Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 69 items
Cinquante textes brefs de la philosophe sur son frère, autiste. Elle tente de mettre des mots sur ce qu'a été… sa vie et partage les réflexions que son handicap a suscitées chez elle
The idea of human cruelty to animals so consumes novelist Elizabeth Costello in her later years that she can no… longer look another person in the eye: humans, especially meat-eating ones, seem to her to be conspirators in a crime of stupefying magnitude taking place on farms and in slaughterhouses, factories, and laboratories across the world. Costello's son, a physics professor, admires her literary achievements, but dreads his mother's lecturing on animal rights at the college where he teaches. His colleagues resist her argument that human reason is overrated and that the inability to reason does not diminish the value of life; his wife denounces his mother's vegetarianism as a form of moral superiority. At the dinner that follows her first lecture, the guests confront Costello with a range of sympathetic and skeptical reactions to issues of animal rights, touching on broad philosophical, anthropological, and religious perspectives. Painfully for her son, Elizabeth Costello seems offensive and flaky, but--dare he admit it?--strangely on target. In this landmark book, Nobel Prize-winning writer J. M. Coetzee uses fiction to present a powerfully moving discussion of animal rights in all their complexity. He draws us into Elizabeth Costello's own sense of mortality, her compassion for animals, and her alienation from humans, even from her own family. In his fable, presented as a Tanner Lecture sponsored by the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, Coetzee immerses us in a drama reflecting the real-life situation at hand: a writer delivering a lecture on an emotionally charged issue at a prestigious university. Literature, philosophy, performance, and deep human conviction--Coetzee brings all these elements into play. As in the story of Elizabeth Costello, the Tanner Lecture is followed by responses treating the reader to a variety of perspectives, delivered by leading thinkers in different fields. Coetzee's text is accompanied by an introduction by political philosopher Amy Gutmann and responsive essays by religion scholar Wendy Doniger, primatologist Barbara Smuts, literary theorist Marjorie Garber, and moral philosopher Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation. Together the lecture-fable and the essays explore the palpable social consequences of uncompromising moral conflict and confrontation.
God and Self in the Confessional Novel explores the question what happened to the theological practice of confession when… it entered the modern novel Beginning with the premise that guilt remains a universal human concern this book considers confession via the classic confessional texts of Augustine and Rousseau Employing this framework John D Sykes Jr examines Goethe s The Sorrows of Young Werther Dostoevsky s Notes from Underground Percy s Lancelot and McEwan s Atonement to investigate the evolution of confession and guilt in literature from the eighteenth century to the early twenty-first century
This volume collects both essays and fictional material around two core topics in the long career of the Serbian writer,… essayist, researcher, publisher and translator. The first topic - first contact - is chiefly represented by his comprehensive essay on "The Theme of First Contact in the SF Works of Arthur C. Clarke" and reflected on the literary level with his short stories "The Bookshop" and "The Puzzle". Two shorter essays on the second topic - time travel in SF literature - introduce, amongst others, the well-known and fascinating mosaic novel Time Gifts, which skillfully explores the more literary side of the notions of past, present and future. In the annotations the author provides insights into his take on the subjects presented.
