| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
books tagged “social commentary” (Social commentary)
books tagged “social commentary”
›› Find signed collectible books by ''
English
-
Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandby Lewis CarrollISBN 1853260029 (1-85326-002-9)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'Book summary:That Alice. When she's not traipsing after a rabbit into Wonderland, she's gallivanting off into the topsy-turvy world behind the drawing-room looking glass. In Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll's masterful and zany sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, she makes more eccentric acquaintances, including Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the White Queen, and a somewhat grumpy Humpty Dumpty. Through a giant and elaborate chess game, Alice explores this odd country, where one must eat dry biscuits to quench thirst, and run like the wind to stay in one place. As in life, Alice must stay on her toes to learn the rules of this game. Through the Looking Glass immediately took its rightful place beside its partner on the shelf of eternal classics. And luckily for generations of enraptured children, Carroll was again able to persuade John Tenniel to create the fantastic woodblock engravings that have become so indelibly associated with the Alice stories. For almost 130 years, Alice's curious adventures have amused, perplexed, and delighted readers, young and old. This gorgeous, deluxe boxed set of both volumes contains engravings from Tenniel's original woodblocks that were discovered in a London bank in 1985, and reproduced for the first time here. "'What is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures?'" What indeed? (All ages) [via]
More editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glassby Lewis Carroll, John TennielISBN 1853261181 (1-85326-118-1)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass'More editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass:
-
American Born Chineseby Gene Yang, Lark PienISBN 1596431520 (1-59643-152-0)
Softcover, First Second
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'American Born Chinese'Book summary:Indie graphic novelist Gene Yang's intelligent and emotionally challenging American Born Chinese is made up of three individual plotlines: the determined efforts of the Chinese folk hero Monkey King to shed his humble roots and be revered as a god; the struggles faced by Jin Wang, a lonely Asian American middle school student who would do anything to fit in with his white classmates; and the sitcom plight of Danny, an All-American teen so shamed by his Chinese cousin Chin-Kee (a purposefully painful ethnic stereotype) that he is forced to change schools. Each story works well on its own, but Yang engineers a clever convergence of these parallel tales into a powerful climax that destroys the hateful stereotype of Chin-Kee, while leaving both Jin Wang and the Monkey King satisfied and happy to be who they are.
Yang skillfully weaves these affecting, often humorous stories together to create a masterful commentary about race, identity, and self-acceptance that has earned him a spot as a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People. The artwork, rendered in a chromatically cool palette, is crisp and clear, with clean white space around center panels that sharply focuses the reader's attention in on Yang's achingly familiar characters. There isn't an adolescent alive who won't be able to relate to Jin's wish to be someone other than who he is, and his gradual realization that there is no better feeling than being comfortable in your own skin.--Jennifer Hubert [via]
More editions of American Born Chinese:
-
American Godsby Neil GaimanISBN 1594970998 (1-59497-099-8)
Hardcover, Public Square Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'American Gods'Book summary:Nota: En los titulos y nombres de autores, los marcos ortograficos han sido omitidos para facilitar las busquedas de Internet.
La vida en la cárcel es dura. Pero siempre queda un rayo de esperanza si sabes que, a la salida, te espera una mujer que te ama, un amigo que te quiere, un trabajo que adoras. . .Todo eso es lo que quiere Sombra, que está a punto de salir de la cárcel. . .Pero un día le comunican que su mujer y su mejor amigo han muerto en un accidente de coche. Entonces, contratado por un extraño anciano experto en timos y estafas que responde al nombre de Wednesday, Sombra empieza un interminable viaje a lo largo y ancho de América, perseguido por el espíritu de su esposa, en el que descubre el límite entre lo humano y los divino, y que las reglas que rigen el mundo de los hombres no son las mismas con las que lose dioses conducen el mundo.
Neil Gaiman vuelve con American Gods a dar lo major de sí mismo y crea una historia en la que dioses y héroes se dan la mano, en la que el destino de la misma alma de Norteamérica está en juego. Con American Gods, Neil Gaiman se ha consagrado como uno autores de terror más importantes del panorama internacional, se ha colocado en los primeros puestos de las listas de los más vendidos de todo el mundo y ha ganado el premio Hugo a Mejor Novela de Ciencia Ficción y el premio Stoker a Mejor Novela de Terror.
Amazon.com's Best of 2001 American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days.
Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.
Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.
More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not. --Therese Littleton --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. [via]
More editions of American Gods:
-
Andersen's Fairy Talesby Hans Christian AndersenISBN 1853261009 (1-85326-100-9)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Andersen's Fairy Tales'Book summary:This collection of over forty of Andersen's most popular stories includes The Mermaid, The Real Princess, The Snow Queen, The Tinder Box, The Ugly Duckling, The Red Shoes and The Little Match Girl. [via]
More editions of Andersen's Fairy Tales:
-
Babbittby Sinclair LewisISBN 1847020399 (1-84702-039-9)
Softcover, Echo Library
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Babbitt'More editions of Babbitt:
Beyond Good And Evilby Friedrich NietzscheISBN 1599869934 (1-59986-993-4)
Softcover, Filiquarian Pub Llc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Beyond Good And Evil'Book summary:He's one of the most debated writers of the 19th century: Nietzsche and his works have been by turns vilified, lauded, and subjected to numerous contradictory interpretations, and yet he remains a figure of profound import, and his works a necessary component of a well-rounded education. This 1885 book serves as both vital introduction to and valuable summation of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole. Here, broken down into bite-size segments are the great thinker's outlook on philosophical bias, religion, morality, virtue, nationalism, free-spiritedness, scholarship, gender relations, and other weighty topics. German psychologist and philosopher FRIEDRICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE (1844-1900) was appointed special professor of classical philology at the University of Basel at the precocious age of 24, but soon found himself dissatisfied with academic life and created an alternative intellectual society for himself among friends including composer Richard Wagner, historian Jakob Burckhardt, and theologian Franz Overbeck. Among his philosophical works are Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and Ecce Homo. ______________________________________ ALSO FROM COSIMO Nietzsche's The Use and Abuse of History, Thus Spake Zarathustra, and The Anti-Christ [via]
More editions of Beyond Good And Evil:
Blacksad: Arctic-Nationby Canales, Juanjo GuarnidoISBN 1596878185 (1-59687-818-5)
Softcover, Ibooks
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Blacksad: Arctic-Nation'More editions of Blacksad: Arctic-Nation:
-
Bleak Houseby Charles DickensISBN 1853260827 (1-85326-082-7)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Bleak House'Book summary:Bleak House is a satirical look at the Byzantine legal system in London as it consumes the minds and talents of the greedy and nearly destroys the lives of innocents--a contemporary tale indeed. Dickens's tale takes us from the foggy dank streets of London and the maze of the Inns of Court to the peaceful countryside of England. Likewise, the characters run from murderous villains to virtuous girls, from a devoted lover to a "fallen woman," all of whom are affected by a legal suit in which there will, of course, be no winner. The first-person narrative related by the orphan Esther is particularly sweet. The articulate reading by the acclaimed British actor Paul Scofield, whose distinctive broad English accent lends just the right degree of sonority and humor to the text, brings out the color in this classic social commentary disguised as a Victorian drama. However, to abridge Dickens is, well, a Dickensian task, the results of which make for a story in which the author's convoluted plot lines and twists of fate play out in what seems to be a fast-forward format. Listeners must pay close attention in order to keep up with the multiple narratives and cast of curious characters, including the memorable Inspector Bucket and Mr. Guppy. Fortunately, the publisher provides a partial list of characters on the inside jacket. (Running time: 3 hours; 2 cassettes) [via]
More editions of Bleak House:
Brand. Newby Jane PavittISBN 1851773231 (1-85177-323-1)
Softcover, Victoria & Albert Pubns
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Brand. New'More editions of Brand. New:
-
Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of Americaby Thomas PaineISBN 1596051434 (1-59605-143-4)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America'Book summary:"These are the times that try men's souls," begins Thomas Paine's first Crisis paper, the impassioned pamphlet that helped ignite the American Revolution. Published in Philadelphia in January of 1776, Common Sense sold 150,000 copies almost immediately. A powerful piece of propaganda, it attacked the idea of a hereditary monarchy, dismissed the chance for reconciliation with England, and outlined the economic benefits of independence while espousing equality of rights among citizens. Paine fanned a flame that was already burning, but many historians argue that his work unified dissenting voices and persuaded patriots that the American Revolution was not only necessary, but an epochal step in world history. [via]
More editions of Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America:
The Communist Manifestoby Friedrich Engels, K. MarxISBN 1599869950 (1-59986-995-0)
Softcover, Filiquarian Pub Llc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Communist Manifesto'More editions of The Communist Manifesto:
-
The Complete Illustrated Stories, Plays & Poems of Oscar Wildeby Oscar WildeISBN 185152102X (1-85152-102-X)
Hardcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Illustrated Stories, Plays & Poems of Oscar Wilde'Book summary:He was brilliant, flamboyant, and unconventional, one of the great figures of his--or any other--age. Although Oscar Wilde's reputation now rests primarily on his sparkling, sophisticated plays with their razor-sharp wit, his body of work goes far beyond even those. Here, in one volume, is the sum of his artistic genius: all his stories, plays, fairy tales, and poems, complete with period illustrations. To find evidence of Wilde's theatrical savvy, one need look no further than The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband, both of which satirize and humorously highlight the hypocrisy of Victorian life. The Picture of Dorian Gray captures a profound knowledge of the depths to which the human soul can plunge, and in the years since it was written, its final moments have lost none of their power. In his fairy stories, including The Happy Prince and Other Tales, written for his own children, Wilde reveals heights of tenderness and beauty. There are classics like the Canterville Ghost and more-more than 850 pages worth! 864 pages (50 in color), 5 3/4 x 8 1/4.[via]More editions of The Complete Illustrated Stories, Plays & Poems of Oscar Wilde:
Complete Works of Oscar Wildeby Oscar WildeISBN 1842050664 (1-84205-066-4)
Hardcover, Cpg Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Complete Works of Oscar Wilde'More editions of Complete Works of Oscar Wilde:
-
Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialismby Cornel WestISBN 1594200297 (1-59420-029-7)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism'Book summary:In his major bestseller, Race Matters, philosopher Cornel West burst onto the national scene with his searing analysis of the scars of racism in American democracy. Race Matters has become a contemporary classic, still in print after ten years, having sold more than four hundred thousand copies. A mesmerizing speaker with a host of fervidly devoted fans, West gives as many as one hundred public lectures a year and appears regularly on radio and television. Praised by The New York Times for his "ferocious moral vision" and hailed by Newsweek as "an elegant prophet with attitude," he bridges the gap between black and white opinion about the country's problems.
