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books tagged “literature”
books tagged “literature”
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Angels & Demonsby Dan BrownISBN 037543318X (0-375-43318-X)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Angels & Demons'Book summary:It takes guts to write a novel that combines an ancient secret brotherhood, the Swiss Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, a papal conclave, mysterious ambigrams, a plot against the Vatican, a mad scientist in a wheelchair, particles of antimatter, jets that can travel 15,000 miles per hour, crafty assassins, a beautiful Italian physicist, and a Harvard professor of religious iconology. It takes talent to make that novel anything but ridiculous. Kudos to Dan Brown (Digital Fortress) for achieving the nearly impossible. Angels & Demons is a no-holds-barred, pull-out-all-the-stops, breathless tangle of a thriller--think Katherine Neville's The Eight (but cleverer) or Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum (but more accessible).
Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is shocked to find proof that the legendary secret society, the Illuminati--dedicated since the time of Galileo to promoting the interests of science and condemning the blind faith of Catholicism--is alive, well, and murderously active. Brilliant physicist Leonardo Vetra has been murdered, his eyes plucked out, and the society's ancient symbol branded upon his chest. His final discovery, antimatter, the most powerful and dangerous energy source known to man, has disappeared--only to be hidden somewhere beneath Vatican City on the eve of the election of a new pope. Langdon and Vittoria, Vetra's daughter and colleague, embark on a frantic hunt through the streets, churches, and catacombs of Rome, following a 400-year-old trail to the lair of the Illuminati, to prevent the incineration of civilization.
Brown seems as much juggler as author--there are lots and lots of balls in the air in this novel, yet Brown manages to hurl the reader headlong into an almost surreal suspension of disbelief. While the reader might wish for a little more sardonic humor from Langdon, and a little less bombastic philosophizing on the eternal conflict between religion and science, these are less fatal flaws than niggling annoyances--readers should have no trouble skimming past them and immersing themselves in a heck of a good read. "Brain candy" it may be, but my! It's tasty. --Kelly Flynn [via]
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The Art of Courtly Loveby Andreas Capellanus, John Jay ParryISBN 0231073054 (0-231-07305-4)
Softcover, Columbia Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Art of Courtly Love'Book summary:Marriage is no real excuse for not loving. & nbsp;& nbsp; That which a lover takes against the will of his beloved has no relish. & nbsp;& nbsp; When made public love rarely endures. & nbsp;& nbsp;Love can deny nothing to love.Published in the twelfth century, Andreas Capellanus's canonical The Art of Courtly Love had a major impact on the culture of medieval Europeans and relates centrally to Arthurian romance, troubadour lyric, and other genres. More than just a list of rules and advice, the book has been remarkably influential in modern understandings of the Middle Ages, especially of the phenomena known as courtly love. Is it a time capsule of social laws and customs that prevailed in courts? Or was it a flight of fancy that mocked such etiquette? Debates over its nature and meaning have been unending. Its style and concerns contributed long and significantly to English literature, and for centuries its attitudes and practices reflected and may even have shaped thinking and behavior about love in Western civilization. Renowned medievalist Jan M. Ziolkowski has revised the standard translation of the work from the original Latin, maintaining its lively tone and sophisticated play with character and sentiment. He has also written a foreword highlighting the work's continued relevance and updated the bibliography with new critical sources. [via]
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Arthur and Georgeby Julian BarnesISBN 030726310X (0-307-26310-X)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Arthur and George'Book summary:A real tour de force from masterful author Julian Barnes is Arthur & George, which was short-listed for the 2005 Man Booker Prize. Late-Victorian Britain is brought to vivid life in the true story of the intersection of two lives: one an internationally famous author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the other, an obscure country lawyer, George Edalji, son of a Parsi Midlands vicar and a Scottish mother. They start out very differently. Arthur pursues a career in medicine before he discovers that he is really a writer; George, on his way to becoming a lawyer--near-sighted, timid and friendless--is victimized by locals because he is easy to scapegoat--a half-Indian in lily-white Great Wyrley.
The victimization of George takes the form of nasty letters, the theft of a school key, and finally, the accusation that he has mutilated animals. Meanwhile, Arthur is becoming more and more famous for creating Sherlock Holmes, whom he tries to kill off once and is forced to resurrect because of his fans' outcry. He marries, fathers two children and then, when his wife is invalided by consumption, falls madly in love for the first time with Jean Leckie.
The novel's style is smoothly revelatory. We slowly come to realize that George is half-Indian, that Arthur is the famous Doyle, that the woman he loves, chastely, is not his wife and, sadly, that George will not prevail over the forces ranged against him.
When George, desperate to resume his law career after imprisonment, sends Arthur the sad chronicle of his history, Arthur sees immediately that he could not be guilty and sets out to clear his name. This case of George's lifts Arthur from the slough of despond into which he has sunk after his wife, Touie, dies. He is guilt-ridden, constantly wondering if he was attentive enough, if she could possibly have known about Jean. Realizing the immense injustice George has suffered, he is shaken out of lethargy and, in Holmesian fashion, sets out to solve the case.
Julian Barnes is a gifted writer of enormous accomplishment. This novel is thoroughly engrossing, filled with Barnes's trademark themes of identity and love, longing and loss, and ultimately, an examination of man's inhumanity to man. --Valerie Ryan [via]
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Austerlitzby Winfried Georg Sebald, Anthea BellISBN 0375756566 (0-375-75656-6)
Softcover, Modern Library
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Austerlitz'Book summary:If the mark of a great novel is that it creates its own world, drawing in the reader with its distinctive rhythms and reverberations, then W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz may be the first great novel of the new century. An unnamed narrator, resting in a waiting room of the Antwerp rail station in the late 1960s, strikes up a conversation with a student of architecture named Austerlitz, about whom he knows almost nothing. Over the next several years, the narrator often runs into his odd, engaging acquaintance by chance on his travels, until finally, after a gap of two decades, Austerlitz decides to tell the narrator the story of his life and of his search for his origins in wartime Europe. Slow and meditative, relying on the cumulative effect of its sedate, musical prose and its dark subject matter (illuminated here and there with hope), Sebald's novel doesn't overturn the conventions of fiction, but transcends them. It is a love story to history and vanished beauty. Don't let the slow beginning turn you away. Austerlitz takes its time getting off the ground, but is well worth seeing in flight. --Regina Marler [via]
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Bacchae and Other Playsby Euripides, James Morwood, Edith HallISBN 019283875X (0-19-283875-X)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bacchae and Other Plays'Book summary:The four plays newly translated for this volume are among Euripides most exciting works. Iphigenia among the Taurians is a story of escape contrasting Greek and barbarian civilization, set on the Black Sea at the edge of the known world. Bacchae, a profound exploration of the human psyche, deals with the appalling consequences of resistance to Dionysus, god of wine and unfettered emotion. Iphigenia at Aulis centers on the ultimate dysfunctional family as emotion is tested in the crucible of the Greek expedition against Troy. And Rhesus, probably the work of another playwright, is an action-packed Iliad in miniature, dealing with a grisly event in the Trojan War. [via]
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Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eightyby Charles Dickens, Iain McCalman, Jon Mee, Clive HurstISBN 0192840568 (0-19-284056-8)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty'Book summary:(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
Charles Dickenss first historical novelset during the anti-Catholic riots of 1780is an unparalleled portrayal of the terror of a rampaging mob, seen through the eyes of the individuals swept up in the chaos.
