This devastating book begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, sixteen-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day’s end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another.In Lethal Passage Erik Larson shows us how a disturbed teenager was able to buy a weapon advertised as “the gun that made the eighties roar.” In so doing, he not only illuminates America’s gun culture—its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists—but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. The result is a book that can—and should—save lives, and that has already become an essential text in the gun-control debate.

It’s as if we’re living in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Every day we are inundated by news reports, trending topics on social media, and new political movements promoting such bizarre beliefs about race, gender, sexuality, and life in general, that it’s impossible in many cases to distinguish whether such ideas are serious or if they’re a parody of what liberalism has become.

The political differences between liberals and conservatives used to be pretty well established, but recently the tug of war between the Left and the Right took a dramatic and disturbing turn. Modern liberalism has been replaced with new mind-boggling agendas promoting the adoption of unscientific, authoritarian, and sociologically disastrous ideologies.

In attempts to accomplish their plans, the Left are conspiring to end freedom of speech, traditional families, long-cherished holidays, and hope to implement a new world order. Who is behind this madness? What is their ultimate goal? How far are they willing to go to achieve it? And what can we do to stop them?

Bestselling author and media analyst Mark Dice takes you on a tour inside the minds of those constructing this new social landscape in his groundbreaking investigation: Liberalism: Find a Cure.

Brilliant, inspired, and gloriously erudite, Literature and the Gods is the culmination of Roberto Calasso’s lifelong study of the gods in the human imagination. By uncovering the divine whisper that lies behind the best poetry and prose from across the centuries, Calasso gives us a renewed sense of the mystery and enchantment of great literature.From the banishment of the classical divinities during the Age of Reason to their emancipation by the Romantics and their place in the literature of our own time, the history of the gods can also be read as a ciphered and splendid history of literary inspiration. Rewriting that story, Calasso carves out a sacred space for literature where the presence of the gods is discernible. His inquiry into the nature of “absolute literature” transports us to the realms of Dionysus and Orpheus, Baudelaire and Mallarmé, and prompts a lucid and impassioned defense of poetic form, even when apparently severed from any social function. Lyrical and assured, Literature and the Gods is an intensely engaging work of literary affirmation that deserves to be read alongside the masterpieces it celebrates.

Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book—a key inspiration for Rivka Galchen’s new book — contains a list of “Things That Make One Nervous.” And wouldn’t the blessed event top almost anyone’s list?Little Labors is a slanted, enchanted literary miscellany. Varying in length from just a sentence or paragraph to a several-page story or essay, Galchen’s puzzle pieces assemble into a shining, unpredictable, mordant picture of the ordinary-extraordinary nature of babies and literature. Anecdotal or analytic, each part opens up an odd and tender world of wonder. The 47 Ronin; the black magic of maternal love; babies morphing from pumas to chickens; the quasi-repellent concept of “women writers”; origami-ophilia in Oklahoma as a gateway drug to a lifelong obsession with Japan; discussions of favorite passages from the Heian masterpieces Genji and The Pillow Book; the frightening prevalence of orange as today’s new chic color for baby gifts; Frankenstein as a sort of baby; babies gold mines; babies as tiny Godzillas …Little Labors — atomized and exploratory, conceptually byzantine and freshly forthright — delights.

British satirist Will Self spins four interconnected stories into a brilliantly insightful commentary on human foibles and resilience.Will Self’s remarkable new stories center on the disease and decay that target the largest of human organs: the liver. Set in locales as toxic as a London drinking club and mundane as a clinic in an ultraorderly Swiss city, the stories distill the hard lives of their subjects whether alcoholic, drug addict, or cancer patient. I n “Fois Humane,” set at the Plantation Club, it’s always a Tuesday afternoon in midwinter, and the shivering denizens of this dusty realm spend their days observing its proprietor as he force-feeds the barman vodkaspiked beer. Joyce Beddoes, protagonist of “Leberknödel,” has terminal liver cancer and is on her way to be euthanized in Zurich when, miraculously, her disease goes into remission. In “Prometheus” a young copywriter at London’s most cutting edge ad agency has his liver nibbled by a griffon thrice daily, but he’s always in the pink the following morning and ready to make that killer pitch. If blood and bile flow through liverish London, the two arteries meet in “Birdy Num Num,” where “career junky” Billy Chobham performs little services for the customers who gather to wait for the Man, while in his blood a virus pullulates. A moving portrayal of egos, appetites and addictions, Liver is an extraordinary achievement.

