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. Penguin's Great Ideas series features twelve groundbreaking works by some of history's most prodigious thinkers, and each volume is beautifully packaged with a unique type-drive design that highlights the bookmaker's art. Offering great literature in great packages at great prices, this series is ideal for those readers who want to explore and savor the Great Ideas that have shaped the world.
Few ancient works have been as influential as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, philosopher and emperor of Rome (A.D. 161180). A series of spiritual exercises filled with wisdom, practical guidance, and profound understanding of human behavior, it remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical reflection ever written. Marcuss insights and advice--on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity and interacting with others--have made the Meditations required reading for statesmen and philosophers alike, while generations of ordinary readers have responded to the straightforward intimacy of his style. For anyone who struggles to reconcile the demands of leadership with a concern for personal integrity and spiritual well-being, the Meditations remains as relevant now as it was two thousand years ago.
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Part of Penguin''s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. When this volume of Shakespeare''s poems first appeared in 1609, he had already written most of the great plays that made him famous. The 154 sonnets - all but two of which are addressed to a beautiful young man or a treacherous ''dark lady'' - contain some of the most exquisite and haunting poetry ever written, and deal with eternal subjects such as love and infidelity, memory and mortality, and the destruction wreaked by Time. Also included is A Lover''s Complaint, originally published with the sonnets, in which a young woman is overheard lamenting her betrayal by a heartless seducer.
Once there was a little tree ...and she loved a little boy. Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk ...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave.
Dante's epic in a new, sumptuous and delightful clothbound edition.
Describing Dante's descent into Hell midway through his life with Virgil as a guide, Inferno depicts a cruel underworld in which desperate figures are condemned to eternal damnation for committing one or more of seven deadly sins. As he descends through nine concentric circles of increasingly agonising torture, Dante encounters doomed souls including the pagan Aeneas, the liar Odysseus, the suicide Cleopatra, and his own political enemies, damned for their deceit. Led by leering demons, the poet must ultimately journey with Virgil to the deepest level of all. For it is only by encountering Satan, in the heart of Hell, that he can truly understand the tragedy of sin.
Biographical noteEdgar Allan Poe (1809 - 49), was born in Boston, USA. He was a shortstory writer, editor and literary critic, and is considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor the detective-fiction genre. Main descriptionThe Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Gold-Bug - some of the most famous tales of terror and the most macabre detective stories ever written. Acknowledged master of suspense, Poe was also a poet and - as his stories of mesmerism and time travel prove - a pioneer of science fiction. In this collection, probing to the depths of the human psyche, Poe's haunted genius will chill and enthral you.
Leon is nine, and has a perfect baby brother called Jake. They have gone to live with Maureen, who has fuzzy red hair like a halo, and a belly like Father Christmas. But the adults are speaking in low voices, and wearing Pretend faces. They are threatening to give Jake to strangers. Since Jake is white and Leon is not.
Pathologist Quirke works in the city morgue, watching over Dublin's dead. The latest to join their ghostly ranks is a suicide. But something doesn't add up. The victim has a suspicious head wound, and the only witness has vanished, every trace of her wiped away.
Mitford is a giraffe. But not your everyday, live-on-the-savannah giraffe. Mitford lives in the city. But not your everyday, filled-with-people city. This city is filled with animals. Animals who like to dress up, especially the animals who work at COVER magazine. Mitford would do ANYTHING to work there. But first Mitford must prove himself. Can Mitford survive the Fashion Zoo?!
In the early 1900s, Robert Miller, a.k.a. «Count Victor Lustig,» moved to Paris hoping to be an artist. A con artist, that is. He used his ingenious scams on unsuspecting marks all over the world, from the Czech Republic, to Atlantic ocean liners, and across America. Tricky Vic pulled off his most daring con in 1925, when he managed to «sell» the Eiffel Tower to one of the city's most successful scrap metal dealers! Six weeks later, he tried to sell the Eiffel Tower all over again. Vic was never caught. For that particular scam, anyway. . . .
The Return is at once a universal and an intensely personal tale. It is an exquisite meditation on how history and politics can bear down on an individual life. And yet Hisham Matar's memoir isn't just about the burden of the past, but the consolation of love, literature and art. It is the story of what it is to be human. Hisham Matar was nineteen when his father was kidnapped and taken to prison in Libya. He would never see him again. Twenty-two years later, the fall of Gaddafi meant he was finally able to return to his homeland. In this moving memoir, the author takes us on an illuminating journey, both physical and psychological; a journey to find his father and rediscover his country.
COMPLETELY REVISED AND UPDATED EDITIONMaking Sense of the Troubles is David McKittrick and David McVea's classic history of the Troubles, now completely revised and updated.
First published ten years ago, Making Sense of the Troubles is widely regarded as the most 'comprehensive, considered and compassionate' (Irish Times) history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Written by a distinguished journalist and a teacher of history in Northern Ireland, it surveys the roots of the problems from 1921 onwards, the descent into violence in the late 60s, and the three terrible decades that followed. McKittrick and McVea have now fully updated the book to take into account the momentous events of the last ten years, including the disbanding of the IRA, Ian Paisley's deal with the Republicans and the historic power-sharing government in Belfast.'An updated reissue of a collaborative study published 12 years ago to rave reviews as a frank, accurate and authoritative narrative of events which should be required reading for anyone hoping to understand what had been going on in the North' Irish Independent'I would strongly advocate that it be made compulsory reading for everyone in Northern Ireland because for the first time it is our history, all of it warts and all, presented in a clear and understandable way' Irish News'Extraordinarily well-balanced, sane, comprehensive and rich in sober understatement' Glasgow Herald'Compellingly written and very even-handed. By far the clearest account of what happened in the Northern Ireland conflict and more importantly why it happened' Irish News
David McKittrick has reported on the Northern Ireland troubles since the 1970s. After working for the Irish Times and BBC he has been Ireland correspondent of the London Independent since 1985. Awards include the Orwell Prize, correspondent of the year and Belfast journalist of the year. David McVea graduated in politics and modern history from Queen's University, Belfast, and has an MA from Sussex University. He was head of the politics department of a Belfast grammar school where he taught both history and political studies.
Born in Ireland in 1667, Jonathan Swift defiantly clung to his Englishness. He refused to relinquish this attachment even as corruption and injustice gradually led him to turn against the English government. In a long life, Swift proved a reluctant rebel, though one with a relish for the fight, and implacable when provoked - a voice of withering disenchantment unrivalled in English. But he was also an inspired humorist, a beloved companion, a conscientious Anglican minister, as well as a hoaxer and a teller of tales. His anger against abuses of power would produce the most famous satire of the English language - Gulliver's Travels as well as the Drapier Papers and the unparallelled Modest Proposal, in which he imagined the poor of Ireland farming their infants for the tables of wealthy colonists. John Stubbs' biography sets out to capture the dirt and beauty of a world that Swift both scorned and sought to amend. It follows Swift through his many battles, for and against authority, and in his many contradictions, as a priest who sought to uphold the dogma of his church; as a man who was quite prepared to defy convention, not least in his unshakeable attachment to an unmarried woman, his 'Stella'; and as a writer whose vision showed that no single creed holds all of the answers.
