Like the Flowing River


Paulo Coelho - 2000
    In this riveting collection of thoughts and stories, Paulo Coelho, the author of 'The Alchemist', offers his personal reflections on a wide range of subjects from archery and music to elegance, traveling and the nature of good and evil. An old woman explains to her grandson how a mere pencil can show him the path to happiness...instructions on how to climb a mountain reveal the secret to making your dreams a reality!the story of Ghengis Khan and the Falcon that teaches about the folly of anger - and the art of friendship!a pianist who performs an example in fulfilling your destiny!the author learns three important lessons when he goes to the rescue of a man in the street - Paulo shows us how life has lessons for us in the greatest, smallest and most unusual of experiences. 'Like the Flowing River' includes jewel-like fables, packed with meaning and retold in Coelho's inimitable style. Sharing his thoughts on spirituality, life and ethics, Paulo touches you with his philosophy and invites you to go on an exciting journey of your own.

Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste


Carl Wilson - 2007
    There's nothing cool about Céline Dion, and nothing clever. That's part of her appeal as an object of love or hatred — with most critics and committed music fans taking pleasure (or at least geeky solace) in their lofty contempt. This book documents Carl Wilson's brave and unprecedented year-long quest to find his inner Céline Dion fan, and explores how we define ourselves in the light of what we call good and bad, what we love and what we hate.

Literary Theory: An Anthology


Julie Rivkin - 1997
    This anthology of classic and cutting-edge statements in literary theory has now been updated to include recent influential texts in the areas of Ethnic Studies, Postcolonialism and International StudiesA definitive collection of classic statements in criticism and new theoretical work from the past few decades All the major schools and methods that make up the dynamic field of literary theory are represented, from Formalism to Postcolonialism Enables students to familiarise themselves with the most recent developments in literary theory and with the traditions from which these new theories derive

Amerika


Franz Kafka - 1927
    Expected to redeem himself in this magical land of opportunity, young Karl is swept up instead in a whirlwind of dizzying reversals, strange escapades, and picaresque adventures.Although Kafka never visited America, images of its vast landscape, dangers, and opportunities inspired this saga of the "golden land." Here is a startlingly modern, fantastic and visionary tale of America "as a place no one has yet seen, in a historical period that can't be identified," writes E. L. Doctorow in his new foreword. "Kafka made his novel from his own mind's mythic elements," Doctorow explains, "and the research data that caught his eye were bent like rays in a field of gravity."

After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory


Alasdair MacIntyre - 1982
    Newsweek called it “a stunning new study of ethics by one of the foremost moral philosophers in the English-speaking world.” Since that time, the book has been translated into more than fifteen foreign languages and has sold over one hundred thousand copies. Now, twenty-five years later, the University of Notre Dame Press is pleased to release the third edition of After Virtue, which includes a new prologue “After Virtue after a Quarter of a Century.” In this classic work, Alasdair MacIntyre examines the historical and conceptual roots of the idea of virtue, diagnoses the reasons for its absence in personal and public life, and offers a tentative proposal for its recovery. While the individual chapters are wide-ranging, once pieced together they comprise a penetrating and focused argument about the price of modernity. In the Third Edition prologue, MacIntyre revisits the central theses of the book and concludes that although he has learned a great deal and has supplemented and refined his theses and arguments in other works, he has “as yet found no reason for abandoning the major contentions” of this book. While he recognizes that his conception of human beings as virtuous or vicious needed not only a metaphysical but also a biological grounding, ultimately he remains “committed to the thesis that it is only from the standpoint of a very different tradition, one whose beliefs and presuppositions were articulated in their classical form by Aristotle, that we can understand both the genesis and the predicament of moral modernity.”

Common Sense and Other Writings


Thomas Paine - 1776
    Common Sense, the instantly popular pamphlet he published in January 1776, argued that the goal of the struggle against the British should be not simply tax reform, as many were calling for, but complete independence. His rousing, radical voice was balanced by the equally independence-minded but more measured tones of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence later that year. In later works, such as The Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, & other selections included in this volume, he proved himself a visionary moralist centuries ahead of his time. He believed that every human has the natural right to life's necessities & that government's role should be to provide for those in dire need. An impassioned opponent of all forms of slavery, he understood that no one in poverty is truly free--a lesson still to be learned by many of our leaders today.

Bad Thoughts: A Guide to Clear Thinking


Jamie Whyte - 2003
    Witty, contentious and passionate, it exposes the methods with which we avoid reasoned debate.

Diary of a Bad Year


J.M. Coetzee - 2007
    The latest by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace is an utterly contemporary work of fiction that addresses the profound unease of countless people in democracies across the world.

Paperweight


Stephen Fry - 1992
    It includes selected wireless essays of Donald Trefusis, the ageing professor of philology brought to life in Fry's novel The Liar, and the best of Fry's weekly column for the Daily Telegraph.Perfect to dip into but just as enjoyable to read cover to cover, this book, perhaps more than any other, shows the breadth of Fry's interests and the depth of his insight. He remains a hilarious writer on whatever topic he puts his mind to.

The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends


David H. Richter - 1989
    This bestseller balances a comprehensive and up-to-date anthology of major documents in literary criticism and theory — from Plato to the present — with the most thorough editorial support for understanding these challenging readings.

History of Political Philosophy


Leo Strauss - 1963
    Written by specialists on the various philosophers, this third edition has been expanded significantly to include both new and revised essays.

Ethics


Baruch Spinoza - 1677
    Following a logical step-by-step format, it defines in turn the nature of God, the mind, the emotions, human bondage to the emotions, and the power of understanding - moving from a consideration of the eternal, to speculate upon humanity's place in the natural order, the nature of freedom and the path to attainable happiness. A powerful work of elegant simplicity, the Ethics is a brilliantly insightful consideration of the possibility of redemption through intense thought and philosophical reflection. The Ethics is presented in the standard translation of the work by Edwin Curley. This edition also includes an introduction by Stuart Hampshire, outlining Spinoza's philosophy and placing it in context.

The Anatomy of Melancholy


Robert Burton - 1621
    Lewellyn Powys called it "the greatest work of prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing," while the celebrated surgeon William Osler declared it the greatest of medical treatises. And Dr. Johnson, Boswell reports, said it was the only book that he rose early in the morning to read with pleasure. In this surprisingly compact and elegant new edition, Burton's spectacular verbal labyrinth is sure to delight, instruct, and divert today's readers as much as it has those of the past four centuries.

Complete Works of Oscar Wilde


Oscar Wilde - 1908
    It contains his only novel, The Portrait of Dorian Gray as well as his plays, stories, poems, essays and letters. Illustrated with many photographs, the book includes introductions to each section by Wilde's grandon, Merlin Holoand, Owen Dudley Edwards, Declan Kibertd and Terence Brown. A comprehensive bibliography of works by and about Oscar Wilde together with a chronological table of his life and work are also included.

Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art


Julia Kristeva - 1980
    But the essays of Julia Kristeva in this volume, though they often deal with literature and art, do not amount to either "literary criticism" or "art criticism." Their concern, writes Kristeva, "remains intratheoretical: they are based on art and literature in order to subvert the very theoretical, philosophical, or semiological apparatus."Probing beyond the discoveries of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Roman Jakobson, and others, Julia Kristeva proposes and tests theories centered on the nature and development of the novel, and on what she has defined as a signifying practice in poetic language and pictural works. Desire in Language fully shows what Roman Jakobson has called Kristeva's "genuine gift of questioning generally adopted 'axioms, ' and her contrary gift of releasing various 'damned questions' from their traditional question marks."