Those individuals include Emma, a Catholic, and Edward, a Protestant, whose forbidden love weaves through the heart of the story; and the simpleminded Barnaby, one of the riot leaders, whose fate is tied to a mysterious murder and whose beloved pet raven, Grip, embodies the mystical power of innocence. The story encompasses both the rarified aristocratic world and the volatile streets and nightmarish underbelly of London, which Dickens characteristically portrays in vivid, pulsating detail. But the real focus of the book is on the riots themselves, depicted with an extraordinary energy and redolent of the dangers, the mindlessness, and the possibilitiesboth beneficial and brutalof the mob.
One of the lesser-known novels, Barnaby Rudge is nonetheless among the most brilliantand most terrifyingin Dickenss oeuvre. [via]More editions of Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty:
The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevskyby Fyodor Dostoyevsky, David MagarshackISBN 0375756884 (0-375-75688-4)
Softcover, Princeton Review
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The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Including "Notes from the Underground"by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, David MagarshackISBN 0345481267 (0-345-48126-7)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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The Book of Lost Talesby J. R. R. TolkienISBN 0345375211 (0-345-37521-1)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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The Cairo Trilogy : Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Streetby Naguib Mahfouz, Edward W. SaidISBN 0375413316 (0-375-41331-6)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Cairo Trilogy : Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street'Book summary:Naguib Mahfouzs magnificent epic trilogy of colonial Egypt appears here in one volume for the first time. The Nobel Prizewinning writers masterwork is the engrossing story of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britains occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century.
The novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sonsthe tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. Al-Sayyid Ahmads rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination in Palace of Desire, as the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s. Sugar Street brings Mahfouzs vivid tapestry of an evolving Egypt to a dramatic climax as the aging patriarch sees one grandson become a Communist, one a Muslim fundamentalist, and one the lover of a powerful politician.
Throughout the trilogy, the familys trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. Filled with compelling drama, earthy humor, and remarkable insight, The Cairo Trilogy is the achievement of a master storyteller.
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The Castle of Otrantoby Horace Walpole, W.S. Lewis, Lewis. W. S., E. J. CleryISBN 0192834401 (0-19-283440-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Chekhov, Five Major Playsby Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Ronald HingleyISBN 0195022505 (0-19-502250-5)
Hardcover, Oxford University Press
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Child's Garden of Versesby Golden Books Staff, Alice Provensen, Martin Provensen, Robert Louis StevensonISBN 0307102262 (0-307-10226-2)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Child's Garden of Verses'Book summary:First published in 1885, Stevenson's verses so truly reflect the feelings of young children--about being small, the bliss of going up in a swing so high, discovering one's shadow, happiness and sorrow and dreaming--that they have never ceased to be an essential part of a child's library. Robinson's beautiful pictures originally appeared in 1896 in the first illustrated edition. [via]
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A Child's Garden of Versesby Robert Louis StevensonISBN 0307135837 (0-307-13583-7)
Hardcover, Random House Childrens Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Child's Garden of Verses'Book summary:"The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."
With this "Happy Thought," Robert Louis Stevenson speaks for all the delights of childhood. But he doesn't stop there. A Child's Garden of Verses, written over a century ago, is filled to the brim with what are usually considered to be the first real poems written for children. This classic volume is an old friend to the generations of readers who were brought up on "I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me/ And what can be the use of him is more than I can see." In this perfectly lovely edition, the gossamer art of Jessie Willcox Smith (who first illustrated Stevenson's poems in the early years of the 20th century) is reproduced in all its charming glory. Black and white drawings throughout and eight full-page, warmly colorful paintings show beautiful, yet pleasantly imperfect children, busy at their daily activities--climbing trees, watching their reflections in a river, or sick in bed with an army of toy soldiers on guard. Place this on the shelf next to Mother Goose, Dr. Seuss, and Peter Rabbit. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter [via]
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Chokeby Chuck PalahniukISBN 0385501560 (0-385-50156-0)
Hardcover, Doubleday Publishing
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Choke'Book summary:We can more or less deduce the following of the main protagonist in Choke; Victor Mancini is a ruthless con artist. Victor Mancini is a medical school dropout who's taken a job playing an Irish indentured servant in a colonial-era theme park in order to help care for his Alzehimer's-afflicted mother. Victor Mancini is a sex addict. Victor Mancini is a direct descendant of Jesus Christ. Welcome, once again, to the world of Chuck Palahniuk.
"Art never comes from happiness" says Mancini's mother only a few pages into the novel. Given her own dicey and melodramatic style of parenting, you would think that her son's life would be chock full of nothing but art. Alas, that's not the case--in the fine tradition of Oedipus, Stephen Dedalus and Anthony Soprano, Victor hasn't quite reconciled his issues with his mother. Instead, he's trawling sexual-addiction recovery meetings for dates and purposely choking in restaurants for a few moments of attention. Longing for a hug, in other words, he's settling for the Heimlich.
Thematically, this is pretty familiar Palanhiuk territory. It would be a pity to disclose the surprises of the plot but suffice to say that what we have here is a little bit of Tom Robbins's Another Roadside Attraction, a little bit of Don DeLillo's The Day Room and, well, a little bit of Fight Club. Just as with that book and the other two novels under Palahniuk's belt, we get a smattering of gloriously unflinching sound bites, such as this sceptical slight on prayer chains: "A spiritual pyramid scheme. As if you can gang up on God. Bully him around."
