books tagged “pjk”

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]

The New York Times Bestseller

Boston, 1865. A series of murders, all of them inspired by scenes in Dantes Inferno. Only an elite group of Americas first Dante scholarsHenry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and J. T. Fieldscan solve the mystery. With the police baffled, more lives endangered, and Dantes literary future at stake, the Dante Club must shed its sheltered literary existence and find the killer. [via]

A faithful yet totally original contemporary spin on a classic, Dante's Inferno as interpreted by acclaimed artist Sandow Birk and writer Marcus Sanders is a journey through a Hell that bears an eerie semblance to our own world. Birk, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as one of "realism's edgier, more visionary painters," offers extraordinarily nuanced and vivid illustrations inspired by Gustave Dore's famous engravings. This modern interpretation depicts an infernal landscape infested with mini-malls, fast food restaurants, ATMs, and other urban fixtures, and a text that cleverly incorporates urban slang and references to modern events and people (as Dante did in his own time). Previously published in a deluxe, fine-press edition to wide praise, and accompanied by national exhibitions, this striking paperback edition of Dante's Inferno is a genuinely provocative and insightful adaptation for a new generation of readers. [via]

With the publication of Dante's Paradiso, Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders complete their literary and artistic achievementthe retelling of The Divine Comedy in contemporary words and images. Hailed as "inspired" by the The London Review of Books, Birk and Sanders's adaptation of Dante's classic work is true to the spirit of the original and is as acerbic and shockingly funny today as in thirteenth-century Italy. With a text that incorporates modern slang and references to anachronistically recent public figures, Birk and Sanders pay tribute to Dante's linguistic approach and clever politics. Birk's striking spin on Gustave Dor's famous engravings accompany the cantos. Together they lend the timeless poem a postmodern edge. A major retrospective of all of Birk's illustrations and paintings for the trilogy will be held at the San Jose Museum of Art in August 2005 in tribute to a masterpiece for our times. [via]

Following the acclaim for their innovative edition of Dante's Inferno, Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders guide us to the next level of the afterlife in Dante's Purgatorio. The second book of Dante Alighieri's classic poem The Divine Comedy, this version of Purgatorio couples a clever literary adaptation incorporating modern urban speech and contemporary references with powerful illustrations inspired by Gustave Dor's famous engravings. Whereas Inferno was primarily situated in a city that bears a curious resemblance to modern Los Angeles, Purgatorio is set in a surreal San Francisco Bay Area, an outlandish and hopeful milieu for those who have a chance to wash their sins away. Together, the sardonic yet playful combination of text and images comprise a vivid retelling of this masterpiece. [via]

Frankenstein, loved by many decades of readers and praised by such eminent literary critics as Harold Bloom, seems hardly to need a recommendation. If you haven't read it recently, though, you may not remember the sweeping force of the prose, the grotesque, surreal imagery, and the multilayered doppelgänger themes of Mary Shelley's masterpiece. As fantasy writer Jane Yolen writes of this (the reviewer's favorite) edition, "The strong black and whites of the main text [illustrations] are dark and brooding, with unremitting shadows and stark contrasts. But the central conversation with the monster--who owes nothing to the overused movie image & but is rather the novel's charnel-house composite--is where [Barry] Moser's illustrations show their greatest power ... The viewer can all but smell the powerful stench of the monster's breath as its words spill out across the page. Strong book-making for one of the world's strongest and most remarkable books." Includes an illuminating afterword by Joyce Carol Oates. [via]

Goethe said that all his works were "one long confession," and certainly into Faust, this greatest masterwork of German literature, on which he worked sixty years, he welded his own search for meaning of existence and of the soul.