In Democracy Matters, West returns to the analysis of the arrested development of democracy-both in America and in the crisis-ridden Middle East. In a strikingly original diagnosis, he argues that if America is to become a better steward of democratization around the world, we must first wake up to the long history of imperialist corruption that has plagued our own democracy. Both our failure to foster peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the crisis of Islamist anti-Americanism stem largely from hypocrisies in our dealings with the world. Racism and imperial expansionism have gone hand in hand in our country's inexorable drive toward hegemony, and our current militarism is only the latest expression of that drive. Even as we are shocked by Islamic fundamentalism, our own brand of fundamentalism, which West dubs Constantinian Christianity, has joined forces with imperialist corporate and political elites in an unholy alliance, and four decades after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., insidious racism still inflicts debilitating psychic pain on so many of our citizens.
But there is a deep democratic tradition in America of impassioned commitment to the fight against imperialist corruptions-the last great expression of which was the civil rights movement led by Dr. King-and West brings forth the powerful voices of that great democratizing tradition in a brilliant and deeply moving call for the revival of our better democratic nature. His impassioned and provocative argument for the revitalization of America's democracy will reshape the terms of the raging national debate about America's role in today's troubled world. [via]More editions of Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism:
-
Dublinersby James JoyceISBN 1853260487 (1-85326-048-7)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Dubliners'Book summary:Classic Irish Literature; Irish Studies; Literary Studies [via]
More editions of Dubliners:
-
Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spiritby Al GoreISBN 1594866376 (1-59486-637-6)
Softcover, Rodale Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit'Book summary:What's most inspiring about Earth in the Balance is who wrote it. It's a big deal, after all, that a sitting senator was willing to write, "We must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization." And that's not all. In his 1992 book, Al Gore also wrote:
I have become very impatient with my own tendency to put a finger to the political winds and proceed cautiously.... [E]very time I pause to consider whether I have gone too far out on a limb, I look at the new facts [on the environment crisis] that continue to pour in from around the world and conclude that I have not gone far enough.... [T]he time has long since come to take more political risks--and endure more political criticism--by proposing tougher, more effective solutions and fighting hard for their enactments.
And the buzz on the street is that Gore actually wrote those words himself.
When Earth in the Balance first came out, it caused quite a stir--and for good reason. It convincingly makes the case that a crisis of epidemic proportions is nearly upon us and that if the world doesn't get its act together soon and agree to some kind of "Global Marshall Plan" to protect the environment, we're all up a polluted creek without a paddle. Myriad plagues are upon us, but the worst include the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of the ozone layer, the slash-and-burn destruction of rainforests, and the onset of global warming. None of this is new, of course, nor was it new in 1992. But most environmentalists will still get a giddy feeling reading such a call to action as written by a prominent politician.
The book is arranged into three sections: the first describes the plagues; the second looks at how we got ourselves into this mess; and the final chapters present ways out. Gore gets his points across in a serviceable way, though he could have benefited from a firmer editor's hand; at times the analogies are arcane and the pacing is odd--kind of like a Gore speech that climaxes at weird points and then sinks just as the audience is about to clap. Still, at the end you understand what's been said. Gore believes that if we apply some American ingenuity, the twin engines of democracy and capitalism can be rigged to help us stabilize world population growth, spread social justice, boost education levels, create environmentally appropriate technologies, and negotiate international agreements to bring us back from the brink. For example, a worldwide shift to clean, renewable energy sources would create huge economic opportunities for companies large and small to design, build, and maintain solar panels, wind turbines, fuel cells, and other ecofriendly innovations.
Gore doesn't mince words when describing just how hard it will be to get out of this jam. Real hope is contingent on a swelling up of concern among the public--and fast. A year into the vice presidency, in an interview with writer Bill McKibben, Gore paraphrased a key passage in his book, "The minimum that is scientifically necessary far exceeds the maximum that is politically feasible." Ah, a political out. Some readers will ask of Gore: what has he done since publishing his book to advance the political feasibility of decisive environmental action? --Chip Giller [via]
More editions of Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit:
-
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Timeby Jeffrey D. Sachs, BonoISBN 1594200459 (1-59420-045-9)
Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time'Book summary:Celebrated economist Jeffrey Sachs has a plan to eliminate extreme poverty around the world by 2025. If you think that is too ambitious or wildly unrealistic, you need to read this book. His focus is on the one billion poorest individuals around the world who are caught in a poverty trap of disease, physical isolation, environmental stress, political instability, and lack of access to capital, technology, medicine, and education. The goal is to help these people reach the first rung on the "ladder of economic development" so they can rise above mere subsistence level and achieve some control over their economic futures and their lives. To do this, Sachs proposes nine specific steps, which he explains in great detail in The End of Poverty. Though his plan certainly requires the help of rich nations, the financial assistance Sachs calls for is surprisingly modest--more than is now provided, but within the bounds of what has been promised in the past. For the U.S., for instance, it would mean raising foreign aid from just 0.14 percent of GNP to 0.7 percent. Sachs does not view such help as a handout but rather an investment in global economic growth that will add to the security of all nations. In presenting his argument, he offers a comprehensive education on global economics, including why globalization should be embraced rather than fought, why international institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank need to play a strong role in this effort, and the reasons why extreme poverty exists in the midst of great wealth. He also shatters some persistent myths about poor people and shows how developing nations can do more to help themselves.