Whether this is the novel that will break Palanhiuk into the mainstream is hard to say. For a fourth book, in fact, the ratio of iffy, "dude"-intensive dialogue to interesting and insightful passages is a little higher than we might wish. In the end though, the author's nerve and daring pull the whole thing off--just. And what's next for Victor Mancini's creator? Leave the last word to him, declaring as he does on the final pages: "Maybe it's our job to invent something better ... What it's going to be, I don't know." --Bob Michaels, Amazon.com [via]
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Collected Poemsby Philip Larkin, Anthony ThwaiteISBN 0374529205 (0-374-52920-5)
Softcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Collected Poems'Book summary:One of the best-known, best-loved poets of the English-speaking world, Larkin had a relatively small number of poems published during his lifetime. This Collected Poems, which J. D. McClatchy called "a fascinating and indispensable text" in The New York Times Book Review, brings together not only all of Larkin's published verseThe North Ship (1945), the pamphlet of XX Poems (1953), The Less Deceived (1955), The Whitsun Weddings (1964), and High Windows (1974)but also a vast selection of his uncollected poetry. A brief Introduction by Anthony Thwaite illuminates both the life and verse of this highly perceptive and deeply acerbic poet, a dour yet witty soul whose brilliant writings so often suggest an ongoing conflict between the traditional and the modern.[via]-
The Collectorby John FowlesISBN 0316290238 (0-316-29023-8)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Collector'Book summary:Hailed as the first modern psychological thriller, The Collector is the internationally bestselling novel that catapulted John Fowles into the front rank of contemporary novelists. This tale of obsessive love--the story of a lonely clerk who collects butterflies and of the beautiful young art student who is his ultimate quarry--remains unparalleled in its power to startle and mesmerize.[via]More editions of The Collector:
Complete Greek Tragediesby EuripideISBN 0226307727 (0-226-30772-7)
Hardcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donneby John Donne, Charles M. CoffinISBN 0375757341 (0-375-75734-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne'Book summary:
This Modern Library edition contains all of John Donne's great metaphysical love poetry. Here are such well-known songs and sonnets as "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," "The Extasie," and "A Nocturnall Upon S. Lucies Day," along with the love elegies "Jealosie," "His Parting From Her," and "To His Mistris Going to Bed." Presented as well are Donne's satires, epigrams, verse letters, and holy sonnets, along with his most ambitious and important poems, the Anniversaries. In addition, there is a generous sampling of Donne's prose, including many of his private letters; Ignatius His Conclave, a satiric onslaught on the Jesuits; excerpts from Biathanatos, his celebrated defense of suicide; and his most famous sermons, concluding with the final "Death's Duell." "We have only to read [Donne]," wrote Virginia Woolf, "to submit to the sound of that passionate and penetrating voice, and his figure rises again across the waste of the years more erect, more imperious, more inscrutable than any of his time." [via]More editions of The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne:
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The Custom of the Countryby Edith Wharton, Stephen OrgelISBN 0192840614 (0-19-284061-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Custom of the Country'Book summary:With the publication of this controversial novel, Edith Wharton leveled her most biting critique at the limitations that her society placed upon the ambitious woman.
The Custom of the Country--which Harold Bloom, among others, considers her strongest achievement--takes its name from Fletcher and Massinger's Jacobean play about a medieval custom in which the feudal lord had a right to use the body of any common woman in his domain, either for his own pleasure or for money by prostituting her on her wedding night. In Wharton's American revision, it is the woman herself who ruthlessly sells herself to whatever man she believes can provide her with the success she desires. Undine Spragg is a magnificent antiheroine, viciously and precisely rendered by the author.
With photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn and drawings by Charles Dana Gibson, this Collector's Edition evokes the atmosphere of nineteenth-century New York. It also brings us closer to the author herself, with letters in her hand and other archival traces of her life from the special collections of The New York Public Library. [via]More editions of The Custom of the Country:
Dance to the Music of Timeby Anthony PowellISBN 0226677141 (0-226-67714-1)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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Daughter of Fortune: A Novelby Isabel Allende, Margaret Sayers PedenISBN 038082101X (0-380-82101-X)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Daughter of Fortune: A Novel'Book summary:Oprah Book Club® Selection, February 2000: Until Isabel Allende burst onto the scene with her 1985 debut, The House of the Spirits, Latin American fiction was, for the most part, a boys' club comprising such heavy hitters as Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Mario Vargas Llosa. But the Chilean Allende shouldered her way in with her magical realist multi-generational tale of the Trueba family, followed it up with four more novels and a spate of nonfiction, and has remained in a place of honor ever since. Her sixth work of fiction, Daughter of Fortune, shares some characteristics with her earlier works: the canvas is wide, the characters are multi-generational and multi-ethnic, and the protagonist is an unconventional woman who overcomes enormous obstacles to make her way in the world. Yet one cannot accuse Allende of telling the same story twice; set in the mid-1800s, this novel follows the fortunes of Eliza Sommers, Chilean by birth but adopted by a British spinster, Rose Sommers, and her bachelor brother, Jeremy, after she is abandoned on their doorstep.
"You have English blood, like us," Miss Rose assured Eliza when she was old enough to understand. "Only someone from the British colony would have thought to leave you in a basket on the doorstep of the British Import and Export Company, Limited. I am sure they knew how good-hearted my brother Jeremy is, and felt sure he would take you in. In those days I was longing to have a child, and you fell into my arms, sent by God to be brought up in the solid principles of the Protestant faith and the English language."
The family servant, Mama Fresia, has a different point of view, however: "You, English? Don't get any ideas, child. You have Indian hair, like mine." And certainly Eliza's almost mystical ability to recall all the events of her life would seem to stem more from the Indian than the Protestant side.As Eliza grows up, she becomes less tractable, and when she falls in love with Joachin Andieta, a clerk in Jeremy's firm, her adoptive family is horrified. They are even more so when a now-pregnant Eliza follows her lover to California where he has gone to make his fortune in the 1849 gold rush. Along the way Eliza meets Tao Chi'en, a Chinese doctor who saves her life and becomes her closest friend. What starts out as a search for a lost love becomes, over time, the discovery of self; and by the time Eliza finally catches up with the elusive Joachin, she is no longer sure she still wants what she once wished for. Allende peoples her novel with a host of colorful secondary characters. She even takes the narrative as far afield as China, providing an intimate portrait of Tao Chi'en's past before returning to 19th-century San Francisco, where he and Eliza eventually fetch up. Readers with a taste for the epic, the picaresque, and romance that is satisfyingly complex will find them all in Daughter of Fortune. --Margaret Prior [via]
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Dream of the Red Chamberby Chan TsaoISBN 0385093799 (0-385-09379-9)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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Economic Liberalisation in South Asiaby R.T. ShandISBN 0333931165 (0-333-93116-5)
Hardcover, Macmillan India
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Epitaph of a Small Winnerby Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Susan Sontag, William L. GrossmanISBN 0374521921 (0-374-52192-1)
Softcover, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Epitaph of a Small Winner'Book summary:I am a deceased writer not in the sense of one who has written and is now deceased, but in the sense of one who had died and is now writing. So begins the posthumous memoir of Braz Cubas, a wealthy nineteenth-century Brazilian. Though the grave has given Cubas the distance to examine his rather undistinguished life, it has not dampened his sense of humor. In the tradition of Laurence Sterns Tristram Shamdy, Epitaph of a Small Winner is one of the wittiest self-portraits in literary history.[via]More editions of Epitaph of a Small Winner:
The Essential Playsby Michael Henry Heim, Anton ChekhovISBN 0375761349 (0-375-76134-9)
Softcover, Modern Library
