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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bella Tuscany'
Following up on her bestselling novel, Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes returns to her beloved villa in the small hill town of Cortona, Italy. Welcomed back like an old friend, she is soon puttering in the garden, and as Mayes devotees might expect, busy in the kitchen as well. As Mayes rediscovers her taste for la dolce vita, she embarks on a journey of cultural awakening and embraces a newfound romance with the Italian language and people. "I came to Italy expecting adventure," reads Mayes. "What I never anticipated is the absolute sweet joy of everyday life."
Mayes is as generous a cook as she is a writer, flavoring her story with tasty descriptions of local gustatory delights--many of which are included in a small recipe book. She also serves as narrator, and the beguiling simplicity of her voice makes listening as enjoyable as spending an afternoon with a well-traveled favorite aunt. (Running time: 9 hours, 6 cassettes) --George Laney [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Bella Tuscany : The Sweet Life in Italy'
Work's still not completely finished on Bramasole, the Tuscan house that California-based poet and bestselling author Frances Mayes bought a decade ago and has been fixing up every summer since. Nevertheless, in Bella Tuscany, she goes out--in search of Italy and Italian life. The sequel to Under the Tuscan Sun is awash with sensual discovery, from Sicilian markets with "rainbows of shining fish on ice" to the aqueous dream of Venice "shimmering in the diluted sunlight." Wherever she is, Mayes celebrates everyday rituals, such as picking wild asparagus, "dark spears poking out of the dirt ... stalks as thin as yarn" and driving through country rains, as "the green landscape smears across the windshield" for buffalo mozzarella and demijohns of sfuso--bulk wine kept fresh with a slick of olive oil on top. Mayes also ventures into the world of the locals, some "bent as a comma" and others throwing six-hour communion feasts where half a dozen cooks in a barn continually send out heaping platters of pasta with wild boar sauce, roasted lamb, and even the thigh of a giant cow--wrapping up the festivities with honeyed vin santo, grappa, and dancing to the accordion. Capturing the details that enrich the commonplace, in Bella Tuscany Mayes appears less like a visitor and more like someone discovering in Tuscany a real home and a real life. --Melissa Rossi [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Birth of Venus'
The Birth of Venus is all the more fascinating a historical novel for the author's inability to make up her mind what it is about. Is it a novel about the limited choices available to a woman with talent in Renaissance Florence--marriage or the convent? Or is it a novel about the choices you make to survive in a totalitarian society? As Savonarola takes Florence closer and closer to being an ascetic theocracy, Alessandra, her gay brother and his lover whom she has married for mutual protection find themselves in more and more peril. It could also be a detective story--Allesandra is in love with a painter whose religious mania and fascination with the body makes him a plausible suspect for a series of killings and dismemberments. Some historical novels wear their research too heavily--Dunant's is light, fluent and pacy, but her fascination with the possibilities revealed by research leaves her failing to make choices.
The Birth of Venus is a highly intelligent novel kept from incoherence mostly by the intensely imagined Alessandra, through whose eyes we see the tragic end of a key moment in human culture and whose lively sensibility constantly sparks ideas about art and her time. --Roz Kaveney [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy: The Inferno'
A guide to reading "The Inferno" with a critical and appreciative mind encouraging analysis of plot, style, form, and structure. Also includes background on the author's life and times, sample tests, term paper suggestions, and a reading list. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dante's Comedy: The Inferno'
Translated by Nicholas Kilmer, and illustrated by Benjamin Martinez. Dante called his great work The Comedy - signifying a narrative with a happy ending. The narrative is about the journey of the human spirit through trial, and toward salvation. The journey takes place in three segments of which this, "The Inferno," is the first. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dante's Inferno'
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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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dante's Inferno: Translations by Twenty Contrmporary Poets'
A new telling of Dante's Inferno, this translation is the most fluent, grippingly readable version of the famous poem yet, andwith all the consummate technical skill that is the hallmark of Sean O'Brien's own poetrymanages the near-impossible task of preserving the subtle power and lyric nuance of the Italian original, while seeking out an entirely natural English music. No other version has so vividly expressed the horror, cruelty, beauty, and outrageous imaginative flight of Dante's original vision.
[via]More editions of Dante's Inferno: Translations by Twenty Contrmporary Poets:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Divine Comedy'
More editions of The Divine Comedy:
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Divine Comedy'
BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP
The first volume of The Divine Comedy--Dante begins his downward journey through the seven circles of Hell.