Despite some crushing statistics, The End of Poverty is a hopeful book. Based on a tremendous amount of data and his own experiences working as an economic advisor to the UN and several individual nations, Sachs makes a strong moral, economic, and political case for why countries and individuals should battle poverty with the same commitment and focus normally reserved for waging war. This important book not only makes the end of poverty seem realistic, but in the best interest of everyone on the planet, rich and poor alike. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
More editions of The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time:
-
An Essay on the Principle of Populationby Thomas MalthusISBN 1846373948 (1-84637-394-8)
Softcover, Echo Library
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'An Essay on the Principle of Population'More editions of An Essay on the Principle of Population:
-
Essaysby Francis BaconISBN 1595479643 (1-59547-964-3)
Softcover, Nuvision Pubns
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Essays'Book summary:The Essays, Bacon's chief contributions to literature, were published at various times between 1597 and 1625. This collection contains fifty-eight essays, masterfully written with a spirit of superior confidence. All forms of knowledge are subjected to the interpretation of Bacon's views on life. Compiled from his other works, the essays were intended only as private notes for the perusal of a few friends. [via]
More editions of Essays:
-
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraqby Thomas E. RicksISBN 159420103X (1-59420-103-X)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq'Book summary:Fiasco is a more strongly worded title than you might expect a seasoned military reporter such as Thomas E. Ricks to use, accustomed as he is to the even-handed style of daily newspaper journalism. But Ricks, the Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post and the author of the acclaimed account of Marine Corps boot camp, Making the Corps, has written a thorough and devastating history of the war in Iraq from the planning stages through the continued insurgency in early 2006, and he does not shy away from naming those he finds responsible. His tragic story is divided in two. The first part--the runup to the war and the invasion in 2003--is familiar from books like Cobra II and Plan of Attack, although Ricks uses his many military sources to portray an officer class that was far more skeptical of the war beforehand than generally reported. But the heart of his book is the second half, beginning in August 2003, when, as he writes, the war really began, with the bombing of the Jordanian embassy and the emergence of the insurgency. His strongest critique is that the U.S. military failed to anticipate--and then failed to recognize--the insurgency, and tried to fight it with conventional methods that only fanned its flames. What makes his portrait particularly damning are the dozens of military sources--most of them on record--who join in his critique, and the thousands of pages of internal documents he uses to make his case for a war poorly planned and bravely but blindly fought. --Tom Nissley
Making a Fiasco
Thomas Ricks spent five tours in Iraq during the war, reporting for the Washington Post and researching and writing Fiasco. Like many of the officers he most admires, when he wanted to understand what was happening as American troops encountered stronger and longer-lived resistance to the occupation than expected, he turned to recent and classic accounts of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, from the U.S. occupation of the Philippines through the lessons of Vietnam, and he reports on his favorites for us in his list of the 10 books for understanding Iraq that aren't about Iraq. You can also get a glimpse into his writing process with a much different list he has prepared for us: the music he listened to while writing and researching the book, from Stevie Wonder and Joni Mitchell to Ryan Adams and Josh Ritter. And he took the time to answer a few questions about Fiasco: Amazon.com: As military correspondent for the Post, you have made five trips to Iraq over the last four years. How has it changed over that time?
Thomas E. Ricks: It has been markedly worse each time, in terms of security. On my first trip, in April-May 2003, we would walk out on the streets of Baghdad at night, albeit with caution. Even on my second trip, in the summer of 2003, I would feel comfortable hopping in a car and driving 100 miles north from Baghdad to Tikrit. To do either of those things now would be suicidal. In January and February of this year, Baghdad felt worse to me Mogadishu did when I was there in 1993 or Sarajevo did when I was there a few years later. It appeared to me that there was no security, except what you provided for yourself with armed men and careful planning. One Army major described the city to me as being in "the pure Hobbesian state" in which everybody is fighting everybody.
By the way, contrary to what I see asserted occasionally, most reporters don't live in the Green Zone, the walled-off area in central Baghdad that is the headquarters of the American effort in Iraq. Reporters live out in the city, and I think generally have a better feel for what is going on than do people living in the Zone or on big American military bases. In the area of Baghdad I stayed in, I constantly heard gunfire and explosions. Yet an American colonel told me that my neighborhood was deemed "secure." I think that really meant that U.S. troops could drive through it while heavily armed--say, with a .50 caliber machine gun atop a Humvee--and usually not be attacked.
I worry that what the Americans measure are threats to U.S. troops and the killings of Iraqis. That neglects a huge spectrum of other significant activities--rapes, robberies, kidnappings, acts of extortion, and, most importantly, acts of violent intimidation.
Amazon.com: You cite many strategic errors in the planning and execution of the war, but perhaps the central one is that the U.S. military leadership failed to recognize that they were fighting an insurgency, and their methods of fighting in fact helped to create that insurgency. Can you explain those methods, and their effects?
Ricks: The U.S. military that went into Iraq in 2003 was the best military in the world for fighting another military. But it was woefully unprepared for the task at hand. For example, U.S. military culture believes in bringing overwhelming force to bear. Yet classic counterinsurgency doctrine calls for using only the minimal amount of force necessary to get the job done. U.S. soldiers and their commanders, untrained and unschooled in the difficult art of counterinsurgency, tended to improvise. So in the summer of 2003, some soldiers in Baghdad decided that the best way to deter looters was to make them cry--and they sometimes did this by threatening to shoot the children of looters, and even conducting mock executions.
More broadly, the Army in the fall of 2003 fell back on what it knew how to do, which was conduct large-scale "cordon-and-sweep" operations. These missions scarfed up thousands of Iraqis, most of them fence-sitting neutrals, and detained them. U.S. military intelligence officials later concluded that 85% of those detained were of no intelligence value. The detention experience frequently was humiliating for Iraqis, a violation of another key counterinsurgency principle: Treat your prisoners well. (Your readers who want to know more about this should read a terrific little book by David Galula titled Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice.)
Not every unit was ineffective or counterproductive. I was struck at how successful the 101st Airborne was in Mosul in 2003-04. And some units showed remarkable improvement--the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment had a mediocre first tour of duty in Iraq, but when it went back in 2005 for a second tour, it did extremely well. Col. H.R. McMaster, the regimental commander (and author of a very good book about the Vietnam War, Dereliction of Duty) told his troops that, "Every time you disrespect an Iraqi, you are working for the enemy." I was especially struck by how his regiment handled its prisoners--it even had a program called "Ask the Customer" that quizzed detainees when they were released about whether they felt treated well. This recognized the lesson of past wars that the best way to end an insurgency is to get its leaders to put down their guns and enter the political system, and to get the rank-and-file to desert or switch sides. But it will be harder to discuss the sewage system with the new mayor next year if your troops beat him in his cell when he was your prisoner last year.
Amazon.com: But today's military leadership was formed in Vietnam, when all of those lessons of counterinsurgency were supposedly learned before. Why didn't that experience translate into a preparation for the current conflict?
Ricks: Military experts, such at Andrew Krepinevich (The Army and Vietnam) and Lt. Col. John Nagl (Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife) say that after that war ended, the Army washed its hands of the entire experience and essentially concluded that it was never going to do anything like that again. It was almost as if the very word "counterinsurgency" was banned from official Army discourse.
In Iraq, there was a tiny minority of American soldiers early on who understood how to win the occupation. These generally were civil affairs officers and other Special Forces types. But their wisdom often was disregarded. "What you are seeing here is an unconventional war being fought conventionally," one Special Forces lieutenant colonel glumly commented one day in Baghdad.
Amazon.com: You've been writing about the military for the Post and the Wall Street Journal for years now, and Fiasco is built from the testimony of a remarkable array of sources up and down the chain of command, some off the record but many more on the record. Can you talk about your sources? Is this level of public criticism of a war from within the military precedented??
Ricks: Yeah, reporting the book was a pretty emotional experience. Even having covered this war as it unfolded, I was taken aback by the rage that some officers felt toward the Bush Administration, and especially toward Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. And also toward Paul Wolfowitz, who was then the no. 2 guy at the Pentagon. I think the rage is probably like what the military felt about Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War. What is unprecedented, I think, is that many officers had doubts about the wisdom of invading Iraq, especially in the way we did it.
The emotions also hit me pretty hard at times, especially when I was writing my chapter 13, about how widespread abuse was by American soldiers in 2003-04, often because they hadn't been trained for the mission they faced. I have spent more than 15 years covering the military. I tend to like and admire these people. So when I learned about a 4th Infantry Division soldier shooting an unarmed, handcuffed Iraqi detainee in the stomach, and the investigating MPs saying the soldier should be charged with homicide, and instead the commander simply discharged the soldier from the Army--well, that bothered me.
Another thing that struck me with sources was the mountain of information that was available. I read over 30,000 pages of documents for this book. At the end of one interview a guy gave me a CD-ROM with every e-mail he had sent to Ambassador Bremer, who ran the civilian end of the first year of the occupation. Other people showed me diaries, unit logs, official briefings, and such. Also the ACLU did a great job of obtaining and releasing piles of official U.S. military documents related to abuse--so I could see the time stamp on an e-mail in which an intelligence officer stated that "the gloves are coming off" in interrogations, and one soldier recommended blows to the chest while another wrote back recommending low-level electrocution.
Unfortunately the Army wouldn't release the details of citations for valorous acts by soldiers, which means that the Pentagon made it easier for me to learn about the sins of soldiers than about their acts of bravery. The Marine Corps did give me those "narratives" that support the bestowing of medals, which I really appreciated. Those documents really brought home to me the fierceness of the two Battles of Fallujah, in April and November 2004--probably the toughest fighting American troops have seen since Hue and Khe Sanh in the Vietnam War.
