Hill College - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: ISBN 0613376498 (0-613-37649-8)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: ISBN 0060912790 (0-06-091279-0)
Softcover, Harper & Row - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: ISBN 0060915455 (0-06-091545-5)
Softcover, Harpercollins - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: ISBN 0553233890 (0-553-23389-0)
Softcover, Bantam Books - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: ISBN 0061219800 (0-06-121980-0)
Hardcover, Harper's Magazine Press - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: ISBN 1568497067 (1-56849-706-7)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books
- Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: ISBN 0060953020 (0-06-095302-0)
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The Polysyllabic Spreeby Nick HornbyISBN 1932416242 (1-932416-24-2)
Softcover, McSweeneys Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Polysyllabic Spree'Book summary:In his monthly column "Stuff I've Been Reading," Hornby lists the books he's purchased that month, and briefly discusses the books he's actually read.[via]
NIck Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree Includes selected passages from the novels, biographies, collections of poetry, and comics discussed in the column.More editions of The Polysyllabic Spree:
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The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revoltby Albert CamusISBN 0679733841 (0-679-73384-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt'Book summary:By one of the most profoundly influential thinkers of our century, The Rebel is a classic essay on revolution. For Albert Camus, the urge to revolt is one of the "essential dimensions" of human nature, manifested in man's timeless Promethean struggle against the conditions of his existence, as well as the popular uprisings against established orders throughout history. And yet, with an eye toward the French Revolution and its regicides and deicides, he shows how inevitably the course of revolution leads to tyranny. As old regimes throughout the world collapse, The Rebel resonates as an ardent, eloquent, and supremely rational voice of conscience for our tumultuous times.
Translated from the French by Anthony Bower. [via]More editions of The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt:
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Regarding the Pain of Othersby Susan SontagISBN 0312422199 (0-312-42219-9)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Regarding the Pain of Others'Book summary:A brilliant, clear-eyed new consideration of the visual representation of violence in our culture--its ubiquity, meanings, and effects[via]
Watching the evening news offers constant evidence of atrocity--a daily commonplace in our "society of spectacle." But are viewers inured -or incited--to violence by the daily depiction of cruelty and horror? Is the viewer's perception of reality eroded by the universal availability of imagery intended to shock?
In her first full-scale investigation of the role of imagery in our culture since her now-classic book On Photography defined the terms of the debate twenty-five years ago, Susan Sontag cuts through circular arguments about how pictures can inspire dissent or foster violence as she takes a fresh look at the representation of atrocity--from Goya's The Disasters of War to photographs of the American Civil War, lynchings of blacks in the South, and Dachau and Auschwitz to contemporary horrific images of Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and New York City on September 11, 2001.
As John Berger wrote when On Photography was first published, "All future discussions or analysis of the role of photography in the affluent mass-media societies is now bound to begin with her book." Sontag's new book, a startling reappraisal of the intersection of "information", "news," "art," and politics in the contemporary depiction of war and disaster, will be equally essential. It will forever alter our thinking about the uses and meanings of images in our world.More editions of Regarding the Pain of Others:
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A Sand County Almanac Illustratedby Aldo LeopoldISBN 0915024152 (0-915024-15-2)
Hardcover, Trails Media Group Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Sand County Almanac Illustrated'Book summary:Published in 1949, shortly after the author's death, A Sand County Almanac is a classic of nature writing, widely cited as one of the most influential nature books ever published. Writing from the vantage of his summer shack along the banks of the Wisconsin River, Leopold mixes essay, polemic, and memoir in his book's pages. In one famous episode, he writes of killing a female wolf early in his career as a forest ranger, coming upon his victim just as she was dying, "in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes.... I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view." Leopold's road-to-Damascus change of view would find its fruit some years later in his so-called land ethic, in which he held that nothing that disturbs the balance of nature is right. Much of Almanac elaborates on this basic premise, as well as on Leopold's view that it is something of a human duty to preserve as much wild land as possible, as a kind of bank for the biological future of all species. Beautifully written, quiet, and elegant, Leopold's book deserves continued study and discussion today. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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A Sand County Almanac And Sketches Here And Thereby Aldo Leopold, Charles W. SchwartzISBN 0613924142 (0-613-92414-2)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Sand County Almanac And Sketches Here And There'Book summary:Published in 1949, shortly after the author's death, A Sand County Almanac is a classic of nature writing, widely cited as one of the most influential nature books ever published. Writing from the vantage of his summer shack along the banks of the Wisconsin River, Leopold mixes essay, polemic, and memoir in his book's pages. In one famous episode, he writes of killing a female wolf early in his career as a forest ranger, coming upon his victim just as she was dying, "in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes.... I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view." Leopold's road-to-Damascus change of view would find its fruit some years later in his so-called land ethic, in which he held that nothing that disturbs the balance of nature is right. Much of Almanac elaborates on this basic premise, as well as on Leopold's view that it is something of a human duty to preserve as much wild land as possible, as a kind of bank for the biological future of all species. Beautifully written, quiet, and elegant, Leopold's book deserves continued study and discussion today. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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The Second Sexby Simone De Beauvoir, H.M. ParshleyISBN 0679724516 (0-679-72451-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Second Sex'Book summary:In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir posed questions many men, and women, had yet to ponder when the book was released in 1953. "One wonders if women still exist, if they will always exist, whether or not it is desirable that they should ...," she says in this comprehensive treatise on women. She weaves together history, philosophy, economics, biology, and a host of other disciplines to show women's place in the world and to postulate on the power of sexuality. This is a powerful piece of writing in a time before "feminism" was even a phrase, much less a movement. [via]
More editions of The Second Sex:
- The Second Sex: ISBN 0394444159 (0-394-44415-9)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group - The Second Sex: ISBN 0394607449 (0-394-60744-9)
Hardcover, Random House Inc - The Second Sex: ISBN 0394712277 (0-394-71227-7)
Hardcover, Vintage Books - The Second Sex: ISBN 0679724516 (0-679-72451-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- The Second Sex: ISBN 0394444159 (0-394-44415-9)
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The Second Sexby H.M. Parshley, Simone De BeauvoirISBN 0679420169 (0-679-42016-9)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Second Sex'Book summary:In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir posed questions many men, and women, had yet to ponder when the book was released in 1953. "One wonders if women still exist, if they will always exist, whether or not it is desirable that they should ...," she says in this comprehensive treatise on women. She weaves together history, philosophy, economics, biology, and a host of other disciplines to show women's place in the world and to postulate on the power of sexuality. This is a powerful piece of writing in a time before "feminism" was even a phrase, much less a movement. [via]
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Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifestoby Chuck KlostermanISBN 0743236017 (0-7432-3601-7)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto'Book summary:There's quite a bit of intelligent analysis and thought-provoking insight packed into the pages of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, which is a little surprising considering how darn stupid most of Klosterman's subject matter actually is. Klosterman, one of the few members of the so-called "Generation X" to proudly embrace that label and the stereotypical image of disaffected slackers that often accompanies it, takes the reader on a witty and highly entertaining tour through portions of pop culture not usually subjected to analysis and presents his thoughts on Saved by the Bell, Billy Joel, amateur porn, MTV's The Real World, and much more. It would be easy in dealing with such subject matter to simply pile on some undergraduate level deconstruction, make a few jokes, and have yourself a clever little book. But Klosterman goes deeper than that, often employing his own life spent as a member of the lowbrow target demographic to measure the cultural impact of his subjects. While the book never quite lives up to the use of the word "manifesto" in the title (it's really more of a survey mixed with elements of memoir), there is much here to entertain and illuminate, particularly passages on the psychoses and motivations of breakfast cereal mascots, the difference between Celtic fans and Laker fans, and The Empire Strikes Back. Sections on a Guns n' Roses tribute band, The Sims, and soccer feel more like magazine pieces included to fill space than part of a cohesive whole. But when you're talking about a book based on a section of cultural history so reliant on a lack of attention span, even the incongruities feel somehow appropriate. --John Moe [via]
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Slouching Towards Bethlehemby Joan DidionISBN 0440080274 (0-440-08027-4)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Slouching Toward Bethlehem'Book summary:Upon its publication in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem confirmed Joan Didion as one of the most prominent writers on the literary scene. Her unblinking vision and deadpan tone have influenced subsequent generations of reporters and essayists, changing our expectations of style, voice, and the artistic possibilities of nonfiction.