" A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
" A chronology of the author's life and work
" A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
" An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
" Detailed explanatory notes
" Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
" Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
" A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Nombre De La Rosa'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El nombre de la rosa / The Name of the Rose'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Principe / the Prince'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Great Books of the Western World'
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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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hell'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Il Nome Della Rosa'
"II libro più intelligente - ma anche il più divertente - di questi ultimi anni."Lars Gustafsson, Der Spicgel"II libro è così ricco che permette tutti i livelli di lettura ... Eco, ancora bravo!"Robert Maggiori, Libération"Brio e ironia. Eco è andato a scuola dai migliori modelli".Richard Ellmann, The New York Review of Books"Precisamente il genere di libro che, se fossi un milionario, comanderei su misura".Punch"Quando Baskerville e Adso entrarono nella stanza murata allo scoccare della mezzanotte e all'ultima parola del capitolo, ho sentito, anche se è fuori moda, un caratteristico sobbalzo al cuore."Nicholas Shrimplon, The Sunday Times"È riuscito a scrivere un libro che si legge tutto d'un fiato, accattivante, comico, inatteso ..."Mario Fusco, Le Monde"È un tipo di libro che ci trasforma, che sostituisce la nostra realtà con la sua ... ci presenta un mondo nuovo nella tradizione di Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Melville, Dostoevskij, lo stesso Joyce e Garda Miirquez."Kenneth Atchity, Los Angeles Times"Mi rallegro e tutto il mondo delle lettere si rallegrerà con me, che si possa diventare best seller contro i pronostici cibernetici, e che un'opera di letteratura genuina possa soppiantare il ciarpame ... L'alta qualità e il successo non si escludono a vicenda."Anthony Burgess, The Observer [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Inferno'
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. An informative introduction and commentary accompany this classic translation of Dante's epic poem about a spiritual pilgrim being led by Virgil through the nine circles of hell, available in a dual-language edition. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Inferno'
In 1867, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow completed the first American translation of Inferno and thus introduced Dantes literary genius to the New World. In the Inferno, the spirit of the classical poet Virgil leads Dante through the nine circles of Hell on the initial stage of his journey toward Heaven. Along the way Dante encounters and describes in vivid detail the various types of sinners in the throes of their eternal torment. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Inferno'
Peter Bondanella is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian at Indiana University and a past president of the American Association for Italian Studies. His publications include a number of translations of Italian classics, books on Italian Renaissance literature and Italian cinema, and a dictionary of Italian literature.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Inferno of Dante Alighieri'
"Inferno", the first volume of Dante Alighieri's "La Divina Comemedia", is an imaginitive tour de force. Dante's hero, Virgil, guides him through hell, showing him the inhabitants of each of its nine circles and examples of the divine justice meted out to them. Ciaran Carson's translation of the text is suffused with wit, anger and irreverent vigour and attempts not to diminish the pathos of the original. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Inferno Of Dante Alighieri'
This startling new translation of Dante's Inferno is by Ciaran Carson, one of contemporary Ireland's most dazzlingly gifted poets. Written in a vigorous and inventive contemporary idiom, while also reproducing the intricate rhyme-scheme that is so essential to the beauty and power of Dante's epic, Carson's virtuosic rendering of the Inferno is that rare thinga translation with the heft and force of a true English poem. Like Seamus Heaney's Beowulf and Ted Hughes's Tales from Ovid, Ciaran Carson's Inferno is an extraordinary modern response to one of the great works of world literature. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Machiavelli: Il Principe'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Machiavelli: The Prince'
In his introduction to this new translation by Russell Price, Professor Skinner presents a lucid analysis of Machiavelli's text as a response both to the world of Florentine politics, and as an attack on the advice-books for princes published by a number of his contemporaries. This new edition includes notes on the principal events in Machiavelli's life, and on the vocabulary of The Prince, as well as biographical notes on characters in the text. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'MacHiavelli's the Prince: Text and Commentary'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Name Of The Rose'
"A brilliantly conceived adventure into another time" (San Francisco Chronicle) by critically acclaimed author Umberto Eco. The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns to the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, and the empirical insights of Roger Bacon to find the killer. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey ("where the most interesting things happen at night") armed with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious curiosity. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Niccolo Machiavelli's the Prince'
Plot synopsis of this classic is made meaningful with analysis and quotes by noted literary critics, summaries of the work's main themes and characters, a sketch of the author's life and times, a bibliography, suggested test questions, and ideas for essays and term papers. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prince'
"The Prince" has long been both praised and reviled for its message of moral relativism, and political expediency. Although a large part is devoted to the mechanics of gaining and staying in power, Machiavelli's end purpose is to maintain a just and stable government. He is not ambiguous in stating his belief that committing a small cruelty to avert a larger is not only justifiable, but required of a just ruler. Machiavelli gives a vivid portrayal of his world in the chaos and tumult of early 16th century Florence, Italy and Europe. He uses both his contemporary political situation, and that of the classical period to illustrate his precepts of statecraft. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prince'
