Registro: Libros

A gripping tale of human unrelieved horror, of survival and resilience, and of the ways in which humankind confronts death, The Plague is at once a masterfully crafted novel, eloquently understated and epic in scope, and a parable of ageless moral resonance, profoundly relevant to our times. In Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, the plague begins as a series of portents, unheeded by the people. It gradually becomes an omnipresent reality, obliterating all traces of the past and driving its victims to almost unearthly extremes of suffering, madness, and compassion.

An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.Publisher's Note: The 25th Anniversary Edition has been reset, causing the text to reflow. Page references based on earlier editions will no longer apply, so Vintage Books has compiled the following chart as a conversion aid. Download the chart by copying and pasting the following link into your browser:http://knopfdoubleday.com/marketing/B...

In this volume, which reaffirms the uncompromising brilliance of his mind, Cioran strips the human condition down to its most basic components, birth and death, suggesting that disaster lies not in the prospect of death but in the fact of birth, "that laughable accident." In the lucid, aphoristic style that characterizes his work, Cioran writes of time and death, God and religion, suicide and suffering, and the temptation to silence. In all his writing, Cioran cuts to the heart of the human experience.

Rich and powerful writing in these three novellas. I will definitely read more of this author. SPOILERS FOLLOW BELOW FOR ALL 3 NOVELLAS! The first novella, The Age of Discretion, centers around the aging process and the end of careers of both husband and wife. In addition, there’s the bitter disappointment the woman feels after the son she has ‘groomed’ to follow in her footsteps as a professor turns thirty and changes career and political outlook to go into government service. His mother feels it’s all about his wife and father-in-law pushing him to make more money and get a ‘real’ Job. Amazingly she turns against her son in an incredibly brutal way. She throws her son out of her house and says things like “I cannot love anyone I do not respect.” And to her husband: “Do you think I ought to see him again?” [This is their son!]The couple is both around 60. He still works as a scientist but feels only younger people can contribute. “Great scientists are valuable to science in the first half of their lives and harmful in the second.” [quote from Bachelard] She argues with him until her latest book that she thought of as 'filled with new insights’ is panned by both critics and friends as a summary of her earlier work. “In earlier days I never used to worry about old people. I looked upon them as the dead whose legs still kept moving.”The second novella, The Monologue, is a bitter screed by a woman left alone and abandoned at age 44. Her daughter, off on her own, died five years ago. “It’s flying in the face of nature that my own brother my own mother should prefer my ex-husband to me.” And: “I wanted decent clean children I didn’t want Francis to become a fairy like Nanard.” “I’m not ill I live alone because your swine of a father ditched me he buttered me up then he tortured me he even knocked me about….I have weapons I’ll use them he’ll come back to me I shan’t go on rotting all alone in this dump with those people on the next floor who trample me underfoot and the ones next door who wake me every morning with their radio and no one to bring me so much as a crust when I’m hungry. All those fat cows have a man to protect them and kids to wait on them and me nothing…” She envisions her enemies roasting in hell: “You owe me this revenge, God. I insist that you grant it to me.” And, of course, through this screed, she reveals so much of herself to us so that we see why she has been abandoned. The title story, The Woman Destroyed, is written as a diary over six months or so. A woman has a husband and two daughters, one locally and one in the US that she seldom sees. Her husband admits to her that he is having an affair. With the advice of her friends she agrees to let him continue with it, taking the attitude that “men his age do these things; it will pass.” That turns out to be a mistake. All her life, she only worked in the home. He still has his career, his wife, his mistress and good times. She has nothing. Even with her women friends all she talks about is her situation with her husband. When she hears his key in the lock “…there was that horrible taste in my mouth – the taste of dread. (The same exactly, as when I used to go to see my father dying in the nursing home.)” “It seems to me that I no longer have anything whatever to do. I always used to be busy. Now everything – knitting, cooking, reading, putting on a record – everything seems pointless.” “Women who do nothing can’t stand those who work.” (Did her husband’s mistress really say that?) Good stories and excellent writing.Paris street scene from dreamstime.comPhoto of the author from alpha.aeon.co/images

But all this contributes to increase the measures of suffering in human life out of all proportion to its pleasures; and the pains of life are made much worse for man by the fact that death is something very real to him. The brute flies from death instinctively without really knowing what it is, and therefore without ever contemplating it in the way natural to a man, who has this prospect always before his eyes. So that even if only a few brutes die a natural death, and most of them live only just long enough to transmit their species, and then, if not earlier, become the prey of some other animal.