Contains a selection from the essays Johnson published twice weekly as The Rambler in the early 1750s … P P It was here that he first created the literary character and forged the distinctive prose style that established him as a public figure P This volume also includes Johnson s essays from the periodicals The Adventurer and The Idler
We like Otto find our cynicism worn away by Rinpoche s gentle instruction in the simple… but terribly difficult art of letting go living each moment to the fullest seeing the sacred in the everyday This brave meditative author has carved a unique niche in American literature Kirkus Reviews starred review If life is a journey--with detours paths from which to choose and myriad roadblocks to overcome--then Otto Ringling is most certainly on the journey of a lifetime The first fifty or so years of his journey were pretty good He felt that he had it all until one day he didn t Looking for answers he calls on his brother-in-law Volya Rinpoche a wise man and spiritual leader A man who accepts the world as it comes to him a man without pride or vanity Someone who as it turns out is experiencing his own time of doubt So in hopes of finding answers to life s mysteries the two embark on a journey through America a road trip that becomes a lesson in love and gratitude Merullo offers keen insight into and intelligent assessments of modern American life but it is his compassionate portrait of a grieving Otto in search of inner tranquility that is most affecting Booklist Otto is such a full human which is why we can empathize with his questions and immerse ourselves in his experiences In the end we are all humanized by the spiritual journey of Dinner with Buddha Spirituality and Practice Merullo masterfully depicts the struggles of practicing mindfulness moment by moment The novel is full of nuanced thoughtful prose and is an immensely satisfying conclusion to the series Publishers Weekly
There were plans for an official welcome. It was to take place the following Sunday. But those who came to… the rectory on Father Pennant's second day were the ones who could not resist seeing him sooner. Here was the man to whom they would confess the darkest things. It was important to feel him out. Mrs. Young, for instance, after she had watched him eat a piece of her macaroni pie, quietly asked what he thought of adultery. André Alexis brings a modern sensibility and a new liveliness to an age-old genre, the pastoral. For his very first parish, Father Christopher Pennant is sent to the sleepy town of Barrow. With more sheep than people, it is sleepily bucolic - too much Barrow Brew on Barrow Day is the rowdiest it gets. But things aren't so idyllic for Liz Denny, whose fiancé doesn't want to choose between Liz and his more worldly lover Jane, or for Father Pennant himself, whose faith is profoundly shaken by the miracles he witnesses - a mayor walking on water, intelligent gypsy moths and a talking sheep.
How much money is too much? And how fast is too fast in life? Investment star Paris Smith steps onto… the top rungs of the corporate ladder, only to discover he is caught between his need for fulfillment and his need for understanding, between his drive for power and his inability to cope with his growing emptiness where there was once love. When his wife disappears from the core of his life, Smith’s loneliness and sense of disconnection threaten to overwhelm him. When he tries to compensate by losing himself in his work, he stumbles off the treadmill of his own success, and is entangled in the web of a fraudulent bond deal that threatens to derail his career and his life. Forced to put his personal life on hold while he travels non-stop between Toronto, Singapore, and Bangkok to salvage his career, the embattled financier is deprived of the time and space he needs to mourn the absence of his wife and to objectively assess his future options. In the heat, turmoil and fast money of Southeast Asia half a world from home and half a life from his last remembered smile Paris Smith finds duplicity, comradeship, and power. He also finds a special woman who might heal his heart. The gripping tale is told by a talented new author, F.W. vom Scheidt, who has confidently crafted a fast-paced, highly readable novel. His details are fascinating. His characters are real and not easily forgotten.
A cursed book. A missing professor. Some nefarious men in gray suits. And a dreamworld called the Troposphere? Ariel Manto… has a fascination with nineteenth-century scientists--especially Thomas Lumas and The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read. When she mysteriously uncovers a copy at a used bookstore, Ariel is launched into an adventure of science and faith, consciousness and death, space and time, and everything in between. Seeking answers, Ariel follows in Mr. Y's footsteps: She swallows a tincture, stares into a black dot, and is transported into the Troposphere--a wonderland where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. There she begins to understand all the mysteries surrounding the book, herself, and the universe. Or is it all just a hallucination? With The End of Mr. Y, Scarlett Thomas brings us another fast-paced mix of popular culture, love, mystery, and irresistible philosophical adventure.
Originally appearing as a series of articles in The New Yorker, Hannah Arendt’s authoritative and stunning report on the trial… of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann sparked a flurry of debate upon its publication. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt’s postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informativean unflinching look at one of the most unsettling (and unsettled) issues of the Twentieth Century. This edition includes an introduction by Amos Elon. .
Internationally acclaimed as a playwright, screen-writer, comic and sardonic commentator on the endless gaffs, absurdities and the profound and painful… misunderstandings that continue to characterize social interactions between aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples, Taylor's stories in Fearless Warriors are a full frontal assault on stereotypes of all kinds and an edifying affirmation of humanity unlike anything else in fiction.