"In her portraits of people," The New York Times Book Review wrote, "Didion is not out to expose but to understand, and she shows us actors and millionaires, doomed brides and naïve acid-trippers, left-wing ideologues and snobs of the Hawaiian aristocracy in a way that makes them neither villainous nor glamorous, but alive and botched and often mournfully beautiful. . . . A rare display of some of the best prose written today in this country."
In essay after essay, Didion captures the dislocation of the 1960s, the disorientation of a country shredding itself apart with social change. Her essays not only describe the subject at hand--the murderous housewife, the little girl trailing the rock group, the millionaire bunkered in his mansion--but also offer a broader vision of America, one that is both terrifying and tender, ominous and uniquely her own.
Joyce Carol Oates has written, "Joan Didion is one of the very few writers of our time who approaches her terrible subject with absolute seriousness, with fear and humility and awe. Her powerful irony is often sorrowful rather than clever. . . . She has been an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time, a memorable voice, partly eulogistic, partly despairing; always in control." [via]More editions of Slouching Towards Bethlehem:
- Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ISBN 0671248065 (0-671-24806-5)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster - Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ISBN 0671667378 (0-671-66737-8)
Softcover, Pocket Books - Slouching Towards Bethlehem : Essays: ISBN 0679640266 (0-679-64026-6)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - Slouching Toward Bethlehem: ISBN 0440080274 (0-440-08027-4)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
- Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ISBN 0671248065 (0-671-24806-5)
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Small Wonderby Barbara Kingsolver, Paul MirochaISBN 1410400913 (1-4104-0091-3)
Softcover, Walker Large Print
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Small Wonder'Book summary:Readers familiar with Barbara Kingsolver will find that Small Wonder, a collection of 23 essays, shows the same sensitivity and thoughtfulness, the same rich knowledge of and love for the natural world, as her spellbinding novels. In "Knowing Our Place," she describes the two places in which she writes: a tin-roof cabin in Appalachia and her home in the Tucson desert. In "Setting Free the Crabs," she uses her daughter's decision not to take home a beautiful (and occupied) red conch shell from a Mexican beach to illustrate our own need to give up our sense of ownership of the earth, to resist "the hunger to possess all things bright and beautiful." Many of these pieces, like the lovely title essay, were written (or rewritten) in response to the events of September 11, which threw into relief the growing social and economic inequities that are so little remarked on in the American media. These are political essays, although Kingsolver is not a natural rhetorician; her prose is too supple and inclusive. She is more inclined to follow the turns of her mind, like water in a curving stream bed, than to hammer home a point or two. But she has a rare gift for apt allusion (from sources as wide-ranging as Robert Frost to Beanie Babies) and for the elegant use of facts and figures. And she is highly quotable. It is easy to imagine the speechwriters and activists of the next 10 years dipping into Small Wonder for inspiration and the perfect phrase. --Regina Marler [via]
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Stephen King's Danse Macabreby Stephen KingISBN 0425104338 (0-425-10433-8)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Stephen King's Danse Macabre'Book summary:In the fall of 1978 (between The Stand and The Dead Zone), Stephen King taught a course at the University of Maine on "Themes in Supernatural Literature." As he writes in the foreword to this book, he was nervous at the prospect of "spending a lot of time in front of a lot of people talking about a subject in which I had previously only felt my way instinctively, like a blind man." The course apparently went well, and as with most teaching experiences, it was as instructive, if not more so, to the teacher as it was to the students. Thanks to a suggestion from his former editor at Doubleday, King decided to write Danse Macabre as a personal record of the thoughts about horror that he developed and refined as a result of that course.