Grendel is a beautiful and heartbreaking modern retelling of the Beowulf epic from the point of view of the monster, Grendel, the villain of the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon epic. This book benefits from both of Gardner's careers: in addition to his work as a novelist, Gardner was a noted professor of medieval literature and a scholar of ancient languages. [via]

With three million copies in print, the Griffin & Sabine Trilogy has captivated readers worldwid with the saga of two unlikely lovers and the conspiratorial thrill of reading their private correspondence. It has been said that Nick Bantock's innovative fusion of lush illustration, creative storytelling, and pioneering paper technology created a new genre of fiction. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of this landmark publication, Chronicle Books and Nick Bantock have created this limited edition of Griffin & Sabine, available only while supplies last. It includes never-before-seen artwork, a special postcard, and a letter from Nick Bantock himself, all in a new binding. Whether reading it for the first time or the first time in ten years, the magic of Griffin & Sabine continues to weave its spell. A tribute to a legacy, Griffin & Sabine: Tenth Anniversary Limited Edition is destined to become a collector's item.

Visit griffinandsabine.com! [via]

The six titles of the Griffin & Sabine saga are now featured in a deluxe wooden case that includes a special keepsake print. Griffin & Sabine Deluxe Boxed Set features the six beloved titles in the Griffin & Sabine saga: Griffin & Sabine, Sabine's Notebook, The Golden Mean, The Gryphon, Alexandria, and The Morning Star. The books are housed in a handsome wooden case, which also includes a special keepsake print suitable for framing. The Griffin & Sabine books have spent a combined 100 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. They are renowned for Nick Bantock's distinctive artwork, selling over 3 million copies. The six books tell the story of a mystical romance through correspondence, featuring lavishly illustrated postcards and letters that can be pulled from real envelopes. [via]

This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. This book features the table of contents linked to every chapter. The book was designed for optimal navigation on the Kindle, PDA, Smartphone, and other electronic readers. It is formatted to display on all electronic devices including the Kindle, Smartphones and other Mobile Devices with a small display. ************ Translated by J. H. Wisdom & Marr Murray A Hero of Our Time is a short novel by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1839 and revised in 1841. It is an example of the superfluous man novel, noted for its compelling Byronic hero (or anti-hero) Pechorin and for the beautiful descriptions of the Caucasus. There are several English translations, including one by Vladimir Nabokov in 1958.  Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 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 $5.99. Search for any title, enter MobileReference and keyword; for example: MobileReference ShakespeareTo view all books, click on the MobileReference link next to a book title Literary Classics: Over 4,000 complete works by Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Dostoevsky, Alexandre Dumas, and other authors Religion: The Illustrated King James Bible, American Standard Bible, World English Bible (Modern Translation), Mormon Church's Sacred Texts Travel Guides, Maps, and Phrasebooks: FREE 25 Language Phrasebook, New York, Paris, London, Rome, Venice, Florence, Prague, Bangkok, Greece, Portugal, Israel - Travel Guides for all major cities and national parks Medicine: Human Anatomy and Physiology, Pharmacology, Medical Abbreviations and Terminology, Human Nervous System, Biochemistry, Organic Chemistry - Quick-Study Guides for most medical/nursing school classes Science: FREE Periodic Table of Elements, FREE Weight and Measures, Physics Formulas and Tables, Math Formulas and Tables, Statistics - Quick-Study Guides for every College class Humanities: English Grammar and Punctuation, Rhetoric and Composition, Philosophy, Psychology, Greek and Roman Mythology History: Art History, American Presidents, European History, U.S. History, American Cinema, 100 Most Influential People of All Times Health: FREE Hangover Remedy, Acupressure Guide, First Aid Guide, Diabetes Care, Asthma Care Reference: Encyclopedia - the World's Biggest English Encyclopedia. 1.5 Million Articles. CIA World Factbook - detailed info and maps for over 270 countriesSelf-Improvement: Art of Love, Cookbook, Cocktails and Drinking Games, Feng Shui, Astrology, Chess Guide [via]

In a comic masterpiece following the misadventures of a simple but hugely ambitious waiter in pre-World War II Prague, who rises to wealth only to lose everything with the onset of Communism, Bohumil Hrabal takes us on a tremendously funny and satirical trip through 20th-century Czechoslovakia.