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Euripides Iby EuripidesISBN 0226307808 (0-226-30780-8)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Euripides I'Book summary:In nine paperback volumes, the grene and lattimore editions offer the most comprehensive selection of the greek tragedies available in english. Over the years these authoritative, critically acclaimed editions have been the preferred choice of over three million readers for personal libraries and individual study as well as for classroom use."these authoritative translations consign all other complete collections to the wastebasket."-robert brustein, the new republic"this is it. No qualifications. Go out and buy it everybody."-kenneth rexroth, the nation"the translations deliberately avoid the highly wrought and affectedly poetic; their idiom is contemporary....they have life and speed and suppleness of phrase."-times education supplement"these translations belong to our time. A keen poetic sensibility repeatedly quickens them; and without this inner fire the most academically flawless rendering is dead."-warren d. Anderson, american oxonian"the critical commentaries and the versions themselves...are fresh, unpretentious, above all, functional."-commonweal"grene is one of the great translators."-conor cruise o'brien, london sunday times"richmond lattimore is that rara avis in our age, the classical scholar who is at the same time an accomplished poet."-dudley fitts, new york times book review [via]
Euripides IIby Richmond Lattimore, Euripides, David GreneISBN 0226307816 (0-226-30781-6)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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Euripides IV: Four Tragedies Rhesus, the Suppliant Women, Orestes and Iphigenia in Aulisby Richmond Lattimore, Euripides, David Grene, Frank JonesISBN 0226307832 (0-226-30783-2)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Euripides IV: Four Tragedies Rhesus, the Suppliant Women, Orestes and Iphigenia in Aulis'Book summary:In nine paperback volumes, the Grene and Lattimore editions offer the most comprehensive selection of the Greek tragedies available in English. Over the years these authoritative, critically acclaimed editions have been the preferred choice of over three million readers for personal libraries and individual study as well as for classroom use.[via]More editions of Euripides IV: Four Tragedies Rhesus, the Suppliant Women, Orestes and Iphigenia in Aulis:
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Euripides V: Electra, the Phoenician Women, the Bacchaeby Richmond Lattimore, Euripides, David GreneISBN 0226307840 (0-226-30784-0)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Euripides V: Electra, the Phoenician Women, the Bacchae'Book summary:In nine paperback volumes, the grene and lattimore editions offer the most comprehensive selection of the greek tragedies available in english. Over the years these authoritative, critically acclaimed editions have been the preferred choice of over three million readers for personal libraries and individual study as well as for classroom use [via]
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Five Plays: Ivanov, the Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and the Cherry Orchardby Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Ronald HingleyISBN 0192834126 (0-19-283412-6)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Five Plays: Ivanov, the Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and the Cherry Orchard'Book summary:Chekhov's worldwide reputation as a dramatist rests on five great plays: ivanov, the seagull, uncle vanya, three sisters, and the cherry orchard. All are presented in this collection, taken from the authoritative oxford chekhov, in ronald hingley's acclaimed translation. Hingley has also written an introduction specifically for this volume in which he provides a detailed history of chekhov's involvement in the theater and an assessment of his accomplishment as a dramatist [via]
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Forbidden Colorsby Yukio MishimaISBN 0375705163 (0-375-70516-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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The Ground Beneath Her Feetby Salman RushdieISBN 0312254997 (0-312-25499-7)
Softcover, Picador USA
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet'Book summary:The ground shifts repeatedly beneath the reader's feet during the course of Salman Rushdie's sixth novel, a riff on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth set in the high-octane world of rock & roll. Readers get their first clues early on that the universe Rushdie is creating here is not quite the one we know: Jesse Aron Parker, for example, wrote "Heartbreak Hotel"; Carly Simon and Guinevere Garfunkel sang "Bridge over Troubled Water"; and Shirley Jones and Gordon McRae starred in "South Pacific." And as the novel progresses, Rushdie adds unmistakable elements of science fiction to his already patented magical realism, with occasionally uneven results.
Rushdie's cunning musician is Ormus Cana, the Bombay-born founder of the most popular group in the world. Ormus's Eurydice (and lead singer) is Vina Apsara, the daughter of a Greek American woman and an Indian father who abandoned the family. What these two share, besides amazing musical talent, is a decidedly twisted family life: Ormus's twin brother died at birth and communicates to him from "the other side"; his older brothers, also twins, are, respectively, brain-damaged and a serial killer. Vina, on the other hand, grew up in rural West Virginia where she returned home one day to find her stepfather and sisters shot to death and her mother hanging from a rafter in the barn. No wonder these two believe they were made for each other.
Narrated by Rai Merchant, a childhood friend of both Vina and Ormus, The Ground Beneath Her Feet begins with a terrible earthquake in 1989 that swallows Vina whole, then moves back in time to chronicle the tangled histories of all the main characters and a host of minor ones as well. Rushdie's canvas is huge, stretching from India to London to New York and beyond--and there's plenty of room for him to punctuate this epic tale with pointed commentary on his own situation: Muslim-born Rai, for example, remarks that "my parents gave me the gift of irreligion, of growing up without bothering to ask people what gods they held dear.... You may argue that the gift was a poisoned chalice, but even if so, that's a cup from which I'd happily drink again." Despite earthquakes, heartbreaks, and a rip in the time-space continuum, The Ground Beneath Her Feet may be the most optimistic, accessible novel Rushdie has yet written. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Hija De La Fortuna / Daughter of Fortuneby Isabel AllendeISBN 0320066509 (0-320-06650-9)
Softcover, French & European Pubns
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Kama Sutraby Vatsyayana, Wendy Doniger, Sudhir KakarISBN 0192839829 (0-19-283982-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kama Sutra'Book summary:The Kamasutra is the oldest extant textbook of erotic love. But it is more than a book about sex. It is about the art of living--about finding a partner, maintaining power in a marriage, committing adultery, living as or with a courtesan, using drugs--and also, of course, about the many and varied positions available to lovers in sexual intercourse and the pleasures to be derived from each.
The Kamasutra was composed in Sanskrit, the literary language of ancient India, sometime in the third century, probably in North India. It combines an encyclopedic coverage of all imaginable aspects of sex with a closely observed sexual psychology and a dramatic, novelistic narrative of seduction, consummation, and disentanglement. Best known in English through the highly mannered, padded, and inaccurate nineteenth-century translation by Sir Richard Burton, the text is newly translated here into clear, vivid, sexually frank English. This edition also includes a section of vivid Indian color illustrations along with three uniquely important commentaries: translated excerpts from the earliest and most famous Sanskrit commentary (thirteenth century) and from a twentieth-century Hindi commentary, and explanatory notes by the two translators.
The lively and entertaining introduction by translator Wendy Doniger, one of the world's foremost Sanskrit scholars, discusses the history of The Kamasutra and its reception in India and Europe, analyses its attitudes toward gender and sexual violence, and sets it in the context of ancient Indian social theory, scientific method, and sexual ethics.
"[This] new translation is fascinating, thought-provoking and occasionally even amusing."--Salon.com [via]More editions of Kama Sutra:
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The Kama Sutra Of Vatsyanaby Richard F. Burton, Called Mallanaga VatsyayanaISBN 0375759247 (0-375-75924-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Kama Sutra Of Vatsyana'Book summary:Sir Richard F. Burtons translation of The Kama Sutra remains one of the best English interpretations of this early Indian treatise on politics, social customs, love, and intimacy. Its crisp style set a new standard for Sanskrit translation.
The Kama Sutra stands uniquely as a work of psychology, sociology, Hindu dogma, and sexology. It has been a celebrated classic of Indian literature for 1,700 years and a window for the West into the culture and mysticism of the East.