The outcome is an utterly charming book that reads as if King were sitting right there with you, shooting the breeze. He starts on October 4, 1957, when he was 10 years old, watching a Saturday matinee of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. Just as the saucers were mounting their attack on "Our Nation's Capital," the movie was suddenly turned off. The manager of the theater walked out onto the stage and announced, "The Russians have put a space satellite into orbit around the earth. They call it ... Spootnik."
That's how the whole book goes: one simple, yet surprisingly pertinent, anecdote or observation after another. King covers the gamut of horror as he'd experienced it at that point in 1978 (a period of about 30 years): folk tales, literature, radio, good movies, junk movies, and the "glass teat". It's colorful, funny, and nostalgic--and also strikingly intelligent. --Fiona Webster [via]
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Thoreau: Walden and Other Writingsby Henry David ThoreauISBN 055314488X (0-553-14488-X)
Softcover, Bantam Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Thoreau: Walden and Other Writings'More editions of Thoreau: Walden and Other Writings:
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Three Guineasby Virginia Woolf, Jane Marcus, Mark HusseyISBN 0156031639 (0-15-603163-9)
Softcover, Harvest Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Three Guineas'Book summary:This prestigious new edition of the most controversial of Woolf's works includes an illuminating introduction and full annotations by the editor. [via]
More editions of Three Guineas:
- Three Guineas: ISBN 0156901773 (0-15-690177-3)
Softcover, Harcourt - Three Guineas: ISBN 0631177248 (0-631-17724-8)
Hardcover, John Wiley & Sons Inc - Three Guineas: ISBN 0701207019 (0-7012-0701-9)
Hardcover, Hogarth Press - Three Guineas: ISBN 0783893817 (0-7838-9381-7)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr - Three Guineas: ISBN 0156031639 (0-15-603163-9)
Softcover, Harvest Books
- Three Guineas: ISBN 0156901773 (0-15-690177-3)
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Traveling Merciesby Anne LamottISBN 0385496095 (0-385-49609-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Traveling Mercies'Book summary:Anne Lamott claims the two best prayers she knows are: "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She has a friend whose morning prayer each day is "Whatever," and whose evening prayer is "Oh, well." Anne thinks of Jesus as "Casper the friendly savior" and describes God as "one crafty mother."Despite--or because of--her irreverence, faith is a natural subject for Anne Lamott. Since Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, her fans have been waiting for her to write the book that explained how she came to the big-hearted, grateful, generous faith that she so often alluded to in her two earlier nonfiction books. The people in Anne Lamott's real life are like beloved characters in a favorite series for her readers--her friend Pammy, her son, Sam, and the many funny and wise folks who attend her church are all familiar. And Traveling Mercies is a welcome return to those lives, as well as an introduction to new companions Lamott treats with the same candor, insight, and tenderness. Lamott's faith isn't about easy answers, which is part of what endears her to believers as well as nonbelievers. Against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself. As she puts it, "My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers." At once tough, personal, affectionate, wise, and very funny, Traveling Mercies tells in exuberant detail how Anne Lamott learned to shine the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life, exposing surprising pockets of meaning and hope. [via]
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Traveling Mercies : Some Thoughts on Faithby Anne LamottISBN 0679442405 (0-679-44240-5)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Traveling Mercies : Some Thoughts on Faith'Book summary:For most writers, the greatest challenge of spiritual writing is to keep it grounded in concrete language. The temptation is to wander off into the clouds of ethereal epiphanies, only to lose readers with woo-woo thinking and sacred-laced clichés. Thankfully, Anne Lamott (Operating Instructions, Crooked Little Heart) knows better. In this collection of essays, Lamott offers her trademark wit and irreverence in describing her reluctant journey into faith. Every epiphany is framed in plainspoken (and, yes, occasionally crassly spoken) real-life, honest-to-God experiences. For example, after having an abortion, Lamott felt the presence of Christ sitting in her bedroom:
This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But then everywhere I went I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk and then it stays forever.