Wilde was both a glittering wordsmith and a social outsider. His drama emerges out of these two perhaps contradictory identities, combining epigrammatic brilliance and shrewd social observation. This book includes "Lady Windermere's Fan", "Salome", "A Woman of No Importance", "An Ideal Husband", "A Florentine Tragedy" and "The Importance of Being Earnest", which appears in full with the 'Grigsby' scene which originally made up the fourth act. [via]

Translated by Anthony Esolen
Illustrations by Gustave Doré

A groundbreaking bilingual edition of Dantes masterpiece that includes a substantive Introduction, extensive notes, and appendixes that reproduce Dantes key sources and influences. [via]

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]

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]

Here are the books that help teach Shakespeare plays without the teacher constantly needing to explain and define Elizabethan terms, slang, and other ways of expression that are different from our own. Each play is presented with Shakespeare's original lines on each left-hand page, and a modern, easy-to-understand "translation" on the facing right-hand page. All dramas are complete, with every original Shakespearian line, and a full-length modern rendition of the text. These invaluable teaching-study guides also include:



1. Helpful background information that puts each play in its historical perspective.



2. Discussion questions that teachers can use to spark student class participation, and which students can use as springboards for their own themes and term papers.



3. Fact quizzes, sample examinations, and other features that improve student comprehension of what each play is about. [via]

If Jorge Luis Borges had been a computer scientist, he probably would have invented hypertext and the World Wide Web.

Instead, being a librarian and one of the world's most widely read people, he became the leading practitioner of a densely layered imaginistic writing style that has been imitated throughout this century, but has no peer (although Umberto Eco sometimes comes close, especially in Name of the Rose).

Borges's stories are redolent with an intelligence, wealth of invention, and a tight, almost mathematically formal style that challenge with mysteries and paradoxes revealed only slowly after several readings. Highly recommended to anyone who wants their imagination and intellect to be aswarm with philosophical plots, compelling conundrums, and a wealth of real and imagined literary references derived from an infinitely imaginary library. [via]

This book argues the case for a society organized by private property, individual rights, and voluntary co-operation, with little or no government. David Friedman's standpoint, known as 'anarcho-capitalism', has attracted a growing following as a desirable social ideal since the first edition of The Machinery of Freedom appeared in 1971. This new edition is thoroughly revised and includes much new material, exploring fresh applications of the author's libertarian principles.

Among topics covered: how the U.S. would benefit from unrestricted immigration; why prohibition of drugs is inconsistent with a free society; why the welfare state mainly takes from the poor to help the not-so-poor; how police protection, law courts, and new laws could all be provided privately; what life was really like under the anarchist legal system of medieval Iceland; why non-intervention is the best foreign policy; why no simple moral rules can generate acceptable social policies -- and why these policies must be derived in part from the new discipline of economic analysis of law. [via]

The legends of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table have inspired some of the greatest works of literature--from Cervantes's Don Quixote to Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Although many versions exist, Malory's stands as the classic rendition. Malory wrote the book while in Newgate Prison during the last three years of his life; it was published some fourteen years later, in 1485, by William Caxton. The tales, steeped in the magic of Merlin, the powerful cords of the chivalric code, and the age-old dramas of love and death, resound across the centuries.

The stories of King Arthur, Lancelot, Queen Guenever, and Tristram and Isolde seem astonishingly moving and modern. Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur endures and inspires because it embodies mankind's deepest yearnings for brotherhood and community, a love worth dying for, and valor, honor, and chivalry. [via]

RustyRiver offers fast daily shipping and 100% customer satisfaction GUARANTEED! This book is in good condition! [via]

Appears to be New (trade 8/20) [via]

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]

Solzhenitsyn's first book, this economical, relentless novel is one of the most forceful artistic indictments of political oppression in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. The simply told story of a typical, grueling day of the titular character's life in a labor camp in Siberia, is a modern classic of Russian literature and quickly cemented Solzhenitsyn's international reputation upon publication in 1962. It is painfully apparent that Solzhenitsyn himself spent time in the gulags--he was imprisoned for nearly a decade as punishment for making derogatory statements about Stalin in a letter to a friend. [via]