Amazon.com: In the last section of the book, you project a variety of possible scenarios for the next 10 years in the Middle East, mostly grim ones, and just in the past two weeks the sudden violence between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is leading to talk of a wider regional conflict. Where do you think those events are leading us?
Ricks: We are really in unexplored territory. We are carrying out the first-ever U.S. occupation of an Arab nation. This is also almost the first time we have engaged in sustained combat ground war with an all-volunteer force. (I think the suppression of the Philippines insurrection might count as a small precedent.)
Even more significantly, I think the Bush Administration doesn't really like "stability" in the Middle East. In its view, "stability" has been the goal of previous administrations, but pursuing it led to 9/11. It is not the goal, it is the target. So they are for rolling the dice, both in Iraq and in Lebanon. I think the big worry is those wars spilling over borders. Fasten your seat belts.
[via]More editions of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq:
The First Men in the Moonby H. G. WellsISBN 1846375258 (1-84637-525-8)
Softcover, Echo Library
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The First Men in the Moon'More editions of The First Men in the Moon:
-
Frankensteinby Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyISBN 1853260231 (1-85326-023-1)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Frankenstein'Book summary: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]
Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheusby Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Lynd WardISBN 1850790701 (1-85079-070-1)
Hardcover, New Orchard Editions
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus'More editions of Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus:
-
Great Expectationsby Charles DickensISBN 1853260045 (1-85326-004-5)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Great Expectations'Book summary:Considered by many to be Dickens' finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book's narrator, Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character. From its famous dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with some of Dickens' most memorable characters. Among them are the kindly blacksmith Joe Gargery, the mysterious convict Abel Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Haversham and her beautiful ward Estella, Pip's good-hearted room-mate Herbert Pocket and the pompous Pumblechook. As Pip unravels the truth behind his own 'great expectations' in his quest to become a gentleman, the mysteries of the past and the convolutions of fate through a series of thrilling adventures serve to steer him towards maturity and his most important discovery of all - the truth about himself. [via]
More editions of Great Expectations:
-
Gulliver's Travelsby Jonathan SwiftISBN 1853260274 (1-85326-027-4)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Gulliver's Travels'Book summary:With an Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury Jonathan Swift's classic satirical narrative was first published in 1726, seven years after Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (one of its few rivals in fame and breadth of appeal). As a parody travel-memoir it reports on extraordinary lands and societies, whose names have entered the English language: notably the minute inhabitants of Lilliput, the giants of Brobdingnag, and the Yahoos in Houyhnhnmland, where talking horses are the dominant species. It spares no vested interest from its irreverent wit, and its attack on political and financial corruption, as well as abuses in science, continue to resonate in our own times. [via]
More editions of Gulliver's Travels:
-
A Hero of Our Timeby Lermontov, Doris May Lessing, Hugh AplinISBN 184391106X (1-84391-106-X)
Softcover, Trafalgar Square
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Hero of Our Time'Book summary:[via]Lermontovs only novel, A Hero of Our Time examines a weary and cynical man trapped in the futility of his age. Published in the early 19th century, it was to prove a hugely influential work for many subsequent Russian writers. Despite his obvious talents and natural abilities, Pecorin is restless and bored. In a quest for motivation and stimulation, he leaves behind the civilized world of society drawing rooms for the wilds of the Southern Caucasus. Rather than finding the impetus he so craves, he becomes increasingly alienated from those around him. Sickened by the condition of his times, he chooses to reject a life of morality. A probing study of a manand a societyin crisis, A Hero of Our Time was to become a seminal work of its era. Poet and novelist Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov was a leading figure in Russian Romantic literature.More editions of A Hero of Our Time:
-
Hitching Rides With the Buddhaby Will FergusonISBN 1841957852 (1-84195-785-2)
Softcover, Canongate Books Ltd
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Hitching Rides With the Buddha'Book summary:Take a humorist from the Great White North one part Bob and Doug McKenzie, the other Bill Bryson feed him lots of sake, and set him loose hitchhiking his way through polite Japanese society. The result is one of the warmest and funniest travelogues you've read. It had never been done before. Not in four thousand years of Japanese recorded history had anyone followed the Cherry Blossom Front from one end of the country to the other. Nor had anyone hitchhiked the length of Japan. And, as Ferguson learns, it illustrates that to travel is better than to arrive.[via]More editions of Hitching Rides With the Buddha:
I Have Chosen to Stay And Fightby Margaret ChoISBN 1594482209 (1-59448-220-9)
Softcover, Riverhead Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'I Have Chosen to Stay And Fight'More editions of I Have Chosen to Stay And Fight:
-
The Illustrated Works of Jane Austen : Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Northanger Abbeyby Jane AustenISBN 1851520503 (1-85152-050-3)
Hardcover, Chancellor Press
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Illustrated Works of Jane Austen : Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Northanger Abbey'Book summary:With a sharp wit and keen eye, Jane Austen painted indelible, finely realized portraits of Georgian life, with its intricate rules of behavior, social divisions, and delightful diversions. No one bettered her in capturing the sometimes complicated mating dance that led to true love, and her compelling, intelligent heroines are unequalled in all literature--and have also translated wonderfully to film and television. At the same time, her piercing humor exposed the follies of the age and ripped apart characters vain, foolish, greedy, arrogant, and callous. Here are three of her best novels, all in one volume and beautifully illustrated with period images: Sense and Sensibility, a richly textured masterpiece about two sisters with wildly differing temperaments; Emma, with its endearing but deeply flawed protagonist; and the deliciously lighthearted Northanger Abbey. If you've read these before, re-experience the wonder anew; if not, prepare to be captivated with every page![via]More editions of The Illustrated Works of Jane Austen : Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Northanger Abbey:
-
Jane Eyreby Charlotte BronteISBN 1853260207 (1-85326-020-7)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Jane Eyre'Book summary:Good: A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (including dust cover, if applicable). The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels.Some of our books may have slightly worn corners, and minor creases to the covers. Please note the cover may sometimes be different to the one shown. [via]
-
King Richard II: The Life and Death of King Richard the Second the First Folio of 1623 and a Parallel Modern Editionby William ShakespeareISBN 1853260428 (1-85326-042-8)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'King Richard II: The Life and Death of King Richard the Second the First Folio of 1623 and a Parallel Modern Edition'Book summary:The New Penguin Shakespeare offers a complete edition of the plays and poems. Each volume has been prepared from the original texts and includes an introduction, a list of further reading, a full and helpful commentary, and a short account of the textual problems of the play. [via]
More editions of King Richard II: The Life and Death of King Richard the Second the First Folio of 1623 and a Parallel Modern Edition:
Kitty Killer Cultby Nick SmithISBN 1842820397 (1-84282-039-7)
Softcover, Ingram Pub Services
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Kitty Killer Cult'More editions of Kitty Killer Cult:
The Lawby Frederic BastiatISBN 1596059648 (1-59605-964-8)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Law'-
Les Miserablesby Victor HugoISBN 1853260509 (1-85326-050-9)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Les Miserables'Book summary:With an Introduction and Notes by Roger Clark, University of Kent at Canterbury One of the great Classics of Western Literature, Les Miserables is a magisterial work which is rich in both character portrayal and meticulous historical description. Characters such as the absurdly criminalised Valjean, the street urchin Gavroche, the rascal Thenardier, the implacable detective Javert, and the pitiful figure of the prostitute Fantine and her daughter Cosette, have entered the pantheon of literary dramatis personae. [via]
-
Leviathanby Thomas HobbesISBN 1843710269 (1-84371-026-9)
Hardcover, Continuum Intl Pub Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Leviathan'Book summary:In their substantial introduction, the editors examine all previous editions of Leviathan, throwing light on its history, calling into question the assumptions of previous editors, and thus providing an entirely new picture of its production. Through these new perspectives they are able to offer the first complete critical edition, one that takes proper account of the book's publishing history and of Hobbes's own wishes. The result is as definitive an edition of Leviathan as modern scholarship can provide.[via]More editions of Leviathan:
-
A Little Princessby Frances Hodgson BurnettISBN 185326136X (1-85326-136-X)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Little Princess'Book summary:Motherless Sara Crewe was sent home from India to school at Miss Minchin's. Her father was immensely rich and she became "show pupil" - a little princess. Then her father dies and his wealth disappears, and Sara has to learn to cope with her changed circumstances. Her strong character enables her to fight successfully against her new-found poverty and the scorn of her fellows. [via]
The Living Dead: Switched Off Zoned Out the Shocking Truth About Office Lifeby D. BolchoverISBN 184112656X (1-84112-656-X)
Softcover, John Wiley & Sons Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Living Dead: Switched Off Zoned Out the Shocking Truth About Office Life'More editions of The Living Dead: Switched Off Zoned Out the Shocking Truth About Office Life:
-
Love All The People: Letters, Lyrics, Routinesby Bill HicksISBN 1841198781 (1-84119-878-1)
Hardcover, Constable & Robinson