British satirist Will Self spins four interconnected stories into a brilliantly insightful commentary on human foibles and resilience.Will Self’s remarkable new stories center on the disease and decay that target the largest of human organs: the liver. Set in locales as toxic as a London drinking club and mundane as a clinic in an ultraorderly Swiss city, the stories distill the hard lives of their subjects whether alcoholic, drug addict, or cancer patient. I n “Fois Humane,” set at the Plantation Club, it’s always a Tuesday afternoon in midwinter, and the shivering denizens of this dusty realm spend their days observing its proprietor as he force-feeds the barman vodkaspiked beer. Joyce Beddoes, protagonist of “Leberknödel,” has terminal liver cancer and is on her way to be euthanized in Zurich when, miraculously, her disease goes into remission. In “Prometheus” a young copywriter at London’s most cutting edge ad agency has his liver nibbled by a griffon thrice daily, but he’s always in the pink the following morning and ready to make that killer pitch. If blood and bile flow through liverish London, the two arteries meet in “Birdy Num Num,” where “career junky” Billy Chobham performs little services for the customers who gather to wait for the Man, while in his blood a virus pullulates. A moving portrayal of egos, appetites and addictions, Liver is an extraordinary achievement.

A collection of essays on writers and writing by the Booker-shortlisted novelist and critic.Writing about real lives takes various forms, which overlap and may be combined with each other: biography, autobiography, biographical criticism, biographical fiction, memoir, confession, diary.In these thoughtful and enlightening essays David Lodge considers some particularly interesting examples of life-writing, and contributes several of his own. The subjects include celebrated modern British writers such as Graham Greene, Kingsley Amis, Muriel Spark and Alan Bennett, and two major figures from the past, Anthony Trollope and H.G.Wells. Lodge examines connections between the style and the man in the diaries of the playwright Simon Gray and the cultural criticism of Terry Eagleton, and recalls how his own literary career was entwined with that of his friend Malcolm Bradbury.All except one of the subjects (Princess Diana) are or were themselves professionally "in writing", making this collection a kind of casebook of the splendours and miseries of authorship. In a final essay Lodge describes the genesis and compositional method of his recent novel about H.G.Wells, A Man of Parts, and engages with the critical controversies that have been provoked by the increasing popularity of narrative and dramatic writing that combines fact and fiction.Drawing on David Lodge's long experience as a novelist and critic, Lives in Writing is a fascinating study of the interface between life and literature.

Men, women, and children ran for cover as the bombs started falling on Pervomaisk. The Russian separatists were invading Eastern Ukraine in 2015. Many Ukrainians fled into Central and Western Ukraine to find safety. “Lives Left Behind” is the captivating and inspiring story of ten Ukrainian women who escaped the war in Eastern Ukraine. Through great trials and difficulties these ten women eventually resettled in L’viv, Ukraine. Their journeys are marked by disappointments and sorrows, but show also incredible resilience, determination, and joy. You will be inspired and encouraged as you travel with them to L’viv.

Internationally celebrated for her novels, Nadine Gordimer has devoted much of her life and fiction to the political struggles of the Third World, the New World, and her native South Africa. Living in Hope and History is an on-the-spot record of her years as a public figure-an observer of apartheid and its aftermath, a member of the ANC, and the champion of dissident writers everywhere.In a letter to fellow Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe, Nadine Gordimer describes Living in Hope and History as a "modest book of some of the nonfiction pieces I've written, a reflection of how I've looked at this century I've lived in." It is, in fact, an extraordinary collection of essays, articles, and addresses delivered over four decades, including her Nobel Prize Lecture of 1991.