Glass Grapes and Other Stories is the first full-length collection of short stories by distinguished poet and fiction writer Martha… Ronk. Ronk's work has garnered critical accolades and numerous awards, including, most recently, a 2005 PEN USA Award in poetry, a 2007 NEA Fellowship, and a 2007 National Poetry Series Award. Glass Grapes is a collection of short, experimental stories, usually dominated by an object imbued with fetishistic qualities by an obsessive, self-involved narrator. The language of these stories is repetitive, provocative, imagistic, occasionally comic, and unnerving. Ronk's fiction moves with the same grace, beauty, and attention to language as her most accomplished poetry.
Timeless yet timely and hopeful with a dark underbelly, these fables revive a tradition running from Aesop to W.S. Merwin.… With a poet's mastery, Craig Morgan Teicher creates strange worlds populated by animals fated for disaster and the people who interact with them, or simply act like them, including a very sad boy who wishes he had been raised by wolves. There are also a handful of badly behaving gods, a talking tree, and a shape-shifting room.Craig Morgan Teicher is poetry editor of Publishers Weekly and a vice president on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Divine Stories is the inaugural volume in a landmark translation series devoted to making the wealth of classical Indian Buddhism… accessible to modern readers. The stories here, among the first texts to be inscribed by Buddhists, highlight the moral economy of karma, illustrating how gestures of faith, especially offerings, can bring the reward of future happiness and ultimate liberation. Originally contained in the Divyavadana, an enormous compendium of Sanskrit Buddhist narratives from the early Common Era, the stories in this collection express the moral and ethical impulses of Indian Buddhist thought and are a testament to the historical and social power of narrative. Long believed by followers to be the actual words of the Buddha himself, these divine stories are without a doubt some of the most influential stories in the history of Buddhism.
A cursed book. A missing professor. Some nefarious men in gray suits. And a dreamworld called the Troposphere? Ariel Manto… has a fascination with nineteenth-century scientists--especially Thomas Lumas and The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read. When she mysteriously uncovers a copy at a used bookstore, Ariel is launched into an adventure of science and faith, consciousness and death, space and time, and everything in between. Seeking answers, Ariel follows in Mr. Y's footsteps: She swallows a tincture, stares into a black dot, and is transported into the Troposphere--a wonderland where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. There she begins to understand all the mysteries surrounding the book, herself, and the universe. Or is it all just a hallucination? With The End of Mr. Y, Scarlett Thomas brings us another fast-paced mix of popular culture, love, mystery, and irresistible philosophical adventure.
Amid a sea of dystopian world literatures haunted by the fractious claims of identity politics, Nuri Does Not Exist is… an astonishingly charming collection of linked short stories that engages us with the utterly believable innocence of its Utopian vision. Accompany Nuri from Zanzibar to Canada as he learns how servitude transcends slavery; fealty transcends servitude; and community transcends fealty.
The controversial journalistic analysis of the mentality that fostered the Holocaust Originally appearing as a series of articles in The… New Yorker, Hannah Arendt's authoritative and stunning report on the trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann sparked a flurry of debate upon its publication. This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt's postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence,Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative--an unflinching look at one of the most unsettling (and unsettled) issues of the twentieth century that remains hotly debated to this day. This Penguin Classics edition includes an introduction by Amos Elan.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Nobel Prize-winning writer André Gide marks his voyage toward self-discovery in this imaginative allegorical work When Urien and his sailing… companions begin their voyage, it is to places unknown and, perhaps, only dreamed. This allegorical masterpiece from André Gide, a key figure of French letters, deftly illustrates the techniques and doctrine of the Symbolist movement--and the dual nature of Gide's own psyche. Written at a crucial time in his artistic development, this imaginative work signals his gradual abandonment of acetic celibacy toward an embrace of pleasure and carnal desires, revealing a Gide more transparent in this early work than in his mature writings. Translator and scholar Wade Baskin annotates the work, connecting Gide's life and bibliography to the text.
End of October 1944. Sebastian Wigrum absconds from his London flat. Very little is known about him, except his intense… curiosity about the world and perhaps his disillusionment in love. The legacy of this man, who lived to collect has left in his wake an inventory of some hundred objects, which shed light on the history of our time.