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Love All The People: Letters, Lyrics, Routines'Book summary:'I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out' Bill Hicks could have been on all the chat shows. He could have had his own show on prime time. He could have got rich and fat and frightened. But Hicks didn't go the easy way. He turned down the offers Satan made him. Instead he figured out his best shot at truth and then he said it. He attacked the lies that justified and prettified the carnage of the First Gulf War. He attacked the easy surrender of art to commerce, the demeaning cynicism of the marketing culture and the preposterous power of the mainstream media to confuse and corrupt. This is the first collection of all his stand-up routines, with extracts from his diaries, notebooks, letters and final writings. It reveals Hicks' work as both brilliant conventional stand-up comedy and as more interesting and dangerous: an invitation to a life lived without fear. [via]
More editions of Love All The People: Letters, Lyrics, Routines:
-
Madame Bovaryby Gustave FlaubertISBN 1853260789 (1-85326-078-9)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Madame Bovary'Book summary:With an Introduction by Roger Clark, University of Kent at Canterbury Castigated for offending against public decency, Madame Bovary has rarely failed to cause a storm. For Flaubert's contemporaries, the fascination came from the novelist's meticulous account of provincial matters. For the writer, subject matter was subordinate to his anguished quest for aesthetic perfection. For his twentieth-century successors the formal experiments that underpin Madame Bovary look forward to the innovations of contemporary fiction. Flaubert s protagonist in particular has never ceased to fascinate. Romantic heroine or middle-class neurotic, flawed wife and mother or passionate protester against the conventions of bourgeois society, simultaneously the subject of Flaubert s admiration and the butt of his irony - Emma Bovary remains one of the most enigmatic of fictional creations. Flaubert's meticulous approach to the craft of fiction, his portrayal of contemporary reality, his representation of an unforgettable cast of characters make Madame Bovary one of the major landmarks of modern fiction. [via]
More editions of Madame Bovary:
-
The Man Who Was Thursdayby G. K. ChestertonISBN 1853262366 (1-85326-236-6)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Man Who Was Thursday'Book summary:In an article published the day before his death, G.K. Chesterton called The Man Who Was Thursday "a very melodramatic sort of moonshine." Set in a phantasmagoric London where policemen are poets and anarchists camouflage themselves as, well, anarchists, his 1907 novel offers up one highly colored enigma after another. If that weren't enough, the author also throws in an elephant chase and a hot-air-balloon pursuit in which the pursuers suffer from "the persistent refusal of the balloon to follow the roads, and the still more persistent refusal of the cabmen to follow the balloon."
But Chesterton is also concerned with more serious questions of honor and truth (and less serious ones, perhaps, of duels and dualism). Our hero is Gabriel Syme, a policeman who cannot reveal that his fellow poet Lucian Gregory is an anarchist. In Chesterton's agile, antic hands, Syme is the virtual embodiment of paradox:
He came of a family of cranks, in which all the oldest people had all the newest notions. One of his uncles always walked about without a hat, and another had made an unsuccessful attempt to walk about with a hat and nothing else. His father cultivated art and self-realization; his mother went in for simplicity and hygiene. Hence the child, during his tenderer years, was wholly unacquainted with any drink between the extremes of absinthe and cocoa, of both of which he had a healthy dislike.... Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing left--sanity.
Elected undercover into the Central European Council of anarchists, Syme must avoid discovery and save the world from any bombings in the offing. As Thursday (each anarchist takes the name of a weekday--the only quotidian thing about this fantasia) does his best to undo his new colleagues, the masks multiply. The question then becomes: Do they reveal or conceal? And who, not to mention what, can be believed? As The Man Who Was Thursday proceeds, it becomes a hilarious numbers game with a more serious undertone--what happens if most members of the council actually turn out to be on the side of right? Chesterton's tour de force is a thriller that is best read slowly, so as to savor his highly anarchic take on anarchy. --Kerry Fried [via]More editions of The Man Who Was Thursday:
-
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmareby G. K. ChestertonISBN 1595970010 (1-59597-001-0)
Softcover, Idylls Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare'Book summary:In an article published the day before his death, G.K. Chesterton called The Man Who Was Thursday "a very melodramatic sort of moonshine." Set in a phantasmagoric London where policemen are poets and anarchists camouflage themselves as, well, anarchists, his 1907 novel offers up one highly colored enigma after another. If that weren't enough, the author also throws in an elephant chase and a hot-air-balloon pursuit in which the pursuers suffer from "the persistent refusal of the balloon to follow the roads, and the still more persistent refusal of the cabmen to follow the balloon."
But Chesterton is also concerned with more serious questions of honor and truth (and less serious ones, perhaps, of duels and dualism). Our hero is Gabriel Syme, a policeman who cannot reveal that his fellow poet Lucian Gregory is an anarchist. In Chesterton's agile, antic hands, Syme is the virtual embodiment of paradox:
He came of a family of cranks, in which all the oldest people had all the newest notions. One of his uncles always walked about without a hat, and another had made an unsuccessful attempt to walk about with a hat and nothing else. His father cultivated art and self-realization; his mother went in for simplicity and hygiene. Hence the child, during his tenderer years, was wholly unacquainted with any drink between the extremes of absinthe and cocoa, of both of which he had a healthy dislike.... Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing left--sanity.
Elected undercover into the Central European Council of anarchists, Syme must avoid discovery and save the world from any bombings in the offing. As Thursday (each anarchist takes the name of a weekday--the only quotidian thing about this fantasia) does his best to undo his new colleagues, the masks multiply. The question then becomes: Do they reveal or conceal? And who, not to mention what, can be believed? As The Man Who Was Thursday proceeds, it becomes a hilarious numbers game with a more serious undertone--what happens if most members of the council actually turn out to be on the side of right? Chesterton's tour de force is a thriller that is best read slowly, so as to savor his highly anarchic take on anarchy. --Kerry Fried [via]More editions of The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare:
-
Manifesto of the Communist Partyby Karl Marx, Friedrich EngelsISBN 1596057882 (1-59605-788-2)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Manifesto of the Communist Party'Book summary:"A spectre is haunting Europe," Karl Marx and Frederic Engels wrote in 1848, "the spectre of Communism." This new edition of The Communist Manifesto, commemorating the 150th anniversary of its publication, includes an introduction by renowned historian Eric Hobsbawm which reminds us of the document's continued relevance. Marx and Engels's critique of capitalism and its deleterious effect on all aspects of life, from the increasing rift between the classes to the destruction of the nuclear family, has proven remarkably prescient. Their spectre, manifested in the Manifesto's vivid prose, continues to haunt the capitalist world, lingering as a ghostly apparition even after the collapse of those governments which claimed to be enacting its principles. [via]
More editions of Manifesto of the Communist Party:
-
Mansfield Parkby Jane AustenISBN 1595400370 (1-59540-037-0)
Softcover, Authorhouse
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Mansfield Park'Book summary:Softcover Large Print edition of the third of Austen s published romances. Mansfield Park explores the complex relations of Fanny Price, eldest daughter of an impoverished family that is taken in by Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park. She becomes an indispensable part of the household and soon finds herself involved in the affairs of the headstrong daughter, Maria Bertram, the son, Edmund, and many others. [via]
Martin Chuzzlewitby Charles DickensISBN 1853262056 (1-85326-205-6)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Martin Chuzzlewit'More editions of Martin Chuzzlewit:
-
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Spiritual Teachings And Reflectionsby Watkins, Alan JacobsISBN 1842931202 (1-84293-120-2)
Hardcover, Sterling Pub Co Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Spiritual Teachings And Reflections'Book summary:[via]The spiritual wisdom of the Stoic Emperor of Ancient Rome, translated by George Long, the celebrated English classical scholar. Marcus Aurelius wrote these meditations for his own reflection, but produced perennial maxims that point the way to achieving perfect peace of mind. They have inspired the best of humanity for almost two millennia.More editions of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Spiritual Teachings And Reflections:
Memoir on Pauperism: Does Public Charity Produce an Idle And Dependent Class of Society?by Alexis De TocquevilleISBN 1596053631 (1-59605-363-1)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Memoir on Pauperism: Does Public Charity Produce an Idle And Dependent Class of Society?'More editions of Memoir on Pauperism: Does Public Charity Produce an Idle And Dependent Class of Society?:
-
Metamorphosisby Franz Kafka, David Farr, Gisliorn GardarssonISBN 184002688X (1-84002-688-X)
Softcover, Oberon Books Ltd
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Metamorphosis'Book summary:[via]In this, his most famous story, Franz Kafka explores the notions of alienation and human loneliness through extraordinary narrative technique and depth of imagination. Gregor Samsa awakens one morning to find himself transformed into a repulsive bug. Trapped inside this hideous form, his mind remains unchangeduntil he sees the shocked reaction of those around him. He begins to question the basis of human love and, indeed, the entire purpose of his existence. But this, it seems, is only the beginning of his ordeal. Franz Kafka is one of the most prominent figures of 20th-century literature; his work, much of which was published posthumously, includes The Trial and The Castle. -
Middlemarchby George EliotISBN 1853262374 (1-85326-237-4)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Middlemarch'Book summary:Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury Middlemarch is a complex tale of idealism, disillusion, profligacy, loyalty and frustrated love. This penetrating analysis of the life of an English provincial town during the time of social unrest prior to the Reform Bill of 1832 is told through the lives of Dorothea Brooke and Dr Tertius Lydgate and includes a host of other paradigm characters who illuminate the condition of English life in the mid-nineteenth century. [via]
More editions of Middlemarch:
-
Mrs Dallowayby Virginia WoolfISBN 1853261912 (1-85326-191-2)
Softcover, Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Mrs Dalloway'Book summary:As Clarissa Dalloway walks through London on a fine June morning, a sky-writing plane captures her attention. Crowds stare upwards to decipher the message while the plane turns and loops, leaving off one letter, picking up another. Like the airplane's swooping path, Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway follows Clarissa and those whose lives brush hers--from Peter Walsh, whom she spurned years ago, to her daughter Elizabeth, the girl's angry teacher, Doris Kilman, and war-shocked Septimus Warren Smith, who is sinking into madness.