Whether she's writing about airplane turbulence, bulimia, her "feta cheese thighs," or consulting God over how to parent her son, Lamott keeps her spirituality firmly planted in solid scenes and believable metaphors. As a result, this is a richly satisfying armchair-travel experience, highlighting the tender mercies of Lamott's life that nudged her into Christian faith. --Gail Hudson [via]More editions of Traveling Mercies : Some Thoughts on Faith:
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Waldenby Henry David Thoreau, Scot MillerISBN 0618457178 (0-618-45717-8)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Walden'Book summary:Published in association with the Walden Woods Project, this beautiful commemorative edition of Thoreau's masterpiece features spectacular color photographs that capture Walden as vividly as Thoreau's words do.
Henry David Thoreau was just a few days short of his twenty-eighth birthday when he built a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond and began one of the most famous experiments in living in American history. Originally he was not, apparently, intending to write a book about his life at the pond, but nine years later, in August of 1854, Houghton Mifflin's predecessor, Ticknor and Fields, published Walden; or, a Life in the Woods. At the time the book was largely ignored, and it took five years to sell out the first printing of two thousand copies. It was not until 1862, the year of Thoreau's death, that the book was brought back into print, and it has never been out of print since. Published in hundreds of editions and translated into virtually every modern language, it has become one of the most widely read and influential books ever written. [via]
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Walden and Other Writingsby Henry David ThoreauISBN 1586632116 (1-58663-211-6)
Hardcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Walden and Other Writings'Book summary:With their call for "simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!", for self-honesty, and for harmony with nature, the writings of Henry David Thoreau are perhaps the most influential philosophical works in all American literature. The selections in this volume represent Thoreau at his best. Included in their entirety are Walden, his indisputable masterpiece, and his two great arguments for nonconformity, Civil Disobedience and Life Without Principle. A lifetime of brilliant observation of nature--and of himself--is recorded in selections from A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers, Cape Cod, The Maine Woods and The Journal. [via]
More editions of Walden and Other Writings:
- Walden and Other Writings: ISBN 055321246X (0-553-21246-X)
Softcover, Bantam Classic & Loveswept - Walden and Other Writings: ISBN 0679783342 (0-679-78334-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc - Walden and Other Writings: ISBN 0394604210 (0-394-60421-0)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - Walden and Other Writings: ISBN 1586632116 (1-58663-211-6)
Hardcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc
- Walden and Other Writings: ISBN 055321246X (0-553-21246-X)
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Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreauby Henry David Thoreau, Brooks AtkinsonISBN 0679600043 (0-679-60004-3)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau'Book summary:With their call for "simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! , for self-honesty, and for harmony with nature, the writings of Henry David Thoreau are perhaps the most influential philosophical works in all American literature.