This Modern Library Paperback Classic reprints the authoritative text of Sir Richard F. Burtons 1883 translation. [via]More editions of The Kama Sutra Of Vatsyana:
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Letters from Africa 1914-1931by Isak Dinesen, Frans Lasson, Anne BornISBN 0226153118 (0-226-15311-8)
Softcover, University of Chicago Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Letters from Africa, 1914-1931'Book summary:"Here is a rich new biographical perspective on the brilliant storyteller whose sophisticated romantic fiction . . . made her an international success and perpetual candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature. . . . [These letters] contain the raw material that was later transformed into her classic memoir Out of Africa (1937). They also reveal her as a highly intelligent and sensitive analyst of a strange new world."Bruce Allen, Christian Science Monitor[via]
"Letters from Africa is literary gold, 24 karat."Alden Whitman, Boston GlobeMore editions of Letters from Africa 1914-1931:
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Literature and the Godsby Roberto CalassoISBN 0375725431 (0-375-72543-1)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Literature and the Gods'Book summary:Brilliant, inspired, and gloriously erudite, Literature and the Gods is the culmination of Roberto Calassos lifelong study of the gods in the human imagination. By uncovering the divine whisper that lies behind the best poetry and prose from across the centuries, Calasso gives us a renewed sense of the mystery and enchantment of great literature.
From the banishment of the classical divinities during the Age of Reason to their emancipation by the Romantics and their place in the literature of our own time, the history of the gods can also be read as a ciphered and splendid history of literary inspiration. Rewriting that story, Calasso carves out a sacred space for literature where the presence of the gods is discernible. His inquiry into the nature of absolute literature transports us to the realms of Dionysus and Orpheus, Baudelaire and Mallarmé, and prompts a lucid and impassioned defense of poetic form, even when apparently severed from any social function. Lyrical and assured, Literature and the Gods is an intensely engaging work of literary affirmation that deserves to be read alongside the masterpieces it celebrates. [via] -
The Madwoman in the Atticby Sandra GilbertISBN 0300025963 (0-300-02596-3)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Madwoman in the Attic'Book summary:This pathbreaking book of feminist criticism is now reissued with a substantial new introduction by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that reveals the origins of their revolutionary realization in the 1970s that "the personal was the political, the sexual was the textual". [via]
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The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imaginationby Sandra M. Gilbert, Susan GubarISBN 0300084587 (0-300-08458-7)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination'Book summary:This pathbreaking book of feminist criticism is now reissued with a substantial new introduction by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that reveals the origins of their revolutionary realization in the 1970s that "the personal was the political, the sexual was the textual". [via]
More editions of The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination:
- The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination: ISBN 0300022867 (0-300-02286-7)
Hardcover, Yale University Press - The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination: ISBN 0300084587 (0-300-08458-7)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
- The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination: ISBN 0300022867 (0-300-02286-7)
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Main Street : The Story of Carol Kennicottby Sinclair LewisISBN 0375753141 (0-375-75314-1)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Main Street : The Story of Carol Kennicott'Book summary:With Commentary by E. M. Forster, Dorothy Parker,
H. L. Mencken, Lewis Mumford, Rebecca West,
Sherwood Anderson, Malcolm Cowley, Alfred Kazin, Constance Rourke, and Mark Schorer
Main Street is the climax of civilization," Sinclair Lewis declared with a typical blend of seriousness and irony. "That this Ford car might stand in front of the Bon Ton Store, Hannibal invaded Rome and Erasmus wrote in Oxford cloisters." Main Street, the story of an idealistic young woman's attempts to reform her small town, brought Lewis immediate acclaim when it was published in 1920. It remains one of the essential texts of the American scene. Lewis Mumford observed: "In Main Street an American had at last written of our life with something of the intellectual rigor and critical detachment that had seemed so cruel and unjustified [in Charles Dickens and Matthew Arnold]. Young people had grown up in this environment, suffocated, stultified, helpless, but unable to find any reason for their spiritual discomfort. Mr. Lewis released them."
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), was born in Sauk Centre, Minne-sota, and graduated from Yale in 1907; in 1930 he became the first American recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Main Street (1920) was his first critical and commercial success. Lewis's other noted books include Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), Dodsworth (1929), and It Can't Happen Here (1935). [via]More editions of Main Street : The Story of Carol Kennicott:
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The Maltese Falcon, the Thin Man, Red Harvestby Dashiell Hammett, Robert PolitoISBN 0375411259 (0-375-41125-9)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Maltese Falcon, the Thin Man, Red Harvest'Book summary:(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
The three classic novels published here in one volume are rich with the crisp prose, subtle characters, and intricate plots that made Dashiell Hammett one of the most admired writers of the twentieth century.
A one-time detective and a master of deft understatement, Hammett virtually invented the hard-boiled crime novel. In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade, a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics, tangles with a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. The Thin Man introduces Hammett's wittiest creations, Nick and Nora Charles, who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. And in Red Harvest, Hammett's anonymous tough-guy detective, the Continental Op, takes on the entire town of Poisonville in a deadly war against corruption.
"Dashiell Hammett is a master of the detective novel, yes, but also one hell of a writer."Boston Globe
Hammett was spare, hard-boiled, but he did over and over what only the best writers can ever do. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before. Raymond Chandler
Hammetts prose was clean and entirely unique. His characters were as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction. The New York Times
As a novelist of realistic intrigue, Hammett was unsurpassed in his own or any time. Ross Macdonald
Dashiell Hammetts dialogues can be compared only with the best in Hemingway. André Gide
Hammett is one of the best contemporary American writers. Gertrude Stein [via]More editions of The Maltese Falcon, the Thin Man, Red Harvest:
Mary Bartonby Edgar Wright, Elizabeth GaskellISBN 0192835106 (0-19-283510-6)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Me Talk Pretty One Dayby David SedarisISBN 0316776963 (0-316-77696-3)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Me Talk Pretty One Day'Book summary:David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of "SantaLand Diaries," a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's. (It's in two separate collections, both worth owning, Barrel Fever and the Christmas-themed Holidays on Ice.) Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path, and his move with his lover to France. Though his anarchic inclination to digress is his glory, Sedaris does have a theme in these reminiscences: the inability of humans to communicate. The title is his rendition in transliterated English of how he and his fellow students of French in Paris mangle the Gallic language. In the essay "Jesus Shaves," he and his classmates from many nations try to convey the concept of Easter to a Moroccan Muslim. "It is a party for the little boy of God," says one. "Then he be die one day on two... morsels of... lumber," says another. Sedaris muses on the disputes between his Protestant mother and his father, a Greek Orthodox guy whose Easter fell on a different day. Other essays explicate his deep kinship with his eccentric mom and absurd alienation from his IBM-exec dad: "To me, the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests."
Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. He thwarts his North Carolina speech therapist ("for whom the word pen had two syllables") by cleverly avoiding all words with s sounds, which reveal the lisp she sought to correct. His midget guitar teacher, Mister Mancini, is unaware that Sedaris doesn't share his obsession with breasts, and sings "Light My Fire" all wrong--"as if he were a Webelo scout demanding a match." As a remarkably unqualified teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sedaris had his class watch soap operas and assign "guessays" on what would happen in the next day's episode.
It all adds up to the most distinctively skewed autobiography since Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. The only possible reason not to read this book is if you'd rather hear the author's intrinsically funny speaking voice narrating his story. In that case, get Me Talk Pretty One Day on audio. --Tim Appelo [via]
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Mutiny on the Bountyby Charles Nordhoff, James N. HallISBN 0316611689 (0-316-61168-9)
Softcover, Little Brown & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mutiny on the Bounty'Book summary:Cherished as one of the most thrilling sea adventures ever recorded, Mutiny on the Bounty has sold millions of copies and enthralled generations of readers around the world in the seven decades since its initial publication. The novel reprises a true story-the strange, eventful, and tragic voyage of His Majesty's Ship Bounty in 1788-1789, which culminated in Fletcher Christian's mutiny against Captain Bligh-and reaches peaks of narrative excitement that mark the book indelibly as a modern classic. [via]
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Oroonokoby Aphra Behn, Catherine Gallagher, Simon SternISBN 0312108133 (0-312-10813-3)
Softcover, Bedford/st Martins
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Out of Africaby Isak DinesenISBN 0375508457 (0-375-50845-7)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Out of Africa'Book summary:In this book, the author of Seven Gothic Tales gives a true account of her life on her plantation in Kenya. She tells with classic simplicity of the ways of the country and the natives: of the beauty of the Ngong Hills and coffee trees in blossom: of her guests, from the Prince of Wales to Knudsen, the old charcoal burner, who visited her: of primitive festivals: of big game that were her near neighbors--lions, rhinos, elephants, zebras, buffaloes--and of Lulu, the little gazelle who came to live with her, unbelievably ladylike and beautiful.
The Random House colophon made its debut in February 1927 on the cover of a little pamphlet called "Announcement Number One." Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, the company's founders, had acquired the Modern Library from publishers Boni and Liveright two years earlier. One day, their friend the illustrator Rockwell Kent stopped by their office. Cerf later recalled, "Rockwell was sitting at my desk facing Donald, and we were talking about doing a few books on the side, when suddenly I got an inspiration and said, 'I've got the name for our publishing house. We just said we were go-ing to publish a few books on the side at random. Let's call it Random House.' Donald liked the idea, and Rockwell Kent said, 'That's a great name. I'll draw your trademark.' So, sitting at my desk, he took a piece of paper and in five minutes drew Random House, which has been our colophon ever since." Throughout the years, the mission of Random House has remained consistent: to publish books of the highest quality, at random. We are proud to continue this tradition today.
This edition is set from the first American edition of 1937 and commemorates the seventy-fifth anniversary of Random House. [via]More editions of Out of Africa:
The Pathfinderby James Fenimore CooperISBN 0192829564 (0-19-282956-4)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pathfinder'Book summary:The Pathfinder (1840), Cooper's most picturesque novel and the fourth of the five Leatherstocking Tales, is a naval story set on the Great Lakes of the 1750s. Fashioned from Cooper's own experience as a midshipman on Lake Ontario in 1808-09, the novel revives Natty Bumpo (who had died in The Prairie), and illuminates Cooper's interest in American history with his concern for social development. [via]
Petersburgby Andrey BelyISBN 0253202191 (0-253-20219-1)
Softcover, Indiana Univ Pr
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The Pioneersby James Fenimore Cooper, James D. WallaceISBN 0192828029 (0-19-282802-9)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pioneers'Book summary:The first of the five Leatherstocking Tales, The Pioneers is perhaps the most realistic and beautiful of the series. Drawing on his own experiences, Cooper brilliantly describes Frontier life, providing a fascinating backdrop to the real heart of the novel--the competing claims to land ownership of Native Americans and settlers. This edition follows the publication of The Last of the Mohicans in the World's Classics series and uses the standard text approved by the Modern Language Association. [via]
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The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubasby Gregory Rabassa, Joaquim Maria MacHado De AssisISBN 0195101693 (0-19-510169-3)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas'Book summary:Fans of Latin American literature will be thrilled by Oxford University Press's new translations of works by 19th-century Brazilian author Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis. His novels are both heartbreaking and comic; his limning of a colonial Brazil in flux is both perceptive and remarkably modern. The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas is written as an autobiography, a chronicle of the erotic misadventures of its narrator, Brás Cubas--who happens to be dead. In pursuit of love and progeny, Cubas rejects the women who want him and aspires to the ones who reject him. In the end, he dies unloved and without heirs, yet he somehow manages to turn this bitter pill into a victory of sorts. What makes Memoirs stand up 100 years after the book was written is Machado's biting humor, brilliant prose, and profound understanding of all the vagaries of human behavior. [via]
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The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubasby Joaquim Maria MacHado De Assis, Gregory RabassaISBN 0195101707 (0-19-510170-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas'Book summary:Fans of Latin American literature will be thrilled by Oxford University Press's new translations of works by 19th-century Brazilian author Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis. His novels are both heartbreaking and comic; his limning of a colonial Brazil in flux is both perceptive and remarkably modern. The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas is written as an autobiography, a chronicle of the erotic misadventures of its narrator, Brás Cubas--who happens to be dead. In pursuit of love and progeny, Cubas rejects the women who want him and aspires to the ones who reject him. In the end, he dies unloved and without heirs, yet he somehow manages to turn this bitter pill into a victory of sorts. What makes Memoirs stand up 100 years after the book was written is Machado's biting humor, brilliant prose, and profound understanding of all the vagaries of human behavior. [via]
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Quicksilverby Neal StephensonISBN 0380977427 (0-380-97742-7)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Quicksilver'Book summary:In Quicksilver, the first volume of the "Baroque Cycle," Neal Stephenson launches his most ambitious work to date. The novel, divided into three books, opens in 1713 with the ageless Enoch Root seeking Daniel Waterhouse on the campus of what passes for MIT in eighteenth-century Massachusetts. Daniel, Enoch's message conveys, is key to resolving an explosive scientific battle of preeminence between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over the development of calculus. As Daniel returns to London aboard the Minerva, readers are catapulted back half a century to recall his years at Cambridge with young Isaac. Daniel is a perfect historical witness. Privy to Robert Hooke's early drawings of microscope images and with associates among the English nobility, religious radicals, and the Royal Society, he also befriends Samuel Pepys, risks a cup of coffee, and enjoys a lecture on Belgian waffles and cleavage-all before the year 1700.
In the second book, Stephenson introduces Jack Shaftoe and Eliza. "Half-Cocked" Jack (also know as the "King of the Vagabonds") recovers the English Eliza from a Turkish harem. Fleeing the siege of Vienna, the two journey across Europe driven by Eliza's lust for fame, fortune, and nobility. Gradually, their circle intertwines with that of Daniel in the third book of the novel.