As Mrs. Dalloway prepares for the party she is giving that evening, a series of events intrudes on her composure. Her husband is invited, without her, to lunch with Lady Bruton (who, Clarissa notes anxiously, gives the most amusing luncheons). Meanwhile, Peter Walsh appears, recently from India, to criticize and confide in her. His sudden arrival evokes memories of a distant past, the choices she made then, and her wistful friendship with Sally Seton.
Woolf then explores the relationships between women and men, and between women, as Clarissa muses, "It was something central which permeated; something warm which broke up surfaces and rippled the cold contact of man and woman, or of women together.... Her relation in the old days with Sally Seton. Had not that, after all, been love?" While Clarissa is transported to past afternoons with Sally, and as she sits mending her green dress, Warren Smith catapults desperately into his delusions. Although his troubles form a tangent to Clarissa's web, they undeniably touch it, and the strands connecting all these characters draw tighter as evening deepens. As she immerses us in each inner life, Virginia Woolf offers exquisite, painful images of the past bleeding into the present, of desire overwhelmed by society's demands. --Joannie Kervran Stangeland [via]
More editions of Mrs Dalloway:
-
New Rules: Polite Musings of a Timid Observerby Bill MaherISBN 1594865051 (1-59486-505-1)
Softcover, Rodale Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer'Book summary:Book Description:
Bill Maher is on the forefront of the new wave of comedians who have begun to influence and shape political debate through their comedy. He is best known not just for being funny, but for advocating truth over sensitivity and taking on the political establishment. Maher first came to national attention as the host of the hit ABC-TV program Politically Incorrect, where he offered a combustible mixture of irreverence and acerbic humor that helped him to garner a loyal following, as well as a reputation for being a controversial bad boy.Bill Maher's popular new HBO television show, Real Time, has put Maher more front and center than ever before. Particularly one regular segment on the show, entitled "New Rules," has been a hit with his ever-growing legion of fans. It is the part of the show during which Maher takes serious aim, bringing all of his intelligence, incisiveness, wit, and his signature exasperation to bear on topics ranging from cell phones ("I don't need my cell phone to take pictures or access the Internet. I just need it to make a phone call. From everywhere! Not just the places it likes!") to fast food ("No McDonald's in hospitals. I'm not kidding!) to the conservative agenda ("Stop claiming it's an agenda. It's not an agenda. It's a random collection of laws that your corporate donors paid you to pass.")
His new book, the first since his bestselling When You Ride Alone You Ride with bin Laden, brings these brilliantly conceived riffs and rants to the written page. Appropriately titled New Rules, the book will collect some of the best of the rules derived from previously written material and will also contain substantial new material, including some longer form "editorials"--of course with a twist and bite that only Bill Maher can deliver.
Rule Breaker: An Amazon.com Interview with Bill Maher
In New Rules: Polite Musings of a Timid Observer, Bill Maher skewers celebrity, pop culture, and politics in his classic acerbic style. With a new season of Real Time with Bill Maher and an upcoming HBO Special (his sixth), Bill Maher: I'm Swiss, on deck, Maher also found the time to host Amazon.com's 10th Anniversary Concert at Seattle's Benaroya Hall. Amazon.com caught up with Maher upon his return to Los Angeles to talk about the book, the comic's night-table reading habits, the Internet, and what's wrong with the media.
Read our Amazon.com interview with Bill Maher
More from Bill MaherBooks: 
When You Ride Alone You Ride with bin Laden
Does Anybody Have a Problem with That?
True Story: A NovelDVDs: 
Bill Maher: I'm Swiss
(DVD)
Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home
(DVD)
Bill Maher: Be More Cynical
(DVD)More editions of New Rules: Polite Musings of a Timid Observer:
North and Southby Elizabeth Cleghorn GaskellISBN 1853260932 (1-85326-093-2)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'North and South'Book summary:With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Patsy Stoneman, University of Hull Set in the mid-19th century, and written from the author's first-hand experience, North and South follows the story of the heroine's movement from the tranquil but moribund ways of southern England to the vital but turbulent north. Elizabeth Gaskell's skilful narrative uses an unusual love story to show how personal and public lives were woven together in a newly industrial society. This is a tale of hard-won triumphs - of rational thought over prejudice and of humane care over blind deference to the market. Readers in the twenty-first century will find themselves absorbed as this Victorian novel traces the origins of problems and possibilities which are still challenging a hundred and fifty years later: the complex relationships, public and private, between men and women of different classes. [via]
More editions of North and South:
Northanger Abbeyby Jane AustenISBN 1596880473 (1-59688-047-3)
Softcover, Large Print Book Co
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Northanger Abbey'Book summary:Though Northanger Abbey is one of Jane Austen's earliest novels, it was not published until after her death--well after she'd established her reputation with works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Of all her novels, this one is the most explicitly literary in that it is primarily concerned with books and with readers. In it, Austen skewers the novelistic excesses of her day made popular in such 18th-century Gothic potboilers as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers all figure into Northanger Abbey, but with a decidedly satirical twist. Consider Austen's introduction of her heroine: we are told on the very first page that "no one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine." The author goes on to explain that Miss Morland's father is a clergyman with "a considerable independence, besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters." Furthermore, her mother does not die giving birth to her, and Catherine herself, far from engaging in "the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush" vastly prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes.
Catherine grows up to be a passably pretty girl and is invited to spend a few weeks in Bath with a family friend. While there she meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, who invite her to visit their family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Austen amuses herself and us as Catherine, a great reader of Gothic romances, allows her imagination to run wild, finding dreadful portents in the most wonderfully prosaic events. But Austen is after something more than mere parody; she uses her rapier wit to mock not only the essential silliness of "horrid" novels, but to expose the even more horrid workings of polite society, for nothing Catherine imagines could possibly rival the hypocrisy she experiences at the hands of her supposed friends. In many respects Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen's novels, yet at its core is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage, 19th-century British style. --Alix Wilber [via]
Oliver Twistby Charles DickensISBN 1853260126 (1-85326-012-6)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Oliver Twist'Book summary:Introduction and Notes by Dr Ella Westland, University of Exeter Dickens had already achieved renown with The Pickwick Papers. With Oliver Twist his reputation was enhanced and strengthened. The novel contains many classic Dickensian themes - grinding poverty, desperation, fear, temptation and the eventual triumph of good in the face of great adversity. Oliver Twist features some of the author's most enduring characters, such as Oliver himself (Who dares to ask for more), the tyrannical Bumble, the diabolical Fagin, the menacing Bill Sykes, Nancy and 'the Artful Dodger'. [via]
More editions of Oliver Twist:
Oliver Twistby Neil Bartlett, Charles DickensISBN 1840024275 (1-84002-427-5)
Softcover, Oberon Books, Limited
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Oliver Twist'Book summary:[via]Taking their inspiration from the vivid world of the Victorian music-hall, a company of 13 actors conjure up a host of unforgettable charactersFagin, Nancy, Bill Sykes, the Artful Dodger and, of course, little Oliver himself. Neil Bartlett is artistic director of the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith and has adapted and translated numerous plays for the stage, many of which are published by Oberon Books.