In 1903, a student at a military academy sent some of his verses to a well-known Austrian poet, requesting an assessment of their value. The older artist, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), replied to the novice in this series of letters — an amazing archive of remarkable insights into the ideas behind Rilke's greatest poetry. The ten letters reproduced here were written during an important stage in Rilke's artistic development, and they contain many of the themes that later appeared in his best works. The poet himself afterwards stated that his letters contained part of his creative genius, making this volume essential reading for scholars, poetry lovers, and anyone with an interest in Rilke, German poetry, or the creative impulse.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves—and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives—and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Inspired by the myth of a man condemned to ceaselessly push a rock up a mountain and watch it roll back to the valley below, The Myth of Sisyphus transformed twentieth-century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.

The unfinished manuscript of The First Man was discovered in the wreckage of a car accident in which Camus died in 1960. Although it was not published for over thirty years, it was an instant bestseller when it finally appeared in 1994. The 'first man' is Jacques Cormery, whose poverty-stricken childhood in Algiers is made bearable by his love for his silent and illiterate mother, and by the teacher who transforms his view of the world. The most autobiographical of Camus's novels, it gives profound insights into his life, and the powerful themes underlying his work.

In 1978 Susan Sontag wrote Illness as Metaphor, a classic work described by Newsweek as "one of the most liberating books of its time." A cancer patient herself when she was writing the book, Sontag shows how the metaphors and myths surrounding certain illnesses, especially cancer, add greatly to the suffering of patients and often inhibit them from seeking proper treatment. By demystifying the fantasies surrounding cancer, Sontag shows cancer for what it is - just a disease. Cancer, she argues, is not a curse, not a punishment, certainly not an embarrassment and, it is highly curable, if good treatment is followed. Almost a decade later, with the outbreak of a new, stigmatized disease replete with mystifications and punitive metaphors, Sontag wrote a sequel to Illness as Metaphor, extending the argument of the earlier book to the AIDS pandemic.These two essays now published together, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, have been translated into many languages and continue to have an enormous influence on the thinking of medical professionals and, above all, on the lives of many thousands of patients and caregivers.

