The great quest for systematic knowledge in the decades around the year 1800 gave rise to one of the most spirited eras in the history of philosophical exploration, exemplified by the school of German Idealist philosophy. With confidence and sweeping aspirations, the Idealist philosophers Immanuel K[...]
Ayurveda, the ancient art of healing, has been practiced in India for more than two thousand years and survives today as a living medical tradition whose principles are at the heart of many "alternative" therapies now used in the West. This "science of longevity" has parallels with Buddhist thought,[...]
Lentils, free love, radical politics and family truths..."Various Pets Alive and Dead" is the wonderfully funny fourth novel from Marina Lewycka, author of the bestselling "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian". For twenty years Doro and Marcus lived in a commune, convinced lentils and free love[...]
Organized thematically, this outstanding anthology provides an intriguing overview of the turbulent decade of the 1960s in more than one hundred selections of essays, poetry, and fiction by Edward Abbey, James Baldwin, Sylvia Plath, Timothy Leary, Gloria Steinem, Lenny Bruce, Abbie Hoffman, Alice Wa[...]
In these vivid and revealing interviews, a diverse collection of filmmakers talk in extraordinary detail and with amazing candor about making their first films. Each chapter focuses on a director's celebrated debut and tells the inside story of the film's creation. Along the way, every aspect of the[...]
Sacred poetry from twelve mystics and saints, rendered brilliantly by Daniel Ladinsky, beloved interpreter of verses by the fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafiz
In this luminous collection, Daniel Ladinsky--best known for his gifted and bestselling interpretations of the great Sufi poet Hafiz-[...]
Clarence Brown's marvelous collection introduces readers to the most resonant voices of twentieth-century Russia. It includes stories by Chekhov, Gorky, Bunin, Zamyatin, Babel, Nabokov, Solzhenitsyn, and Voinovich; excerpts from Andrei Bely's Petersburg, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margar[...]
A great deal is happening in London this season.
For starters, there's the witch who tried to poison Kate at Sir Hilary's induction into the Royal College of Wizards. (Since when does hot chocolate burn a hole straight through one's dress? )
Then there's Dorothea. Is it a spell that's made h[...]
Marina Lewycka explores the clash of the generations in one extremely colourful family in her comic novel "Various Pets Alive and Dead".
For twenty years Doro and Marcus lived in a commune, convinced lentils and free love would change the world. They didn't. What they did do was give the[...]
In the 1960s and 1970s, the artist Ed Ruscha created a series of small photo-conceptual artist's books, among them Twentysix Gas Stations, Various Small Fires, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Real Estate Opportunities, and A Few Palm Trees. Featuring mundane subjects pho[...]
Known as the "Prince of Bummers," Leonard Cohen is a multi-talented poet, singer-songwriter, novelist, and Zen Buddhist whose career has spanned more than forty years and inspired countless other artists. In this critically acclaimed biography originally published in 1996 by Pantheon Books, Ira Nade[...]
This festively designed boxed set of five Little Golden Books doesn't even need gift-wrap It includes a mix of classic and newer titles, at the value that Golden Books is known for: "The Animals' Christmas Eve; The Christmas Story; The Little Christmas Elf; The Night Before Christmas;" and "The Pok[...]
Based on an episode of Nickelodeon's "Dora the Explorer," this full-color Little Golden Book is sure to thrill little girls ages 2-5.[...]