More editions of Oliver Twist:
Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroomby Lisa DelpitISBN 1595580743 (1-59558-074-3)
Softcover, New Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom'Book summary:An updated edition of the classic revolutionary analysis of the role of race in the classroom.
Winner of an American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Award and Choice Magazine's Outstanding Academic book award, and voted one of Teacher Magazine's "great books," Other People's Children has sold over 150,000 copies since its original hardcover publication. This anniversary edition features a new introduction by Delpit as well as new framing essays by Herbert Kohl and Charles Payne.
In a radical analysis of contemporary classrooms, MacArthur Award-winning author Lisa Delpit develops ideas about ways teachers can be better "cultural transmitters" in the classroom, where prejudice, stereotypes, and cultural assumptions breed ineffective education. Delpit suggests that many academic problems attributed to children of color are actually the result of miscommunication, as primarily white teachers and "other people's children" struggle with the imbalance of power and the dynamics plaguing our system.
A new classic among educators, Other People's Children is a must-read for teachers, administrators, and parents striving to improve the quality of America's education system. [via]More editions of Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom:
Paris: The Secret Historyby Andrew HusseyISBN 1596913231 (1-59691-323-1)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Paris: The Secret History'More editions of Paris: The Secret History:
The Penelopiadby Margaret AtwoodISBN 1841957178 (1-84195-717-8)
Hardcover, Canongate Books Ltd
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Penelopiad'Persepolisby Marjane SatrapiISBN 1594970351 (1-59497-035-1)
Softcover, Public Square Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Persepolis'Book summary:Description del libro en espanol: Persepolis ganadora del Premio al Mejor Guion de Angouleme 2002, e una historia autobiografica de Marjane Satrapi que ahonda en los limites de la libertad y analiza, a traves de la mirada fresca e inocente de una nina, la tambaleante situacion politica e ideologica de su pais. En tres volumenes. Book Description in English: Editorial Review. . .Originally published to wide critical acclaim in France, where it elicited comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran: of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life and of the enormous toll repressive regimes exact on the individual spirit. Marjane's child's-eye-view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a stunning reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, through laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love. In three volumes. [via]
More editions of Persepolis:
Plan B: Further Thoughts On Faithby Anne LamottISBN 1594481571 (1-59448-157-1)
Softcover, Riverhead Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Plan B: Further Thoughts On Faith'Book summary:Few people can write about faith, parenting, and relationships as can the talented, irreverent Anne Lamott. With characteristic black humor, ("Everyone has been having a hard time with life this year; not with all of it, just the waking hours") she updates us on the ongoing mayhem of her life since Traveling Mercies, and continues to unfold her spiritual journey.
Plan B finds Lamott wrestling with mid-life hormones and weight gain while parenting Sam, now a teenager with his own set of raging hormones. Her observations cover everything from starting a Sunday school to grief over the death of her beloved dog, Sadie; lamenting the war to bitterness over her relationship with her now-departed mother.
As she tugs and pokes out the knots in a slender gold chain necklace, it becomes a metaphor for letting go and learning to forgive. "&any willingness to let go inevitably comes from pain; and the desire to change changes you, and jiggles the spirit, gets to it somehow, to the deepest, hardest, most ruined parts." Its her willingness to show us the knotted-up, "ruined parts" of her life that make this collection of sometimes uneven essays so compelling.
"Everything feels crazy," writes Lamott, adding, "But on small patches of earth all over, I can see just as much messy mercy and grace as ever&." Lamotts essays will serve as reminders to readers of the patches of messy mercy and grace in a chaotic world.--Cindy Crosby [via]
More editions of Plan B: Further Thoughts On Faith:
The Political Zooby Michael SavageISBN 1595550720 (1-59555-072-0)
Softcover, Thomas Nelson Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Political Zoo'Politics: Aristotle 350BCby AristotleISBN 1595479996 (1-59547-999-6)
Softcover, Nuvision Pubns
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Politics: Aristotle 350BC'Book summary:This book examines the way human societies are governed and organized. Aristotle establishes how constitutions can be upheld and established by examining how societies are run. A very exciting work in the history of politics. [via]
More editions of Politics: Aristotle 350BC:
The Politics of Friendshipby Jacques Derrida, George CollinsISBN 1844670546 (1-84467-054-6)
Softcover, Verso Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Politics of Friendship'More editions of The Politics of Friendship:
The Princeby Niccolo Machiavelli, W.K. MarriottISBN 1598189360 (1-59818-936-0)
Softcover, Alan Rodgers Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prince'Book summary:"Those who strive to obtain the good graces of a prince are accustomed to come before him with such things as they hold most precious, or in which they see him take most delight; whence one often sees horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments presented to princes, worthy of their greatness. Desiring therefore to present myself to your Magnificence with some testimony of my devotion towards you, I have not found among my possessions anything which I hold more dear than, or value so much as, the knowledge of the actions of great men, acquired by long experience in contemporary affairs, and a continual study of antiquity; which, having reflected upon it with great and prolonged diligence, I now send, digested into a little volume, to your Magnificence." (From the author's dedication to "To the Magnificent Lorenzo Di Piero De' Medici.") [via]
The Prince and the Pauperby Mark TwainISBN 1853261475 (1-85326-147-5)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prince and the Pauper'Book summary:Rich with surprise and hilarious adventure, "The Prince And The Pauper" is a delight satire of England's romantic past and a joyful boyhood romp filled with the same tongue-in-cheek irony that sparked the best of Mark Twain's tall tales. Two boys, one an urchin from London's filthy lanes, the other a prince born in a lavish palace, unwittingly trade identities. Thus a bedraggled "Prince of Poverty" discovers that his private dreams have all the come true -- while a pampered Prince of Wales finds himself tossed into a rough-and-tumble world of squalid beggars and villainous thieves. Originally written as a story for children, "The Prince And The Pauper" is a classic novel for adults as well -- through its stinging attack on the ageless human folly of attempting to measure true worth by outer appearances. [via]
More editions of The Prince and the Pauper:
The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Agesby Mark TwainISBN 159818444X (1-59818-444-X)
Hardcover, Alan Rodgers Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages'Book summary:Twain's story has been adapted and, er, borrowed from so often and so freely that you're probably familiar with it even if you've never read of it: a prince of sixteenth-century England meets his double in the slums of London. The two swap clothes -- and lives. Complications ensue. Tom Canty, the urchin, learns how luxury and power can become the death of a man, while his doppleganger roams his kingdom, learning first hand of the cruelty of the Tudor monarchy. . . .
"Twain was . . . enough of a genius to build his morality into his books, with humor and wit and -- in the case of The Prince and the Pauper -- wonderful plotting."
-- E.L. Doctorow [via]
More editions of The Prince and the Pauper: A Tale for Young People of All Ages:
The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country With a Fabled History And a Storied Culture Was Taken Over By A Man Named Silvio Berlusconiby Alexander StilleISBN 159420053X (1-59420-053-X)
Hardcover, Penguin Group USA
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country With a Fabled History And a Storied Culture Was Taken Over By A Man Named Silvio Berlusconi'More editions of The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country With a Fabled History And a Storied Culture Was Taken Over By A Man Named Silvio Berlusconi:
The Scarlet Letterby Nathaniel HawthorneISBN 1853260290 (1-85326-029-0)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Scarlet Letter'Book summary:This is a troubling story of crime, sin, guilt, punishment and expiation, set in the rigid moral climate of 17th-century New England. The young mother of an illegitimate child confronts her Puritan judges. However, it is not so much her harsh sentence, but the cruelties of slowly exposed guilt as her lover is revealed, that hold the reader enthralled all the way to the book's poignant climax. [via]
More editions of The Scarlet Letter:
The Scarlet Pimpernelby OrczyISBN 1595406115 (1-59540-611-5)
Softcover, 1st World Library
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'Book summary:Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate. The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the West Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant raised an undying monument to the nation's glory and his own vanity. During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that France had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity. The carnage had only ceased at this late hour of the day because there were other more interesting sights for the people to witness, a little while before the final closing of the barricades for the night. [via]
More editions of The Scarlet Pimpernel:
Sense And Sensibilityby Jane AustenISBN 1853260169 (1-85326-016-9)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Sense And Sensibility'Book summary:Though not the first novel she wrote, Sense and Sensibility was the first Jane Austen published. Though she initially called it Elinor and Marianne, Austen jettisoned both the title and the epistolary mode in which it was originally written, but kept the essential theme: the necessity of finding a workable middle ground between passion and reason. The story revolves around the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. Whereas the former is a sensible, rational creature, her younger sister is wildly romantic--a characteristic that offers Austen plenty of scope for both satire and compassion. Commenting on Edward Ferrars, a potential suitor for Elinor's hand, Marianne admits that while she "loves him tenderly," she finds him disappointing as a possible lover for her sister:
Oh! Mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!