The internationally acclaimed novelist Siri Hustvedt has also produced a growing body of nonfiction. She has published a book of essays on painting (Mysteries of the Rectangle) as well as an interdisciplinary investigation of a neurological disorder (The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves). She has given lectures on artists and theories of art at the Prado, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 2011, she delivered the thirty-ninth annual Freud Lecture in Vienna. Living, Thinking, Looking brings together thirty-two essays written between 2006 and 2011, in which the author culls insights from philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis, and literature.The book is divided into three sections: the essays in Living draw directly from Hustvedt’s life; those in Thinking explore memory, emotion, and the imagination; and the pieces in Looking are about visual art. And yet, the same questions recur throughout the collection. How do we see, remember, and feel? How do we interact with other people? What does it mean to sleep, dream, and speak? What is "the self"? Hustvedt’s unique synthesis of knowledge from many fields reinvigorates the much-needed dialogue between the humanities and the sciences as it deepens our understanding of an age-old riddle: What does it mean to be human?

Charles D’Ambrosio’s essay collection Orphans spawned something of a cult following. In the decade since the tiny limited-edition volume sold out its print run, its devotees have pressed it upon their friends, students, and colleagues, only to find themselves begging for their copy’s safe return. For anyone familiar with D’Ambrosio’s writing, this enthusiasm should come as no surprise. His work is exacting and emotionally generous, often as funny as it is devastating. Loitering gathers those eleven original essays with new and previously uncollected work so that a broader audience might discover one of our great living essayists. No matter his subject — Native American whaling, a Pentecostal “hell house,” Mary Kay Letourneau, the work of J. D. Salinger, or, most often, his own family — D’Ambrosio approaches each piece with a singular voice and point of view; each essay, while unique and surprising, is unmistakably his own.

London Orbital is Iain Sinclair's voyage of discovery into the unloved outskirts of the city.Encircling London like a noose, the M25 is a road to nowhere, but when Iain Sinclair sets out to walk this asphalt loop — keeping within the 'acoustic footprints' — he is determined to find out where the journey will lead him. Stumbling upon converted asylums, industrial and retail parks, ring-fenced government institutions and lost villages, Sinclair discovers a Britain of the fringes, a landscape consumed by developers. London Orbital charts this extraordinary trek and round trip of the soul, revealing the country as you've never seen it before.'My book of the year. Sentence for sentence, there is no more interesting writer at work in English'John Lanchester, Daily Telegraph'A magnum opus, my book of the year. I urge you to read it. In fact, if you're a Londoner and haven't read it by the end of next year, I suggest you leave'Will Self, Evening Standard'A journey into the heart of darkness and a fascinating snapshot of who we are, lit by Sinclair's vivid prose. I'm sure it will be read fifty years from now'J. G. Ballard, ObserverIain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances.

The amazing true story of how London became home to the Russian super-rich – told for the first time ever. A dazzling tale of incredible wealth, ferocious disputes, beautiful women, private jets, mega-yachts, the world’s best footballers – and chauffeur-driven Range Rovers with tinted windows.

A group of buccaneering Russian oligarchs made colossal fortunes after the collapse of communism – and many of them came to London to enjoy their new-found wealth. Londongrad tells for the first time the true story of their journeys from Moscow and St Petersburg to mansions in Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Surrey – and takes you into a shimmering world of audacious multi-billion pound deals, outrageous spending and rancorous feuds.

But while London’s flashiest restaurants echoed to Russian laughter and Bond Street shop-owners totted up their profits, darker events also played themselves out. The killing of ex-KGB man Alexander Litvinenko in London to the death – in a helicopter crash he all but predicted – of Stephen Curtis, the lawyer to many of Britain’s richest Russians, chilled London’s Russians and many of those who know them.

This is the story of how Russia’s wealth was harvested and brought to London – some of it spent by Roman Abramovich on his beloved Chelsea Football Club, some of it spent by Boris Berezovsky in his battles with Russia’s all-powerful Vladimir Putin. Londongrad is a must-read for anyone interested in how vast wealth is created, the luxury it can buy and the power and intrigue it produces.