A classic of the western tradition, Machiavelli's "The Prince" has influenced political and philosophical thought since its publication four centuries ago. Political power, Machiavelli taught, has no limits. It leaves no room for the sacred, and it subordinates right and wrong to success. In this new edition of Machiavelli's book, Angelo Codevilla provides a translation faithful to the original and sensitive to the author's use of verbal imprecision, including puns, double meanings, and the subjunctive mood. The volume includes an introduction by Codevilla that places Machiavelli in the context of his own times, demonstrates his relevance to the history of political thought, and inquiries into the place of Machiavelli's ideas in modern debates. This edition also contains three essays that explore some of the most important ways "The Prince" clashes with the other main branch of western civilization - the Socratic and Judeo-Christian traditions: "Machiavelli's realism" by Carnes Lord, "Machiavelli and modernity" by W.B. Allen, and "Machiavelli and America" by Hadley Arkes. [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prince'
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
That Machiavellis name has become synonymous with cold-eyed political calculation only heightens the intrinsic fascination of The Princethe worlds preeminent how-to manual on the art of getting and keeping power, and one of the literary landmarks of the Italian Renaissance. Written in a vigorous, straightforward style that reflects its authors realism, this treatise on states, statecraft, and the ideal ruler is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how human society actually works. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Prince And Other Writings'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Prince Maachiavelli'
What makes this well-annotated translation stand out from others is an insightful introduction by editor Thomas G. Bergin--especially helpful for achieving a better understanding of the times and the political scene in which Machiavelli worked, lived, and wrote. Also included are a list of important dates in Machiavelli's life, an index of proper names in the text and notes, and a selected bibliography. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prince: With Related Documents'
Widely read for its insights into history and politics, The Prince is one of the most provocative works of the Italian Renaissance. Based on Niccolò Machiavelli's observations of the effectiveness of both ancient and contemporary statesmen, the rules for governing set forth in his manual were considered radical and harsh by his contemporaries and shocking to many since then. This major new edition combines an accurate and accessible new translation with important related documents, many of which appear here in English for the first time. In his lucid introductory essay, William J. Connell offers fresh insights into Machiavelli's life, the meaning of his work, the context in which it was written, and its influence over time. Document headnotes, maps, a chronology of Machiavelli's life, questions for consideration, a selected bibliography, and index provide further pedagogical support. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy'
In this memoir of her buying, renovating, and living in an abandoned villa in Tuscany, Frances Mayes reveals the sensual pleasure she found living in rural Italy, and the generous spirit she brought with her. She revels in the sunlight and the color, the long view of her valley, the warm homey architecture, the languor of the slow paced days, the vigor of working her garden, and the intimacy of her dealings with the locals. Cooking, gardening, tiling and painting are never chores, but skills to be learned, arts to be practiced, and above all to be enjoyed. At the same time Mayes brings a literary and intellectual mind to bear on the experience, adding depth to this account of her enticing rural idyll. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'LA Divina Commedia: Inferno'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Il Nome Della Rosa'
"II libro più intelligente - ma anche il più divertente - di questi ultimi anni."Lars Gustafsson, Der Spicgel"II libro è così ricco che permette tutti i livelli di lettura ... Eco, ancora bravo!"Robert Maggiori, Libération"Brio e ironia. Eco è andato a scuola dai migliori modelli".Richard Ellmann, The New York Review of Books"Precisamente il genere di libro che, se fossi un milionario, comanderei su misura".Punch"Quando Baskerville e Adso entrarono nella stanza murata allo scoccare della mezzanotte e all'ultima parola del capitolo, ho sentito, anche se è fuori moda, un caratteristico sobbalzo al cuore."Nicholas Shrimplon, The Sunday Times"È riuscito a scrivere un libro che si legge tutto d'un fiato, accattivante, comico, inatteso ..."Mario Fusco, Le Monde"È un tipo di libro che ci trasforma, che sostituisce la nostra realtà con la sua ... ci presenta un mondo nuovo nella tradizione di Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Melville, Dostoevskij, lo stesso Joyce e Garda Miirquez."Kenneth Atchity, Los Angeles Times"Mi rallegro e tutto il mondo delle lettere si rallegrerà con me, che si possa diventare best seller contro i pronostici cibernetici, e che un'opera di letteratura genuina possa soppiantare il ciarpame ... L'alta qualità e il successo non si escludono a vicenda."Anthony Burgess, The Observer [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Il Principe'
Con un saggio di Raymond Aron su "Machiavelli e Marx". Introduzione e cronologia di Franco Melotti, note di Ettore Janni e un glossario ideologico 16mo pp. 222 broch [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'De Principatibus: Le Prince'
Dédié à Laurent de Médicis, Le Prince est une oeuvre nourrie par l'expérience d'ambassadeur de son auteur. Machiavel y définit les fins du gouvernement : sur le plan extérieur, maintenir à tout prix son emprise sur les territoires conquis ; sur le plan intérieur, se donner les moyens de rester au pouvoir. Parce que les hommes sont égoïstes, le prince n'est pas tenu d'être moral. Il doit être craint en évitant de se faire haïr par le peuple.
La réduction de Machiavel au machiavélisme est cependant trop simpliste. On peut même lire Le Prince comme une des premières oeuvres de science politique, l'auteur ne cherchant qu'à décrire les mécanismes du pouvoir, à la manière du physicien qui détermine les lois de la gravitation. Rousseau ou encore Spinoza ont même pensé que Le Prince s'adressait en vérité au peuple pour l'avertir des stratégies utilisées par les tyrans.
Oeuvre géniale dans son ambiguïté, Le Prince peut donc être lu soit comme un traité de gouvernement à l'usage du despote, soit comme un ouvrage de science, voire comme une critique déguisée du despotisme. --Paul Klein [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'La Divine Comedie, L'enfer'
Flammarion, 11*18 cm, 378 pages. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'El Nombre de la Rosa'
