Book picks similar to
The Fables of Phaedrus by Phaedrus
classics
fiction
short-stories
latin
The Wall
Jean-Paul Sartre - 1939
Through the gaze of an impartial doctor--seemingly there for the men's solace--their mental descent is charted in exquisite, often harrowing detail. And as the morning draws inexorably closer, the men cross the psychological wall between life and death, long before the first shot rings out.This brilliant snapshot of life in anguish is the perfect introduction to a collection of stories where the neurosis of the modern world is mirrored in the lives of the people that inhabit it.
Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited
Aldous Huxley - 1958
Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class. This powerful work of speculative fiction sheds a blazing critical light on the present and is considered to be Aldous Huxley's most enduring masterpiece.The non-fiction work Brave New World Revisited, published in 1958, is a fascinating work in which Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with his prophetic fantasy envisioned in Brave New World, including the threats to humanity, such as over-population, propaganda, and chemical persuasion.
Barney's Version
Mordecai Richler - 1997
Life was absurd, and nobody truly understood anybody else. Even his friends tend to agree that Barney is a 'wife-abuser, an intellectual fraud, a purveyor of pap, a drunk with a penchant for violence and probably a murderer'. But when his sworn enemy threatens to publish this calumny, Barney is driven to write his own memoirs, rewinding the spool of his life, editing, selecting and plagiarising, as his memory plays tricks on him - and on the reader. Ebullient and perverse, he has seen off 3 wives - the enigmatic Clara, whom he drove to suicide in Paris in 1952; the garrulous Second Mrs Panofsky; and finally Miriam who stayed married to him for decades before running off with a sober academic. Houdini-like, Barney slides from crisis to success, from lowlife to highlife in Montreal, Paris and London, his outrageous expolits culminating in the scandal he carries around like a humpback - the murder charge that he goes on denying to the end.
Daphnis and Chloe
Longus
Taken in by a goatherd and a shepherd respectively, and raised near the town of Mytilene, they grow to maturity unaware of one another's existence - until the mischievous god of love, Eros, creates in them a sudden overpowering desire for one another. A masterpiece among early Greek romances, attracting both high praise and moral disapproval, this work has proved an enduringly fertile source of inspiration for musicians, writers and artists from Henry Fielding to Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Maurice Ravel. Longus transforms familiar themes from the romance genre - including pirates, dreams, and the supernatural - into a virtuoso love story that is rich in insight, humorous and ironical in its treatment of human sexual experience.
The Conference of the Birds
Attar of Nishapur
He recounts the perilous journey of the world’s birds to the faraway peaks of Mount Qaf in search of the mysterious Simorgh, their king. Attar’s beguiling anecdotes and humor intermingle the sublime with the mundane, the spiritual with the worldly, while his poem models the soul’s escape from the mind’s rational embrace.Sholeh Wolpé re-creates for modern readers the beauty and timeless wisdom of the original Persian, in contemporary English verse and poetic prose.
The Purple Cloud
M.P. Shiel - 1901
. . What then, my God, shall I do?" The Purple Cloud is widely hailed as a masterpiece of science fiction and one of the best "last man" novels ever written. A deadly purple vapor passes over the world and annihilates all living creatures except one man, Adam Jeffson. He embarks on an epic journey across a silent and devastated planet, an apocalyptic Robinson Crusoe putting together the semblance of a normal life from the flotsam and jetsam of his former existence. As he descends into madness over the years, he becomes increasingly aware that his survival was no accident and that his destiny—and the fate of the human race—are part of a profound, cosmological plan.
You're an Animal, Viskovitz!
Alessandro Boffa - 1998
. . Viskovitz is each of these animals and many more, possessed by their behaviors, their neuroses, their vanities. And the gorgeous and impossible Ljuba, the object of Viskovitz’s desire, is in turn a sow, a bitch, a gazelle. There is an animal passion between them that lasts from story to story, but it is the fullness of the human condition that is portrayed most vividly in these hilarious metamorphoses. Dazzling beginnings lead into plots full of surprises, ranging from slapstick to Western, from cautionary tale to thriller. Scientific jargon is turned into wordplay and witty aphorism; theatrical reversals and philosophical insights abound. You’re an Animal, Viskovitz! is a triumph of comic inventiveness and intelligence unlike anything we’ve seen before.
