Bacovia's prose and prose poems reveal his concern for the underdog and his yearning for new ideals. His descriptions of people and places are often set against a lyrical background and linked to an internal dialogue or a rhetorical question. They are sensual with powerful visual images, which also reveal Bacovia's introspective eroticism.

    The pieces range from long meditations on topics like loneliness and being an outsider, to short humor pieces, conversations, and memorable one-liners.Jonny's honest writings about his struggles with feeling productive, as well as his difficulties with anxiety and depression will connect deeply with his fans as well as anyone attempting to create in our chaotic world. It also features a recipe for scrambled eggs that might make you cry.

    Madden muses on the origins of human language, the curative properties of laughter, and the joys and woes of fatherhood. Sparked by considerations of selling garlic, washing grapes, changing a diaper, or chipping a tooth, his essays are an antidote to the harried hullabaloo of talk-show and tabloid culture—and a reminder that we are surrounded by wonders that whisper to the curious and attentive.Ingenuous and erudite, and with a beguiling wit, Madden examines the intricate tapestry of ordinary life in its extraordinary patterns. His book is a poetic and engaging exploration of the unexpectedly wide scope of our everyday existence.

    . . .This is one of those rare books that could make people think about their intimate lives in a new way." — New York Times Book Review “A rousing defense of imprudent ardor and romantic excess. . . . It’s difficult to deny that [Nehring] is on to something.” — Wall Street JournalA thinking person’s “guide” that makes the case for love in an age both cynical about and fearful of strong passion. Bold and challenging, A Vindication of Love has inspired praise and controversy, and brilliantly reinvigorated the romance debate. A perfect choice for readers of Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life and Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.

    A child prodigy as a pianist and a virtuoso conductor of symphonics and operas, Barenhoim has known and worked with many of the most distinguished and exciting musicians of the 20th century, including Rubinstein, Furtwangler, Zubin Meta, Pierre Boulez, Fisher-Diskau, Pablo Casals, and not least his wife, Jacqueline du Pre. Recent years have included his work at the annual Wagner festival Bayreuth; in Berlin at the rebirth of the State Opera House; taking over from George Solti's 22-year regin in Chicago; his summer festival in Weimar, Germany, where young Arabs and Israelis can play music together; and his worldwide travels. Barenboim has revised and updated his memoir, giving us trenchant thoughts on Israel today, the problems facing young musicians, and the changing world of music at the beginning of the 21st century.-One of the world's greatest musicians, Barenboim has a dedicated following who will be interested in reading about his life in his own words.-Barenboim was married to celebrated cellist Jacqueline du Pre, the subject of the controversial film Hilary and Jackie.-His championship of peaceful coexistence with Palestinians is highly controversial, as is his insistence on playing Wagner in Israel.

    Are the dead the victims of a medieval plague or, perhaps, of a Communist firing squad? And why are finger bones disappearing from the pit each night? Petrus, a young archaeologist, decides to do some investigating of his own. Meanwhile, an Orthodox monk in the surrounding mountains stumbles into history when he becomes the father confessor of a partisan bent on bringing down the government, one handmade grenade and one derailed train at a time. Not to mention a team of Argentinean forensic anthropologists who arrive in town in a cloud of rock music, shredded jeans, and tequila. Florian has packed real history, a religious pilgrimage, a criminal investigation, a recipe for roast pigeon, and a love story into two hundred truly remarkable pages.