The book courses with Stephenson's scholarship but is rarely bogged down in its historical detail. Stephenson is especially impressive in his ability to represent dialogue over the evolving worldview of seventeenth-century scientists and enliven the most abstruse explanation of theory. Though replete with science, the novel is as much about the complex struggles for political ascendancy and the workings of financial markets. Further, the novel's literary ambitions match its physical size. Stephenson narrates through epistolary chapters, fragments of plays and poems, journal entries, maps, drawings, genealogic tables, and copious contemporary epigrams. But, caught in this richness, the prose is occasionally neglected and wants editing. Further, anticipating a cycle, the book does not provide a satisfying conclusion to its 900 pages. These are minor quibbles, though. Stephenson has matched ambition to execution, and his faithful, durable readers will be both entertained and richly rewarded with a practicum in Baroque science, cypher, culture, and politics. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]
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Rimbaudby Arthur Rimbaud, Wallace Fowlie, Seth Adam WhiddenISBN 0226719774 (0-226-71977-4)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rimbaud'Book summary:Enduring icon of creativity, authenticity, and rebellion, and the subject of numerous new biographies, Arthur Rimbaud is one of the most repeatedly scrutinized literary figures of the last half-century. Yet almost thirty years have elapsed without a major new translation of his writings. Remedying this state of affairs is Rimbaud Complete, the first and only truly complete edition of Rimbauds work in English, translated, edited, and introduced by Wyatt Mason.
Mason draws on a century of Rimbaud scholarship to choreograph a superbly clear-eyed presentation of the poets works. He arranges Rimbauds writing chronologically, based on the latest manuscript evidence, so readers can experience the famously teenaged poets rapid evolution, from the lyricism of Sensation to the groundbreaking early modernism of A Season in Hell.
In fifty pages of previously untranslated material, including award-winning early verses, all the fragmentary poems, a fascinating early draft of A Season in Hell, a school notebook, and multiple manuscript versions of the important poem O saisons, ô chateaux, Rimbaud Complete displays facets of the poet unknown to American readers. And in his Introduction, Mason revisits the Rimbaud myth, addresses the state of disarray in which the poet left his work, and illuminates the intricacies of the translators art.
Mason has harnessed the precision and power of the poets rapidly changing voice: from the delicate music of a poem such as Crows to the mature dissonance of the Illuminations, Rimbaud Complete unveils this essential poet for a new generation of readers. [via] -
Rimbaud Complete Works: Selected Lettersby Wallace FowlieISBN 0226719731 (0-226-71973-1)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rimbaud Complete Works: Selected Letters'Book summary:Wallace Fowlie's prose translations accompany the original French texts in this, the first complete bilingual edition of Rimbaud's work in prose and poetry.[via]
"This handsome edition, which makes France's most remarkable poet readily available in the U.S., may well be a literary landmark comparable to Baudelaire's introduction of Edgar Allan Poe in France a century earlier."--Anna Balakian, New York Times Book ReviewMore editions of Rimbaud Complete Works: Selected Letters:
The Rise of Silas Laphamby William Dean Howells, Walter J. MeserveISBN 0253350166 (0-253-35016-6)
Hardcover, Indiana University Press
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Roxanaby Daniel Defoe, John MullanISBN 0192834592 (0-19-283459-2)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Salammboby Gustave FlaubertISBN 0320064077 (0-320-06407-7)
Hardcover, French & European Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Salammbo'Book summary:This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. [via]
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The Small House at Allingtonby Anthony TrollopeISBN 0375400672 (0-375-40067-2)
Hardcover, Alfred a Knopf Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Small House at Allington'Book summary:(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed) [via]
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The Story of the Chevalier Des Grieux and Manon Lescautby Abbe Prevost, Angela ScholarISBN 0192840657 (0-19-284065-7)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Story of the Chevalier Des Grieux and Manon Lescaut'Book summary:"The sweetness of her glance, or rather my evil star already in its ascendant and drawing me to my ruin, did not allow me to hesitate for a moment."
So begins the story of Manon Lescaut, a tale of passion and betrayal, of delinquency and misalliance, which moves from early eighteenth-century Paris--with its theatres, assemblies, and gaming-houses-via prison and deportation to a tragic denouement in the treeless wastes of Louisiana. It is one of the great love stories, and also one of the most enigmatic: how reliable a witness is Des Grieux, Manon's lover, whose tale he narrates? Is Manon a thief and a whore, the image of love itself, or a thoroughly modern woman? Prévost is careful to leave the ambiguities unresolved, and to lay bare the disorders of passion.
This new translation includes the vignette and eight illustrations that were approved by Prévost and first published in the edition of 1753. [via]More editions of The Story of the Chevalier Des Grieux and Manon Lescaut:
The Story of the Stoneby Xueqin Cao, David Hawkes, E Gao, John MinfordISBN 0253192668 (0-253-19266-8)
Hardcover, Indiana University Press
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The Story of the Stone: The Dreamer Wakesby Cao XueqinISBN 025319265X (0-253-19265-X)
Hardcover, Indiana Univ Pr
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Theogonyby HesiodISBN 0198141696 (0-19-814169-6)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Thoughts of Blaise Pascalby Blaise PascalISBN 0313205302 (0-313-20530-2)
Hardcover, Greenwood Press, Evesham, The
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal'Book summary:Pascal was a scientist and man of the world who came to be a passionately devout Christian. The fragments of his great defense of Christianity, left unfinished at his death in 1662, survive in the form of the Pensees. This series of brief, dramatic notes on his religious convictions are here translated into English. These thoughts expose Pascal's vision of the world and display powerful reasoning and a profound faith.
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Titus Groanby Mervyn Laurence PeakeISBN 0345270967 (0-345-27096-7)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Tolkein Readerby J. R. R. TolkeinISBN 0345298810 (0-345-29881-0)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tolkein Reader'Book summary:Stories, poems, and commentaries by the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
[via]
FARMER GILES OF HAM
An imaginative history of the distant and marvelous past that introduces the rather unheroic Farmer Giles, whose efforts to capture a somewhat untrustworthy dragon will delight readers everywhere.
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BOMBADIL
A collection of verse in praise of Tom Bombadil, that staunch friend of the Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings.
TREE AND LEAF
Contains On Fairy-stories, Professor Tolkiens now-famous essay on the form of the fairy story and the treatment of fantasy.