Soon however, Marianne meets a man who measures up to her ideal: Mr. Willoughby, a new neighbor. So swept away by passion is Marianne that her behavior begins to border on the scandalous. Then Willoughby abandons her; meanwhile, Elinor's growing affection for Edward suffers a check when he admits he is secretly engaged to a childhood sweetheart. How each of the sisters reacts to their romantic misfortunes, and the lessons they draw before coming finally to the requisite happy ending forms the heart of the novel. Though Marianne's disregard for social conventions and willingness to consider the world well-lost for love may appeal to modern readers, it is Elinor whom Austen herself most evidently admired; a truly happy marriage, she shows us, exists only where sense and sensibility meet and mix in proper measure. --Alix Wilber [via]More editions of Sense And Sensibility:
Social Significance of the Modern Dramaby Emma GoldmanISBN 1596053186 (1-59605-318-6)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Social Significance of the Modern Drama'More editions of Social Significance of the Modern Drama:
A Tale of Two Citiesby Charles DickensISBN 1853260398 (1-85326-039-8)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Tale of Two Cities'Book summary:Introduction and Notes by Peter Merchant, Senior Lecturer in English, Canterbury Christ Church University College This novel traces the private lives of a group of people caught up in the cataclysm of the French Revolution and the Terror. Dicken's based his historical detail on Carlyle's "The French Revolution", and his own observations and investigations during his numerous visits to Paris. [via]
More editions of A Tale of Two Cities:
Television Without Pity: 752 Things We Love to Hate (And Hate to Love) About TVby Tara Ariano, Sarah D. BuntingISBN 1594741174 (1-59474-117-4)
Softcover, Chronicle Books Llc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Television Without Pity: 752 Things We Love to Hate (And Hate to Love) About TV'More editions of Television Without Pity: 752 Things We Love to Hate (And Hate to Love) About TV:
Tess of the D'Urbervillesby Thomas HardyISBN 1853260053 (1-85326-005-3)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles'Book summary:Set in Hardy's Wessex, Tess is a moving novel of hypocrisy and double standards. Its challenging sub-title, A Pure Woman, infuriated critics when the book was first published in 1891, and it was condemned as immoral and pessimistic.
It tells of Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of a poor and dissipated villager, who learns that she may be descended from the ancient family of d'Urbeville. In her search for respectability her fortunes fluctuate wildly, and the story assumes the proportions of a Greek tragedy. It explores Tess's relationships with two very different men, her struggle against the social mores of the rural Victorian world which she inhabits and the hypocrisy of the age. [via]More editions of Tess of the D'Urbervilles:
Thus Spake Zarathustraby Friedrich NietzscheISBN 1602060320 (1-60206-032-0)
Softcover, Cosimo Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Thus Spake Zarathustra'Book summary:He's one of the most debated thinkers of the 19th century: Nietzsche and his works have been by turns vilified, lauded, and subjected to numerous contradictory interpretations, and yet he remains a figure of profound import, and his works a necessary component of a well-rounded education. In this essential book, which Nietzsche himself called his "deepest," the philosopher uses ancient mythology and biblical parody to develop his concept of the "superman," the ultimate human triumph over conformity, religion, morality, even civilization itself. Later corrupted out of all recognition by Nazi philosophy, this extraordinary work is, in fact, the basis for 20th-century existentialism and one of the finest examples of modern literature in any language. German psychologist and philosopher FRIEDRICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE (1844-1900) was appointed special professor of classical philology at the University of Basel at the precocious age of 24, but soon found himself dissatisfied with academic life and created an alternative intellectual society for himself among friends including composer Richard Wagner, historian Jakob Burckhardt, and theologian Franz Overbeck. Among his philosophical works are Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and Ecce Homo. [via]
More editions of Thus Spake Zarathustra:
Time Machineby H. G. WellsISBN 159540029X (1-59540-029-X)
Softcover, Authorhouse
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Time Machine'Book summary:Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. 1st World Library-Literary Society is a non-profit educational organization. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way - marking the points with a lean forefinger - as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it:) and his fecundity. `You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception. [via]
More editions of Time Machine:
Tono-bungayby H. G. WellsISBN 1846375231 (1-84637-523-1)
Softcover, Echo Library
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Tono-bungay'More editions of Tono-bungay:
Vanity Fairby William Makepeace ThackeryISBN 1853260193 (1-85326-019-3)
Softcover, Lb May & Assoc Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Vanity Fair'Book summary:With an Introduction and Notes by Owen Knowles, University of Hull Thackeray's upper-class Regency world is a noisy and jostling commercial fairground, predominantly driven by acquisitive greed and soulless materialism, in which the narrator himself plays a brilliantly versatile role as a serio-comic observer. Although subtitled 'A Novel without a Hero', Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of two contrasting but inter-linked lives: through the retiring Amelia Sedley and the brilliant Becky Sharp, Thackeray examines the position of women in an intensely exploitative male world. [via]
More editions of Vanity Fair:
The War of the Worldsby H. G. WellsISBN 1595400303 (1-59540-030-3)
Softcover, Authorhouse
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The War of the Worlds'Book summary:This is the granddaddy of all alien invasion stories, first published by H.G. Wells in 1898. The novel begins ominously, as the lone voice of a narrator tells readers that "No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's..."
Things then progress from a series of seemingly mundane reports about odd atmospheric disturbances taking place on Mars to the arrival of Martians just outside of London. At first the Martians seem laughable, hardly able to move in Earth's comparatively heavy gravity even enough to raise themselves out of the pit created when their spaceship landed. But soon the Martians reveal their true nature as death machines 100-feet tall rise up from the pit and begin laying waste to the surrounding land. Wells quickly moves the story from the countryside to the evacuation of London itself and the loss of all hope as England's military suffers defeat after defeat. With horror his narrator describes how the Martians suck the blood from living humans for sustenance, and how it's clear that man is not being conquered so much a corralled. --Craig E. Engler [via]
Why Do People Hate America?by Ziauddin Sardar, Merryl Wyn DaviesISBN 184046383X (1-84046-383-X)
Softcover, Icon
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Why Do People Hate America?'More editions of Why Do People Hate America?:
The Xenophobe's Guide to the Swissby Anne TauteISBN 1853045691 (1-85304-569-1)
Softcover, Ravette Pub Ltd
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Xenophobe's Guide to the Swiss'Book summary:Xenophobia: An irrational fear of foreigners. Xenophobe's Guides: Small books that show the more you know the less you fear. Xenophobe's motto: Forewarned is forearmed. [via]
More editions of The Xenophobe's Guide to the Swiss:
French
-
Les Voyages De Gulliverby Jonathan SwiftISBN 1846374952 (1-84637-495-2)
Softcover, Echo Library
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Les Voyages De Gulliver'Book summary:Gulliver est une figure légendaire. Le mot "Lilliputiens" est devenu un nom commun. Classique parmi les classiques, ce livre est un roman de genre : un héros embarqué sur un navire qui fait naufrage échoue sur une île... Dès lors, tout est possible, surtout les choses les plus extraordinaires. C'est une fabuleuse occasion pour un écrivain de déployer tous les trésors de son imagination, et Jonathan Swift n'en manque pas. Dans la première partie, son héros se retrouve prisonnier d'un peuple minuscule. Après avoir vécu moult péripéties, il rentre chez lui, mais le démon de l'aventure le pousse à repartir. Comme les naufrages étaient nombreux à l'époque (on est à l'aube du XVIIIe siècle), le voilà derechef poussé par les flots vers un autre pays surprenant. Mais, cette fois, c'est lui qui est nain parmi des géants. Ces deux histoires fabuleuses, qui ont fait le tour du monde dans bien des versions et adaptations, sont à découvrir absolument dans le texte intégral, plein de saveur, même si les archaïsmes abondent et peuvent déconcerter le jeune lecteur : tournures de langage, évocation des moeurs de l'époque, mots inusités aujourd'hui réclament un petit effort de lecture. Qui sera largement récompensé par le plaisir de suivre ces passionnantes aventures. --Pascale Wester [via]
More editions of Les Voyages De Gulliver:
![[powered by Muze Inc.]](http://i.bookfinder.com/images/site/muze/powered_by_muze.gif){kind=small}