In Borges's short story, the world consists of a gigantic library which contains every possible book that can ever be written. So, somewhere, there must logically be the book, the one that reveals the Library's secret! Unfortunately, there is no filing system, and no one has any idea of how to find the elusive book. In fact, it's challenging even to locate one which contains a meaningful sentence: most of them are gibberish from beginning to end. Well, our own world isn't quite as bad - but it's still harder than it should be to locate the books you really want to read, when they're mixed up with the ones you just think you might want to read. I am often appalled at the amount of time I waste on this site, but comfort myself with the thought that it has helped me find some amazing books I normally wouldn't even have considered. But exactly how helpful has it been? The other day, it occurred to me to try and answer this question quantitatively. I calculate that, since I started hanging out here in late 2008, I have read 42 books just because someone here has recommended them. (I didn't count books recommended by people on Goodreads whom I also know in real life, otherwise the figure would be considerably higher). After some more thought, I've picked out a Top Ten, which I present here for your amusement:10. I've never seen anyone outside Goodreads mention \ Everything Explained Through Flowcharts\ , recommended to me by David G, but it's the funniest thing I've seen in ages. I challenge you to read it without giggling helplessly at least a couple of times. Why it isn't more famous is more than I understand.9. \ À rebours\ , a weird 19th century French novel recommended to me by Sabrina, is another book that deserves to be better known. Nothing happens, but it's somehow utterly compelling. I think it's also been very influential.8. I love books written under strong formalist constraints, but I'd never heard of \ Eunoia\ , recommended by Gary. Five chapters, each using only one vowel, and, even though it sounds impossible, it works remarkably well as poetry. Really!7. Eric W recommended \ The Terrible Hours: The Greatest Submarine Rescue in History\ . If you're after inspiration and good old-fashioned heroism, look no further. 6. Choupette was so indignant about \ Plateforme\ that I had to check it out for myself. I liked it enough that I also read \ Les particules élémentaires\ . I won't promise that you'll enjoy them, but they're certainly going to make you think.5. Everyone recommended \ The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains\ . Alas, all too true. The mere fact that I'm sitting here writing this proves his point.4. Would you believe it, I hadn't even heard of \ Infinite Jest\ before I joined GR. Within a couple of months, I'd given in and bought a copy. Admittedly, I also bought a copy of \ Twilight\ at the same time...3. Pavel told me I had to read \ Voices from Chernobyl\ , and he was right. Whatever your opinions on nuclear power, it's irresponsible not to. You can't take more than a chapter or so at a time; after that, you just sit there stunned, doing your best not to cry. Another book that people have unaccountably overlooked.2. Was I really going to read a thousand page physics text full of scary math? I did a math degree in the late 70s, but this looked way over my level. However, Nick called me chicken enough times that I decided to tackle \ The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe\ . I've finally got to the end, and wow, was it a fascinating read! If you like math and physics, take Nick's advice: forget the pop science books and go for the big one. It's worth the effort.1. I don't really know Norwegian, and how likely was it that I'd buy a three volume magical-realist Norwegian novel by an author I'd never heard of? But, moved by Oriana's glowing review, I started thinking that I speak Swedish, Norwegian isn't that different (it's a kind of Spanish/Portugese deal), so why not give it a shot? By the time I was 20 pages into \ Forføreren\ , I was hooked, and then I immediately continued with \ Erobreren\ and \ Oppdageren\ . The trilogy is the most brilliant thing I have read this century, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Thank you Oriana!So, there you are, and I hope I've made at least one sale :) In the interests of completeness, here's the rest of the list, in alphabetical order:\ 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style\ \ The Authoritarians\ \ The Bent Sword\ \ Breaking Dawn\ \ Crowds and Power\ \ The Dreamfighter: And Other Creation Tales\ \ Eclipse\ \ L'élégance du hérisson\ \ Exercices de Style\ \ Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will\ \ Go the Fuck to Sleep\ \ Galatea 2.2\ \ Gray Matters\ \ Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!\ \ The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos\ \ How To Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and on Your Own\ \ Musical Chairs\ \ Mysterier\ \ New Moon\ \ No Hope for Gomez!\ \ Not a Chance: Fictions\ \ The Riddler's Gift (Lifesong, #1)\ \ The Sparrow\ \ Sult\ \ The Triple A's Check It Out\ \ Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights\ \ Whom God Would Destroy\ \ Zazie dans le métro\ Happy Goodreading!

‘It is best to do nothing! The best thing is conscious inertia! So long live the underground!’Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky’s groundbreaking Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter sarcasm, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the ‘ant-hill’ of society and his gradual withdrawal to an existence ‘underground’. The seemingly ordinary world of St Petersburg takes on a nightmarish quality in The Double when a government clerk encounters a man who exactly resembles him – his double perhaps, or possibly the darker side of his own personality. Like Notes from Underground, this is a masterly study of human consciousness.Jessie Coulson’s introduction discusses the stories’ critical reception and the themes they share with Dostoyevksy’s great novels.

Twilight of the Idols presents a vivid, compressed overview of many of Nietzsche’s mature ideas, including his attack on Plato’s Socrates and on the Platonic legacy in Western philosophy and culture. Polt provides a trustworthy rendering of Nietzsche’s text in contemporary American English, complete with notes prepared by the translator and Tracy Strong. An authoritative Introduction by Strong makes this an outstanding edition.

Philosopher, cultural critic, and agent provocateur Slavoj Žižek constructs a fascinating new framework to look at the forces of violence in our world.Using history, philosophy, books, movies, Lacanian psychiatry, and jokes, Slavoj Žižek examines the ways we perceive and misperceive violence. Drawing from his unique cultural vision, Žižek brings new light to the Paris riots of 2005; he questions the permissiveness of violence in philanthropy; in daring terms, he reflects on the powerful image and determination of contemporary terrorists.Violence, Žižek states, takes three forms--subjective (crime, terror), objective (racism, hate-speech, discrimination), and systemic (the catastrophic effects of economic and political systems)--and often one form of violence blunts our ability to see the others, raising complicated questions.Does the advent of capitalism and, indeed, civilization cause more violence than it prevents? Is there violence in the simple idea of "the neighbour"? And could the appropriate form of action against violence today simply be to contemplate, to think?Beginning with these and other equally contemplative questions, Žižek discusses the inherent violence of globalization, capitalism, fundamentalism, and language, in a work that will confirm his standing as one of our most erudite and incendiary modern thinkers.