The Nobel prize-winning Albert Camus, who died in 1960, could not have known how grimly current his existentialist novel of epidemic and death would remain. Set in Algeria, in northern Africa, The Plague is a powerful study of human life and its meaning in the face of a deadly virus that sweeps dispassionately through the city, taking a vast percentage of the population with it. [via]

The Princess Bride is a true fantasy classic. William Goldman describes it as a "good parts version" of "S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure." Morgenstern's original was filled with details of Florinese history, court etiquette, and Mrs. Morgenstern's mostly complimentary views of the text. Much admired by academics, the "Classic Tale" nonetheless obscured what Mr. Goldman feels is a story that has everything: "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles."

Goldman frames the fairy tale with an "autobiographical" story: his father, who came from Florin, abridged the book as he read it to his son. Now, Goldman is publishing an abridged version, interspersed with comments on the parts he cut out.

Is The Princess Bride a critique of classics like Ivanhoe and The Three Musketeers, that smother a ripping yarn under elaborate prose? A wry look at the differences between fairy tales and real life? Simply a funny, frenetic adventure? No matter how you read it, you'll put it on your "keeper" shelf. --Nona Vero [via]

A new translation by Anthony Esolen
Illustrations by Gustave Doré
 
Written in the fourteenth century by Italian poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy is arguably the greatest epic poem of all timepresenting Dantes brilliant vision of the three realms of Christian afterlife: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. In this second and perhaps most imaginative part of his masterwork, Dante struggles up the terraces of Mount Purgatory, still guided by Virgil, in a continuation of his difficult ascent to purity. Anthony Esolens acclaimed translation of Inferno, Princeton professor James Richardson said, follows Dante through all his spectacular range, commanding where he is commanding, wrestling, as he does, with the density and darkness in language and in the soul. It is living writing. This edition of Purgatory includes an appendix of key sources and extensive endnotesan invaluable guide for both general readers and students.

A guide to reading "Invisible Man" 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]

Winner of the 1942 Pulitzer Prize in History, it is an authentic, scholarly description of life in Washington during the Civil War, written in a highly readable style. In 2001 a Reader's Catalog Selection, "one of the 40,000+ best books in print." [via]

Nathaniel Hawthorne was already a man of forty-six, and a tale writer of some twenty-four years' standing, when _The Scarlet Letter_ appeared. He was born at Salem, Mass., on July 4th, 1804, son of a sea-captain. He led there a shy and rather somber life; of few artistic encouragements, yet not wholly uncongenial, his moody, intensely meditative temperament being considered. Its colors and shadows are marvelously reflected in his _Twice-Told Tales_ and other short stories, the product of his first literary period. Even his college days at Bowdoin did not quite break through his acquired and inherited reserve; but beneath it all, his faculty of divining men and women was exercised with almost uncanny prescience and subtlety. _The Scarlet Letter,_ which explains as much of this unique imaginative art, as is to be gathered from reading his highest single achievement, yet needs to be ranged with his other writings, early and late, to have its last effect. In the year that saw it published, he began _The House of the Seven Gables,_ a later romance or prose-tragedy of the Puritan-American community as he had himself known it -- defrauded of art and the joy of life, "starving for symbols" as Emerson has it. Nathaniel Hawthorne died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, on May 18th, 1864. [via]

Edited and with Notes by Peter Lancelot Mallios
Introduction by Robert D. Kaplan

In reexamining The Secret Agent in a post-9/11 world, Robert D. Kaplan praises Joseph Conrads surgical insight into the mechanics of terrorism, calling the book a fine example of how a savvy novelist may detect the future long before a social scientist does.

This intense 1907 thrillera precursor to works by Graham Greene and John le Carréconcerns a British double agent who infiltrates a cabal of anarchists. Conrad explores political and criminal intrigue in a modern society, building to a climax that the critic F. R. Leavis deemed one of the most astonishing triumphs of genius in fiction. [via]

A collection drawn from Jorge Luis Borges' lectures.