. . . and other dazzling works, including an introduction by Peter S. BeagleMore editions of Tolkein Reader:
The Tolkien Readerby J. R. R. TolkienISBN 0345345061 (0-345-34506-1)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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Trout Fishing in Americaby Richard BrautiganISBN 0385290837 (0-385-29083-7)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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Twenty Years Afterby Alexandre Dumas, David CowardISBN 0192838431 (0-19-283843-1)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Twice-Told Talesby Nathaniel HawthorneISBN 0375757880 (0-375-75788-0)
Softcover, Modern Library
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Twice-Told Tales'Book summary:Twice-Told Tales is a short story collection in two volumes by Nathaniel Hawthorne first published in the spring of 1837. The stories had all been previously published in magazines and annuals, hence the name. -- Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Contents: The Gray Champion Sunday At Home The Wedding Knell The Minister's Black Veil The Maypole Of Merry Mount The Gentle Boy Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe Little Annie's Ramble Wakefield A Rill From The Town-pump The Great CarbuncleThe Prophetic PicturesDavid SwanSights From A Steeple The Hollow Of The Three Hills The Toll-Gatherer's DayThe Vision of The Fountain Fancy's Show-boxDr. Heidegger's Experiment Legends of The Province House:I Howe's Masquerade II Edward Randolph's Portrait III Lady Eleanore's Mantle IV Old Esther Dudley The Haunted Mind The Village UncleThe Ambitious Guest The Sister-Years Snowflakes The Seven Vagabonds The White Old Maid Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure Chippings With A Chisel The Shaker Bridal Night-SketchesEndicott And The Red Cross The Lily's QuestFootprints On The Seashore Edward Fane's Rosebud The Threefold Destiny More e-Books from MobileReference - Best Books. Best Price. Best Search and Navigation (TM) All fiction books are only $0.99. All collections are only $5.99Designed for optimal navigation on Kindle and other electronic devices Search for any title: enter mobi (shortened MobileReference) and a keyword; for example: mobi ShakespeareTo view all books, click on the MobileReference link next to a book title Literary Classics: Over 10,000 complete works by Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Dickens, Tolstoy, and other authors. All books feature hyperlinked table of contents, footnotes, and author biography. Books are also available as collections, organized by an author. Collections simplify book access through categorical, alphabetical, and chronological indexes. They offer lower price, convenience of one-time download, and reduce clutter of titles in your digital library. Religion: The Illustrated King James Bible, American Standard Bible, World English Bible (Modern Translation), Mormon Church's Sacred Texts Philosophy: Rousseau, Spinoza, Plato, Aristotle, Marx, Engels Travel Guides and Phrasebooks for All Major Cities: New York, Paris, London, Rome, Venice, Prague, Beijing, Greece Medical Study Guides: Anatomy and Physiology, Pharmacology, Abbreviations and Terminology, Human Nervous System, Biochemistry College Study Guides: FREE Weight and Measures, Physics, Math, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Statistics, Languages, Philosophy, Psychology, Mythology History: Art History, American Presidents, U.S. History, Encyclopedias of Roman Empire, Ancient Egypt Health: Acupressure Guide, First Aid Guide, Art of Love, Cookbook, Cocktails, Astrology Reference: The World's Biggest Mobile Encyclopedia; CIA World Factbook, Illustrated Encyclopedias of Birds, Mammals [via]
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Vicar of Wakefieldby Oliver GoldsmithISBN 0192839403 (0-19-283940-3)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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The Vicomte De Bragelonneby Alexandre Dumas, David CowardISBN 0192834630 (0-19-283463-0)
Softcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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Waitingby Ha JinISBN 0375706410 (0-375-70641-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Waiting'Book summary:"Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu." Like a fairy tale, Ha Jin's masterful novel of love and politics begins with a formula--and like a fairy tale, Waiting uses its slight, deceptively simple framework to encompass a wide range of truths about the human heart. Lin Kong is a Chinese army doctor trapped in an arranged marriage that embarrasses and repels him. (Shuyu has country ways, a withered face, and most humiliating of all, bound feet.) Nevertheless, he's content with his tidy military life, at least until he falls in love with Manna, a nurse at his hospital. Regulations forbid an army officer to divorce without his wife's consent--until 18 years have passed, that is, after which he is free to marry again. So, year after year Lin asks his wife for his freedom, and year after year he returns from the provincial courthouse: still married, still unable to consummate his relationship with Manna. Nothing feeds love like obstacles placed in its way--right? But Jin's novel answers the question of what might have happened to Romeo and Juliet had their romance been stretched out for several decades. In the initial confusion of his chaste love affair, Lin longs for the peace and quiet of his "old rut." Then killing time becomes its own kind of rut, and in the end, he is forced to conclude that he "waited eighteen years just for the sake of waiting."
There's a political allegory here, of course, but it grows naturally from these characters' hearts. Neither Lin nor Manna is especially ideological, and the tumultuous events occurring around them go mostly unnoticed. They meet during a forced military march, and have their first tender moment during an opera about a naval battle. (While the audience shouts, "Down with Japanese Imperialism!" the couple holds hands and gazes dreamily into each other's eyes.) When Lin is in Goose Village one summer, a mutual acquaintance rapes Manna; years later, the rapist appears on a TV report titled "To Get Rich Is Glorious," after having made thousands in construction. Jin resists hammering ideological ironies like these home, but totalitarianism's effects on Lin are clear:
Let me tell you what really happened, the voice said. All those years you waited torpidly, like a sleepwalker, pulled and pushed about by others' opinions, by external pressure, by your illusions, by the official rules you internalized. You were misled by your own frustration and passivity, believing that what you were not allowed to have was what your heart was destined to embrace.
Ha Jin himself served in the People's Liberation Army, and in fact left his native country for the U.S. only in 1985. That a non-native speaker can produce English of such translucence and power is truly remarkable--but really, his prose is the least of the miracles here. Improbably, Jin makes an unconsummated 18-year love affair loom as urgent as political terror or war, while history-changing events gain the immediacy of a domestic dilemma. Gracefully phrased, impeccably paced, Waiting is the kind of realist novel you thought was no longer being written. --Mary Park [via] -
The Wardenby Anthony Trollope, Frederick Page, Michael Sadleir, Edward Ardizzone, David SkiltonISBN 0195208080 (0-19-520808-0)
Hardcover, Oxford Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Warden'Book summary:This book is intended for general; all Trollope fans, students of Victorian literature. [via]
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A Wild Sheep Chase: Library Editionby Alfred Birnbaum, Haruki MurakamiISBN 037571894X (0-375-71894-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Wild Sheep Chase: Library Edition'Book summary:As with many of Haruki Murakami's novels, the plot curdles with complex diversity only to be resolved by a collision between wild fantasy and outright slapstick. A Wild Sheep Chase refers aptly to the tradition of cool but kitsch detective sagas. Except here, the metaphoric goose is now a literal sheep with a distinctive marking; an urban myth with the promise of immortality.
The anonymous narrator is a mild-mannered thirtysomething with a more than understanding attitude--things happen because they are supposed to and there's no sense standing in the way of progress or nature. It takes the disappearance of a friend and some gentle intimidation from a right wing conglomerate to break the pattern of apathy and send him off on his adventure.
Murakami's detail of the most mundane situations makes his lead character endearing. Those who've read Murakami before will recognise that certain empathy for the strange thoughts and rituals that are now hallmarks of his wry humour. Although an unlikely hero, the quest for a missing friend and the support of a lover with mysterious ears takes him off in search of the elusive sheep in a bizarre adventure--danger and absurdity hindering every movement. --David Trueman [via]
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Histoire Du Chevalier Des Grieux Et De Manon Lescautby Abbe PrevostISBN 0320064204 (0-320-06420-4)
Softcover, French & European Pubns
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