Carti in categoria Literature & Biography

A definitive work...explains clearly and succinctly concepts and theories at the heart of European and American philosophy. - Brenda AlmondWhat do philosophers mean by absolute and akrasia? What are Polish notation and prime matter? What contributions to human thought were made by Plato, Machiavelli, Kant and Derrida? These questions and many more are answered by this illuminating dictionary, which draws on contributions from over 100 leading philosophers.

The Penguin Dictionary of Economics explains a host of economic terms, from acceleration principle to venture capital, Euro to X-efficiency, globalisation to zero-sum game. The eighth edition has been fully revised and updated to include those terms that have become so familiar since the global recession begun (quantitative easing and sub-prime among them), but whose meanings escape most of us. Wide-ranging and accessible, this detailed practical and international guide will be indispensable for...

How does a writer compose a suicide note? This was not a question that the prize-winning novelist William Styron had ever contemplated before. In this true account of his depression, Styron describes an illness that reduced him from a successful writer to a man arranging his own destruction. He lived to give us this gripping description of his descent into mental anguish, and his eventual success in overcoming a little-understood yet very common condition.The unabridged text of Darkness Visible ...

Arthur Millers extraordinary masterpiece, Death of a Salesman changed the course of modern theatre, and has lost none of its power as an examination of American life. A man is not an orange. You cant eat the fruit and throw the peel awayWilly Loman is on his last legs. Failing at his job, dismayed at his the failure of his sons, Biff and Happy, to live up to his expectations, and tortured by his jealousy at the success and happiness of his neighbour Charley and his son Bernard, Willy spirals int...

When it comes to death, is there ever a best case scenario? In this disarmingly witty book, Julian Barnes confronts our unending obsession with the end. He reflects on what it means to miss God, whether death can be good for our careers and why we eventually turn into our parents. Barnes is the perfect guide to the weirdness of the only thing that binds us all.Selected from the book Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian BarnesVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.A series of short ...

Now a major film directed by Armando Iannucci, starring Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi and Ben WhishawDickenss epic, exuberant novel is one of the greatest coming-of-age stories in literature. It chronicles David Copperfields extraordinary journey through life, as he encounters villains, saviours, eccentrics and grotesques, including the wicked Mr Murdstone, stout-hearted Peggotty, formidable Betsey Trotwood, impecunious Micawber and odious Uriah Heep.Dickenss great Bildung...

The Penguin English Library Edition of Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw by Henry JamesIm a fearful, frightful flirt! Did you ever hear of a nice girl that was not?This edition contains two of Henry Jamess most popular short works. Travelling in Europe with her family, Daisy Miller, an exquisitely beautiful young American woman, presents her fellow-countryman Winterbourne with a dilemma he cannot resolve. Is she deliberately flouting social convention in the outspoken way she talks and acts...

This is the definitive collection of short stories by Saul Bellow. Abundant, precise, various, rich and exuberant, the stories display the stylistic and emotional brilliance which characterizes this master of prose. Some stories recount the events of a single day, some are contained in a wider frame; each story is a characteristic combination of observation and a celebration of humanity.

Still an acknowledged masterpiece and a model for historical fiction ... sympathetic and intensely involving: a great feat of imagination Hilary Mantel Bringing to life the intrigue of ancient Rome, Robert Gravess I, Claudius is one of the most celebrated, gripping historical novels ever writtenDespised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. I...

A sizzling drama of desire, avarice and deception set in the American Deep South, Tennessee Williamss Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is published in Penguin Modern Classics.Big Daddy Pollitt, the richest cotton planter in the Mississippi Delta, is about to celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday. His two sons have returned home for the occasion: Gooper, his wife and children, Brick, an ageing football hero who has turned to drink, and his feisty wife Maggie. As the hot summer evening unfolds, the veneer of ha...

How do we find calm in our frantic modern world? Tim Parks - lifelong sceptic of all things spiritual - finds himself on a Buddhist meditation retreat trying to answer this very question. With brutal honesty and dry wit, he recounts his journey from disbelief to something approaching inner peace and tackles one of the great mysteries of our time - how to survive in this modern age.Selected from the book Teach us to Sit Still by Tim ParksVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.A serie...

Immortalised by Audrey Hepburns sparkling performance in the 1961 film of the same name, Breakfast at Tiffanys is Truman Capotes timeless portrait of tragicomic cultural icon Holly Golightly, published in Penguin Modern Classics. Its New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffanys. And nice girls dont, except, of course, for Holly Golightly: glittering socialite traveller, generally upwards, sometimes sideways and once in a while - down. Pursued by to...

Babies: our biggest mystery and our most natural consequence, our hardest test and our enduring love. Anne Enright describes the intensity, bewilderment and extravagant happiness of her experience of having babies, from the exhaustion of early pregnancy to first smiles and becoming acquainted with the long reaches of the night. Everyone, from parents to the mildly curious, can delight in Enrights funny, eloquent and unsentimental account of having babies. Selected from the book Making Babies by ...

A towering philosophical novel that is the summation of her Objectivist philosophy, Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged is the saga of the enigmatic John Galt, and his ambitious plan to stop the motor of the world, published in Penguin Modern Classics.Opening with the enigmatic question Who is John Galt?, Atlas Shrugged envisions a world where the men of talent - the great innovators, producers and creators - have mysteriously disappeared. With the US economy now faltering, businesswoman Dagny Taggart is s...

Tonight he noticed how the womens eyesPassed from him to the strong men that were whole.The true horror of the trenches is brought to life in this selection of poetry from the front line.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguins 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra...

The Penguin English Library Edition of Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis CarrollCuriouser and curiouser! cried Alice (she was so surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). Now Im opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye, feet!I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole ... without the least idea what was to happen afterwards, wrote Lewis Carroll, describing how Alice was conjured up one golden aftern...

Alice is one of the most beloved characters of English writing. A bright and inquisitive child, one boring summer afternoon she follows a white rabbit down a rabbit-hole. At the bottom she finds herself in a bizarre world full of strange creatures, and attends a very odd tea party and croquet match. This immensely witty and unique story mixes satire and puzzles, comedy and anxiety, to provide an astute depiction of the experience of childhood. Illustrated by John TennielIncludes Through the Look...

The Penguin English Library Edition of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles DickensLiberty, equality, fraternity, or death; - the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine!Described by Dickens as the best story I have written, A Tale of Two Cities interweaves thrilling historical drama with heartbreaking personal tragedy. It vividly depicts a revolutionary Paris running red with blood, and a London where the poor starve. In the midst of the chaos two men - an exiled French aristocrat and a disso...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Tennessee Williamss A Streetcar Named Desire is the tale of a catastrophic confrontation between fantasy and reality, embodied in the characters of Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an introduction by Arthur Miller.I have always depended on the kindness of strangersFading southern belle Blanche DuBois is adrift in the modern world. When she arrives to stay with her sister Stella in a crowded, boisterous corner of New ...

She decided she would teach him to speak and he was very soon able to say, Pretty boy!, Your servant, sir! and Hail Mary!With pathos and humour, Flaubert imagines the unexamined life of a servant girl.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguins 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japa...