No doubt Aristotle just rolled over in his grave on the release of The Simpsons and Philosophy. An essay called "Homer and Aristotle" would appear to be a treatise on two ancient Greek thinkers; in this case, it is a depiction of Homer Simpson's Aristotelian virtues. Raja Halwani's "Homeric" essay is amusing though and moreover it actually ends up being enlightening, especially for those just learning Aristotle's ethics. Bart may be a Nietzschean without knowing it, Mr Burns is a cipher for unhappiness (except when he eats "so-called 'iced-cream'"), and Ned Flanders raises questions about neighbourly love. The book has a lot to say about the Simpsons and even more to say about philosophy.

The Simpsons and Philosophy collects 18 essays into an unpretentious, tongue-in-cheek and surprisingly intelligent look at philosophy through the lens of Matt Groening's vaunted animated series. The editors are quick to point out that they don't think "The Simpsons is the equivalent of history's best works of literature--but it nevertheless is just deep enough and certainly funny enough, to warrant serious attention". The writers of the book are mostly professional philosophers and they are appropriately erudite. But what is truly astonishing, even for a confessed Simpsons addict, is their breadth of Simpsons knowledge, spanning all 12 seasons of the show's history. The Simpsons and Philosophy is obviously not intended to be a turning point in modern thought but it is an excellent introduction to some core elements of philosophy. --Eric de Place [via]

In this enchanting retelling, Shakespeare's magical tale is brought brilliantly to life for young readers. When the wizard Prospero seeks revenge on his enemies, his beautiful daughter, Miranda, combines forces with the playful sprite Ariel and the handsome Prince Ferdinand to teach him the power of love and forgiveness. Through exquisitely crafted prose and luminous paintings, adventure, romance, and reconciliation unfold amidst hilarious mix-ups and magic, reminding us why The Tempest, Shakespeare's last comedy, remains one of his most popular plays. [via]

Here are the books that help teach Shakespeare plays without the teacher constantly needing to explain and define Elizabethan terms, slang, and other ways of expression that are different from our own. Each play is presented with Shakespeare's original lines on each left-hand page, and a modern, easy-to-understand "translation" on the facing right-hand page. All dramas are complete, with every original Shakespearian line, and a full-length modern rendition of the text. These invaluable teaching-study guides also include:



1. Helpful background information that puts each play in its historical perspective.



2. Discussion questions that teachers can use to spark student class participation, and which students can use as springboards for their own themes and term papers.



3. Fact quizzes, sample examinations, and other features that improve student comprehension of what each play is about.



[via]

Wells touches gently on time travel as a notion, but mostly The Time Machine is about the terminal future he sees for mankind: His nameless time traveler ventures to the world that will be 802,701 A.D., And there he finds mankind divided among the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi are a gentle, winsome, idle race, who do not labor; the Morlocks, in contrast, are a barbaric race -- who use the Eloi for food. It's a grim vision, and a gripping one. There's a reason that The Time Machine has become a classic. [via]

Though literature, films, and folklore have romanticized pirates as gallant seaman who hunted for treasure in exotic locales, David Cordingly, a former curator at the National Maritime Museum in England, reveals the facts behind the legends of such outlaws as Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, and Calico Jack. Even stories about buried treasure are fictitious, he says, yet still the myth remains. Though pirate captains were often sadistic villains and crews endured barbarous tortures, were constantly threatened with the possibility of death by hanging, drowning in a storm, or surviving a shipwreck on a hostile coast, pirates are still idealized. Cordingly examines why the myth of the romance of piratehood endures and why so few lived out their days in luxury on the riches they had plundered. [via]

The visionary Czech writer Karel Capek (1890-1938), one of the century's great authors, first gained fame during the 1920s and 1930s when his short stories, novels, satires, journalism, children's books, and plays made him the most important writer in his native country. War With the Newts, one of the great dystopian satires of the century, is about the discovery by a Dutch sea-captain of a race of giant, intelligent, talking, and walking newts. When humans begin to exploit the newts as slaves, the creatures organize to fight the oppression, taking up arms and challenging the humans for control of newt destiny and freedom. [via]