The selections in this volume represent Thoreau at his best. Included in their entirety are Walden, his indisputable masterpiece, and his two great arguments for nonconformity, Civil Disobedience and Life Without Principle. A lifetime of brilliant observation of nature--and of himself--is recorded in selections from A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers, Cape Cod, The Maine Woods and The Journal. [via]More editions of Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau:
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The White Albumby Joan DidionISBN 0374522219 (0-374-52221-9)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The White Album'Book summary:This collection of essays recounts what took place on the long morning after the 1960s, when everyone was coming down from their particular bad trip. Didion observes the dramas that explode as America goes into collective detox: the mother abandoning her five-year-old daughter on the central reservation of Interstate 5; Huey Newton and the Black Panthers preaching from their cells; students, in unconscious parody, simulating the disaffection of the 1960s. Didion hangs out with the Doors, parties with Janis Joplin, shops with the Manson clan, dines with Polanski and Sharon Tate, and goes to biker movies, "because there on the screen was some news I was not getting from the 'New York Times'". Joan Didion has also written "Sentimental Journeys" and "Slouching Towards Bethlehem". [via]
French
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Le Deuxieme Sexeby Simone de BeauvoirISBN 2070323528 (2-07-032352-8)
Softcover, Flammarion et Cie
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Le Deuxieme Sexe'Book summary:Volume II of Le Deuxime Sexe (Second Sex) by Simone de Beauvoir. In French. [via]
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Le Deuxieme Sexe Tome 1by Simone De BeauvoirISBN 207032351X (2-07-032351-X)
Softcover, Sodis
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Essaisby Michel De Montaigne, Benedicte Boudou, Denis Bjai, Jean CeardISBN 2253132721 (2-253-13272-1)
Hardcover, Livre de poche
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Essais'Book summary:"Lecteur, je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre" : c'est ce surprenant aveu de subjectivité qui ouvre l'un des textes les plus modernes de la littérature française, quoique l'un des plus anciens. À la mort de son ami La Boétie, Montaigne décide en effet de prendre la plume pour perpétuer leurs discussions si fécondes. Sur ce mode autobiographique, tous les sujets seront abordés, de l'amitié à l'éducation, de la philosophie à la lecture, de la religion à la mort des hommes. En s'observant lui-même, Montaigne fait ainsi le tour de l'homme, proposant une réflexion essentielle sur sa place dans le monde et sur le champ d'action de la pensée humaine.
Au siècle de Rabelais, des poètes de la Pléiade et de l'humanisme européen, l'oeuvre de Montaigne reste une météorite inclassable, entre écriture personnelle et monument philosophique. Oeuvre d'un homme engagé dans son temps, les Essais allaient fonder toute une tradition d'écriture à la française, de Pascal à Malraux, de Rousseau à Camus. --Karla Manuele [via]
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Homme Revolte: Essaiby Albert CamusISBN 2070323021 (2-07-032302-1)
Softcover, Flammarion et Cie
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Homme Revolte: Essai'Book summary:Essai majeur de l'oeuvre d'Albert Camus, L'Homme révolté est un livre prophétique sur la situation politique et sociale de la France des années cinquante. Marquant l'engagement philosophique de Camus, cet ouvrage est une relecture personnelle des grandes étapes de l'esprit de révolte, de la Révolution française à la Révolution russe. Les grands penseurs, de Sade à Nietzsche en passant par Marx ou Saint-Just sont évoqués et analysés, de même que les grands courants de pensée à la marge ou aux extrêmes, des nihilistes aux surréalistes en passant par les anarchistes ou les royalistes.
Grand essai érudit et cultivé, dans l'esprit de l'honnête homme, cet ouvrage aborde la révolte sous ses aspects métaphysique, historique, et artistique. Plus que de toutes autres de ses oeuvres, on retrouve ici exprimée l'évolution de l'esprit contestataire de Camus, qui fait de cet essai un classique absolu. L'Homme révolté est une sorte de Lipstick Traces avant l'heure, en moins rock'n'roll certes mais tout aussi remarquable. --Florent Mazzoleni [via]
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Le Sexisme OrdinaireISBN 2020052016 (2-02-005201-6)
Hardcover, Editions Du Seuil
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Ensayos Completos/ Complete Essaysby Michel De MontaigneISBN 843762035X (84-376-2035-X)
Hardcover, Catedra Ediciones
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El hombre rebeldeby Albert CamusISBN 8420672386 (84-206-7238-6)
Softcover, Grupo Anaya Comercial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El hombre rebelde'Book summary:La rebeldia, propia de la naturaleza del hombre frente a lo sagrado, lo permanente, es el corazon de los interrogantes de esta obra. Frente a lo insoslayable el deseo- la condicion humana se impone a si misma mostrando las imperfecciones y limites del ser. Esta es la puja que retrata Camus y en la que sobrepasa el ensayo literario. [via]
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