Memoirs of Hadrian
Marguerite Yourcenar - 1951
In it, Marguerite Yourcenar reimagines the Emperor Hadrian's arduous boyhood, his triumphs and reversals, and finally, as emperor, his gradual reordering of a war-torn world, writing with the imaginative insight of a great writer of the twentieth century while crafting a prose style as elegant and precise as those of the Latin stylists of Hadrian's own era.
Beasts and Super-Beasts
Saki - 1914
The name Saki is often thought to be a reference to the cupbearer in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a poem mentioned disparagingly by the eponymous character in Reginald on Christmas Presents. Saki is considered a master of the short story and is often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker. His tales feature delicately drawn characters and finely judged narratives. In addition to his short stories, he also wrote several plays; a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington (1912); and two novella-length satires, the episodic The Westminster Alice and When William Came (1913).
The World Jones Made
Philip K. Dick - 1956
For although Jones has the power to see the future — a power that makes his life a torment — his real gift lies elsewhere: in his ability to make people dream again in a world where dreaming has been made illegal, even when the dream is indistinguishable from a nightmare.In Philip K. Dick's unsettling chronicle of the rise and fall of a postnuclear messiah, readers will find a novel that is as minutely realistic as it is prophetic. For along with its engineered mutants, hermaphroditic sex performers, and protoplasmic drifters from the stars, The World Jones Made gives us nothing less than a deadly accurate reading of our own hunger for belief.
The Hunting of the Snark
Lewis Carroll - 1876
This irresistible version is illustrated, and has an introduction by, Chris Riddell.This is a luxury edition with both black and white and colour artwork, ribbon marker and metallic blue sprayed edges.It was first published by Macmillan in 1876.
Of Love and Other Demons
Gabriel García Márquez - 1994
Believed to be possessed, she is brought to a convent for observation. And into her cell stumbles Father Cayetano Delaura, who has already dreamed about a girl with hair trailing after her like a bridal train. As he tends to her with holy water and sacramental oils, Delaura feels something shocking begin to occur. He has fallen in love, and it isn't long until Sierva Maria joins him in his fevered misery. Unsettling and indelible, Of Love and Other Demons is an evocative, majestic tale of the most universal experiences known to woman and man.
Bartleby the Scrivener
Herman Melville - 1853
Set in the mid-19th century on New York City's Wall Street, it was also, perhaps, Herman Melville's most prescient story: what if a young man caught up in the rat race of commerce finally just said, "I would prefer not to"?The tale is one of the final works of fiction published by Melville before, slipping into despair over the continuing critical dismissal of his work after Moby-Dick, he abandoned publishing fiction. The work is presented here exactly as it was originally published in Putnam's magazine—to, sadly, critical disdain.
The Aspern Papers and Other Stories
Henry James - 1894
He finds that the old lady is shrewd and haughty and accepts him as a lodger only to put aside money for the future of Miss Tina, a timid, unattractive spinster much in awe of her aunt. During his residence with them, the editor wins the friendship of Miss Tina, to whom he reveals his mission. Leaving Venice for a fortnight, he returns to find that Miss Bordereau has died. Miss Tina, who is clearly in love, welcomes him expectantly, but confesses that she could only give him the papers if he were "a relative."In addition to The Aspern Papers, this collection contains The Private Life, The Middle Years and The Death of the Lion, as well as prefaces by Henry James, a chronology of his life, and editor's notes.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare
Bad news is, Hermia's father wants Demetrius for a son-in-law. On the outside is Helena, whose unreturned love burns hot for Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander plan to flee from the city under cover of darkness but are pursued by an enraged Demetrius (who is himself pursued by an enraptured Helena). In the forest, unbeknownst to the mortals, Oberon and Titania (King and Queen of the faeries) are having a spat over a servant boy. The plot twists up when Oberon's head mischief-maker, Puck, runs loose with a flower which causes people to fall in love with the first thing they see upon waking. Throw in a group of labourers preparing a play for the Duke's wedding (one of whom is given a donkey's head and Titania for a lover by Puck) and the complications become fantastically funny.