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr T.C.B.Cook Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is best known for War and Peace and Anna Karenina, commonly regarded as amongst the greatest novels ever written. He also, however, wrote many masterly short stories, and this volume contains four of the longest and best in distinguished translations that have stood the test of time. In the early story 'Family Happiness', Tolstoy explores courtship and marriage from the point of view of a young wife. In 'The Kreutzer Sonata' he gives us a terrifying study of marital breakdown, in 'The Devil' a powerful depiction of the power of sexual temptation, and, in perhaps the finest of all, 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich', he portrays the long agony of a man gradually coming to terms with his own mortality.Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN 1840224533 here.

In this classic work of psychological terror, Paul Bowles examines the ways in which Americans apprehend an alien culture--and the ways in which their incomprehension destroys them. The story of three American travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa, The Sheltering Sky is at once merciless and heartbreaking in its compassion. It etches the limits of human reason and intelligence--perhaps even the limits of human life --when they touch the unfathomable emptiness and impassive cruelty of the desert.

I'm an organized person. Psychotically organized. Except when it comes to books. I try to plan my readings, I try to finish one book in order to begin a new one, but it's all in vain. I read what I want to read, whenever I have the need of reading it. So, with four books on my currently-reading shelf, today I felt like reading something different. First, some weird stuff by Tim Burton, then, A Season in Hell caught my attention and here we are.Anyway, this is one of those books I should read while being drunk. Unfortunately, I don't drink. So, it was kind of difficult to understand what the hell I was reading. This prose work, written by Rimbaud at age 18, is divided into nine parts. And that's the most accurate observation I can give. The rest is pure symbolism hard to get if you haven't read something about his life and his troubled affair with Verlaine (quite a profound inspiration here). These are words written by a young and tormented soul, desperate to put everything out there, to purge himself. Words written with exquisite sensibility, describing beautiful, dark, intense images. I saw that, in all its glory, in the first part, Introduction. The second part, Bad Blood, it's a collection of the consequences of his ancestors, his blood, and other weird reflections that made me think I probably wouldn't like what he was smoking at that time. The third part was... well, I don't want to say that I enjoyed reading it, because it's about the narrator's death and his arrival to hell (nothing really nice to read right before going to bed, honestly), but it's beautifully written. Again, this young man makes you feel what was going through his mind and soul with unsettling details.The forth part is Ravings I, Foolish Virgin, The Infernal Spouse. I'm guessing you can imagine to whom he's referring in this one.I shouldn't keep spoiling this, right?. So, during all this strange journey from existence on earth to condemnation in hell, it remains only one question to be asked: can he be saved? Even though he's already in hell, can he find any sort of mitigation, salvation even? Yeah... I'm not answering that. I had a good, weird, dark, sad, freaky, confusing, unsettling, challenging, disturbing read. Your turn.May 21, 14* Also in my blog.

This rarefied novel adopts the form of the interior monologue characteristic of Lispector's (1925-1977) oeuvre. A woman sits by the open window of her Brazilian beachfront studio, writing a long letter to someone no more specific than "you." She parries with language (which is "only words which live off sound") and is wholly consumed with problems of epistemology: "I want to die with life." A painter, she struggles as well to recreate the world around her: "On certain nights, instead of black, the sky seems to be an intense indigo blue, a color I've painted on glass." When she listens to music, she says, "I rest my hand lightly on the turntable and my hand vibrates, spreading waves through my whole body." While the narrator's self-consciousness ("And if I say 'I,' it's because I don't dare say 'you,' or 'we,' or 'a person.' I'm limited to the humble act of self-personalization through reducing myself, but I am the 'you-are.' ") and diction ("the ultimate substratum in the domain of reality") may strike some readers as academic, others will appreciate the challenges of Lispector's philosophical investigations. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.