    Her introductions to each section are informative and written with nonpolemical grace. -- Doris Grumbach, New RepublicIntroduction : analysis versus action --"Remember the Ladies": Abigail Adams vs. John Adams --Selected letters from the Adams family correspondence --Away from puddings and garments : Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820) --On the equality of the sexes / Judith Sargent Murray --Champion of womankind: Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) --A vindication of the rights of woman / Mary Wollstonecraft --Woman of Action: Frances Wright (1795-1852) --Education ; Of free enquiry / Frances Wright --The first woman sociologist: Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) --Society in America / Harriet Martineau --The making of a cosmopolitan humanist: Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) --The great lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus women / Margaret fuller --Prestige from the other sex: John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) --The subjection of women / John Stuart Mill. Introduction: social roots of the woman's movement in America --From abolition to sex equity: Sarah Grimké (1792-1873) and Angelina Grimké (1805-1879) --Appeal to the Christian woman of the South / Angelina Grimké --Letters on the equality of the sexes and the condition of women / Sarah Grimké --Letters to Catherine Beecher / Angelina Grimké --The Blackwell Clan --Medicine as a profession for women / Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell --Sex and evolution / Antoinette Brown Blackwell --A feminist friendship: Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) and Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) --Motherhood / Elizabeth Cady Stanton --Introduction to The Woman's Bible / Elizabeth Cady Stanton --Along the Suffrage Trail --Selections from the History of Woman Suffrage --Seneca Falls convention --Reminiscences of Emily Collins --The Akron Convention --The Newport convention --The Kansas Campaign of 1867 --Political equality for women. Introduction: feminism and class politics --Marriage and property: Friedrich Engles (1820-1895) --The origin of the family / Friedrich Engels --Working-class socialist: August Bebel (1840-1913) --Woman and socialism / August Bebel --Red Emma on women: Emma Goldman (1869-1940) --The tragedy of woman's emancipation / Emma Goldman --the right to one's body: Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) --My fight for birth control : Birth Control- a parent's problem or woman's? / Margaret Sanger --Beware the State: Suzanne LaFollette (b. 1893) --Concerning Women / Suzanne LaFollette --The "Militant Madonna": Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) --Women and Econommics / Charlotte Perkins Gilman --Pioneer on the urban frontier: Jane Addams (1860-1935) --Utilization of women in city Government / Jane Addams --Introduction: Feminism and intellectual complexity. Guineas and locks: Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) --A room of one's own / Virginia Woolf --Cultural stretch: Margaret Mead (b.1901) --Sex and temperament / Margaret Mead --A not-so rebellious "other": Simone de Beauvoir (b. 1908) --The second sex / Simone de Beauvoir

    They had already made films that redefined the gangster movie, the screwball comedy, the fable, and the film noir, among others. No Country is just one of many Coen brothers films to center on the struggles of complex characters to understand themselves and their places in the strange worlds they inhabit. To

     Adapted from the column on its author's website, Nathan Rabin's Happy Place, with 52 hilarious, sometimes obscure and often oddly beautiful new original illustrations from Felipe Sobreiro and an introduction from Al himself, The Weird Accordion to Al explores every track on all sixteen of Al's records (14 studio albums, the Medium Rarities obscurities collection and Peter & the Wolf, his collaboration with Wendy Carlos) with an obsessiveness thats downright peculiar. Equal parts music criticism, cultural and comedy history, autobiography and comic meditation on nostalgia, television, consumerism, childhood, technology and food, The Weird Accordion to Al does justice to a musical legend and comic genius the extent of whose remarkable achievements are only now being fully understood and appreciated. Praise for The Weird Accordion to Al “A brilliant, heartfelt cry of obsession and love for an already beloved and obsessed-over artist. Share Nathan’s madness and be freed!”—Patton Oswalt "This book is pop culture history, music dissertation, and comedic theory. Nathan has exemplified the qualities that make Weird Al an artist who is equal parts Frank Zappa, Mel Brooks, and Mark Twain.”—Jonah Ray “You don’t have to be a fan of Weird Al to enjoy Rabin’s raucous deep-dive into the complete discography. But if you’re not a Weird Al fan there’s clearly something wrong with you”—Alex Winter “Wonderfully captures the quirks and fun details that have made the Yank-oeuvre ooze with oddness for almost four decades. Nathan really shows you what makes Al's mind tick. Spoiler: It's the neurons. A must read for anyone unemployed, childless, or with ninety spare hours to kill.”—Scott Aukerman “The Weird Accordion to Al is the definitive companion to the “Weird Al” catalogue. It’s chock full of fascinating insights that left my head spinning like a Frankie Yankovic record (no relation). Nobody covers the Al canon in better depth than Nathan Rabin. It’s a must-read for the weirdos in your life. I learned so much from this VERY SPECIFIC book.”—Thomas Lennon "Nathan Rabin is obsessive in the best sense of the word. He literally ALREADY wrote the book on Weird Al that Weird Al asked him to write. That wasn't enough for Nathan and that's why we are lucky to have this book. Al's contributions to pop culture deserve the kind of obsession that only Nathan Rabin can bring to the page and he brings it big time in this book. He dares to be very smart about "Dare To Be Stupid.’”—Jake Fogelnest

