In the impoverished rural community in which he works, John Sassall tend the maimed, the dying, and the lonely. He is not only the dispenser of cures but the repository of memories. And as Berger and Mohr follow Sassall about his rounds, they produce a book whose careful detail broadens into a meditation on the value we assign a human life. First published thirty years ago, A Fortunate Man remains moving and deeply relevant--no other book has offered such a close and passionate investigation of the roles doctors play in their society."In contemporary letters John Berger seems to me peerless; not since Lawrence has there been a writer who offers such attentiveness to the sensual world with responsiveness to the imperatives of conscience."--Susan Sontag

    At the time he was best known for a career of daring flights over the Sahara, the Pyrenees, and Patagonia and for his contributions to the science of aviation. But the solitary hours he spent above the earth in open cockpit airplanes gave birth to a more famous legacy, a series of enchanting, autobiographical novels and the classic story The Little Prince, still the most translated book in the French language.An impoverished aristocrat from one of France's oldest families, Saint-Exupéry moved at age twenty-seven to the western Sahara Desert, to live alone in a plank shack and manage the way station for the Aéropostale, the French mail service. His careers as a novelist and an aviator were born here, and his life once he returned to Europe was defined—with brilliant and catastrophic results—by the sense of isolated fascination and curiosity he developed in the desert.In this definitive biography, Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff reveals an intrepid and unconventional life that rivals the best adventure stories."A remarkable biography; indeed, it is impossible to imagine the job better done. It is balanced, perceptive, thoroughly researched, and exceptionally well-written." —The New Yorker

    Here she writes, with honesty and moral clarity, about the manipulation of language by the powerful, the obligations of individuals to one another and the needs - for order, equality, liberty and truth - that make us human.One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

    Beckwith's narrative describing island life is filled with humor, surprise, affection, and keen observance. Originally published in 1959.

    In fact, they were so fantastic that the author felt obliged to discover all he could about the man who had written them: and what he reveals here is the story of one of the most outrageous forgers, confidence tricksters and eccentrics of the century.

    Stationed as a Peace Corps instructor in the village of Lavié (the name means "wait a little more") in tiny and underdeveloped Togo, Packer reveals his own schooling at the hands of an unforgettable array of townspeople--peasants, chiefs, charlatans, children, market women, cripples, crazies, and those who, having lost or given up much of their traditional identity and fastened their hopes on "development," find themselves trapped between the familiar repetitions of rural life and the chafing monotony of waiting for change.

    He returned to Argentina in 1984. Founder of two Argentine weekly news magazines in the 1960s and a commentator on radio and television, he was best-known as the publisher and editor of the newspaper La Opinión from 1971 until his arrest in 1977. An outspoken champion of human rights and freedom of the press, he criticized all repressive governments and organizations, regardless of their political ideologies. His other books include The Longest War: Israel in Lebanon, Cuba: A Journey, and Chile: A Death in the South.The Americas, Ilan Stavans, Series EditorWinner of a 1982 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Selected by the New York Times for "Books of the Century" With a new introduction by Ilan Stavans and a new foreword by Arthur Miller.

    This definitive collection brings together the finest of Sidney Joseph Perelman's comic writings, satires and parodies, from The Customer is Always Wrong and Boy Meets Gull to Is There an Osteosynchrondroitrician in the House? and The Pants Recaptured.

    Beginning in the 1880s, it offers a rich portrayal of the East European Jewish experience in New York, and shows how the immigrant generation tried to maintain their Yiddish culture while becoming American. It is essential reading for those interested in understanding why these forebears to many of today's American Jews made the decision to leave their homelands, the challenges these new Jewish Americans faced, and how they experienced every aspect of immigrant life in the early part of the twentieth century.This invaluable contribution to Jewish literature and culture is now back in print in a new paperback edition, which includes a new foreword by noted author and literary critic Morris Dickstein.

    He has bequeathed to us a unique day by day documentary of life as a village clergyman. Only a small fraction of what he recorded has survived. This is a selection edited and introduced by William Plomer.

    An ardent treatise for the Dignity of Man, which elevates Humanism to a truly Christian level, making this writing as pertinent today as it was in the Fifteenth Century.

    As Victoria's first Prime Minister, and father figure, he was responsible for introducing the young Queen to public life. He was also one of the great masters of the art of conversation and thus a wonderful subject for the biographer.An established classic that brings Melbourne and his whole period to life.

    As a young woman, Madeleine got her training by working in a family restaurant in Touraine and in the kitchens of France'¬?s most respected regional cooks, who nourished her appetite for the tradition, rigor, and personal nature of cooking. Her exuberant and colorful memoir of that time-originally published over 25 years ago-tells of collecting mussels at the shore, churning butter from the milk of village cows, gathering mushrooms in nearby woods, and then transforming them into glorious food under the tutelage of her informal mentors. Over 250 recipes for the simple dishes she learned at their sides illustrate her evocative reminiscences of a bygone era in rural France. Part travelogue, part social history, part instruction manual, this classic is required reading for anyone who wants to know more about the life, times, and tastes of a woman who has helped shape American cooking.

    Sartre challenged his readers to think beyond the meaning of their everyday thoughts and beliefs. His essays on nothingness, on the emotions, and on the image—including “The Problem of Nothingness,” “The Role of the Image in Mental Life,” and “Essays in Aesthetics”—contain the essentials of his metaphysical speculations.An introductory essay by Professor Jean Wahl clarifies the origins of Sartre’s humanistic, religious, and aesthetic ideas.Essays in Existentialism challanges and encourages us to alter how we think about the choices that we make: to live “authentically” we must be concious of our freedom to choose and concerned with the effect our choice will have on all others. It is an essential text for any student of philosophy.

    Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.--Cyril Connolly Cyril Connolly (1903-1974) was one of the most influential book reviewers and critics in England, contributing regularly to The New Statesman, The Observer, and The Sunday Times, His many books and essays have been published to great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. First published in 1938 and long unavailable, Enemies of Promise is considered his major work. An inquiry into the problem of how to write a masterpiece, Connolly identifies the forces that work against the fulfillment of artistic promise--among them, politics, domesticity, advertising, and journalism. His concluding recollection of his education at Eton examines the factors which interfered with his own promise. Seventy years after it was written, Enemies of Promise remains powerful and true. It is a brilliant work by one of the most important critics of the period.