    It is more powerful than the Mafia or the military. It has global catastrophic effects and can be found anywhere from the world's most powerful boardrooms to your local pub. This is the immensely powerful force of human stupidity.Seeing the shambolic state of human affairs, and sensing the dark force at work behind it, Carlo M. Cipolla, the late, noted professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley, created a vitally important economic model that would allow us to detect, know, and neutralize this threat: The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.If you've ever found yourself despairing at the ubiquity of stupidity among even the most 'intellectual' of people, then this hilarious, timely, and slightly alarming little book is for you. Arm yourself in the face of baffling political realities, unreasonable colleagues, or the unbridled misery of Christmas day with the in-laws with the first and only economic model for stupidity."Cipolla's subtle tongue-in-cheek humor made this book an underground classic in Italy. Today, under current worldwide political trends, it reads more like black humor. Keep in mind: reliable statistical data shows that 98% of the people seriously believe that they are far less stupid than the average." --Carlo Rovelli, author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

    In On Beauty and Being Just Elaine Scarry not only defends beauty from the political arguments against it but also argues that beauty does indeed press us toward a greater concern for justice. Taking inspiration from writers and thinkers as diverse as Homer, Plato, Marcel Proust, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch as well as her own experiences, Scarry offers up an elegant, passionate manifesto for the revival of beauty in our intellectual work as well as our homes, museums, and classrooms.Scarry argues that our responses to beauty are perceptual events of profound significance for the individual and for society. Presenting us with a rare and exceptional opportunity to witness fairness, beauty assists us in our attention to justice. The beautiful object renders fairness, an abstract concept, concrete by making it directly available to our sensory perceptions. With its direct appeal to the senses, beauty stops us, transfixes us, fills us with a surfeit of aliveness. In so doing, it takes the individual away from the center of his or her self-preoccupation and thus prompts a distribution of attention outward toward others and, ultimately, she contends, toward ethical fairness.Scarry, author of the landmark The Body in Pain and one of our bravest and most creative thinkers, offers us here philosophical critique written with clarity and conviction as well as a passionate plea that we change the way we think about beauty.

    GraylingEveryone wishes to live a life that is satisfying and fulfilling, in which there is achievement and pleasure, and which has the respect of people one, in turn, respects. And one of the fundamentals to living such a life is to reflect on the choices we make.In this new collection, A.C. Grayling invites the reader into a conversation with ideas. From personal questions about happiness and quality of life to wider public concerns such as war and democracy, these essays provide a springboard to thought and to exploring what is best about the human heart and mind.

    To recover the sense of moral well being and responsibility, the author suggests, is the core of the democratic challenge before India.

    Witty and irreverent, Horseradish is a book with universal appeal, a delightful vehicle to introduce Snicket's uproariously unhappy observations to a crowd not yet familiar with the Baudelaires' misadventures.

    The twentieth century comes to life as an age of ideas - a time when, for good and for ill, the thoughts of the few reigned over the lives of the many. Judt presents the triumphs and the failures of prominent intellectuals, adeptly explaining both their ideas and the risks of their political commitments. Spanning an era with unprecedented clarity and insight, Thinking the Twentieth Century is a tour de force, a classic study of modern thought by one of the century's most incisive thinkers.The exceptional nature of this work is evident in its very structure - a series of intimate conversations between Judt and his friend and fellow historian Timothy Snyder, grounded in the texts of the time and focused by the intensity of their vision. Judt's astounding eloquence and range are on display here as never before. Traversing the complexities of modern life with ease, he and Snyder revive both thoughts and thinkers, guiding us through the debates that made our world. As forgotten ideas are revisited and fashionable trends scrutinized, the shape of a century emerges. Judt and Snyder draw us deep into their analysis, making us feel that we too are part of the conversation. We become aware of the obligations of the present to the past, and the force of historical perspective and moral considerations in the critique and reform of society, then and now.In restoring and indeed exemplifying the best of intellectual life in the twentieth century, Thinking the Twentieth Century opens pathways to a moral life for the twenty-first. This is a book about the past, but it is also an argument for the kind of future we should strive for: Thinking the Twentieth Century is about the life of the mind - and the mindful life.