À l'occasion du centenaire de sa naissance, célébré en 2014, la première biographie complète de Louis de Funès, où l'on découvre non seulement l'acteur, côté cour, mais aussi, côté jardin, l'homme secret méconnu.Tout, tout, tout sur Louis de Funès… La première biographie complète d'un des acteurs préférés des Français, toutes générations confondues.Né à Courbevoie quelques heures avant la déclaration de la Grande Guerre, Louis de Funès aurait eu cent ans en 2014. Le Corniaud, La Grande Vadrouille, Fantômas, La Folie des grandeurs, Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob, L'Aile ou la cuisse, la saga du Gendarme de Saint-Tropez… chacun connaît ses films, synonymes de l'âge d'or de la comédie à la française.Mais que sait-on vraiment de cet homme au génie comique inimitable, que sait-on de son quotidien, de ses galères, lui qui fit mille petits boulots avant de brûler les planches et rencontra tardivement le succès ? Extrêmement fouillé et documenté, le livre de Jean-Marc Loubier nous fait découvrir un comédien intransigeant, boulimique de travail et qui choisissait ses rôles avec une minutie maniaque afin qu'ils amusent parents et enfants, mais aussi l'homme secret qui protégeait farouchement sa vie privée.À l'appui des témoignages de ses partenaires, de ses réalisateurs, des membres de sa famille qui ont pour la première fois accepté de se confier, cette bio « à l'américaine » revisite un demi-siècle d'histoire du cinéma et du théâtre en compagnie de merveilleux monstres sacrés (Bourvil, Gabin, Montand, Carmet, Coluche…), et notamment les joyeuses décennies 1960–1970.Biographie de l'auteurÉcrivain et journaliste spécialisé dans le cinéma, Jean-Marc Loubier est l'auteur de nombreuses biographies — Louis Jouvet, Michel Simon, Pierre Brasseur, Patrick Dewaere, Marilyn Monroe… — , couronné en 1997 par le prix Saint-Simon pour son livre d'entretiens avec Simone Valère et Jean Desailly, Un destin pour deux. En 1991, il publia sous le titre Le Berger des roses la première biographie consacrée à Louis de Funès. Devenu proche de la famille, il a au fil des ans pu reconstituer toute la matière de la vie de l'acteur pour nous proposer aujourd'hui sa biographie « définitive ».

A shy manifesto, an impractical handbook, the true story of a fabulist, an entire life in parts and pieces, Manhood for Amateurs is the first sustained work of personal writing from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. In these insightful, provocative, slyly interlinked essays, one of our most brilliant and humane writers addresses with his characteristic warmth and lyric wit the all-important question: What does it mean to be a man today?

Michael Chabon's sparkling first book of nonfiction is a love song in sixteen parts — a series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing, with subjects running from ghost stories to comic books, Sherlock Holmes to Cormac McCarthy. Throughout, Chabon energetically argues for a return to the thrilling, chilling origins of storytelling, rejecting the false walls around "serious" literature in favor of a wide-ranging affection.

Книга о великом противостоянии двух гигантов индустрии комиксов и кино — Marvel и DC.

Автор расскажет истории создания двух таких похожих на первый взгляд, но совершенно разных корпораций. Одна существует уже почти сто лет, а вторая — всего шестьдесят. Одна подарила нам Супермена, Бэтмена, Чудо-женщину и Флэша, а другая — Человека-Паука, Капитана Америку и Железного Человека. Одна уверенно развивает киновселенную на больших экранах, вторая только встала на этот путь, но как успешно идет по нему.

Помимо увлекательного рассказа в тексте много комментариев и историй от знаменитых людей — Уилла Смита, Зака Снайдера, Дуэйна «Скалы» Джонсона, Себастиана Стэна и, конечно, Стэна Ли.

История многолетнего соперничества, взлеты и падения конкурентов, громкие ссоры и тихие информационные войны, создание величайших героев и закулисье вселенной — все это и многое другое на страницах этой книги!

• Кто победит: Бэтмен или Капитан Америка?

• У кого воровали персонажей?

• Зачем Стэн Ли читал все письма фанатов?

• Как DC украли лучшего художника у Marvel?

NOTEH. G. Wells visited the Soviet Union in 1934 and on July 23 he inter­viewed Joseph Stalin. The conversation, lasting from 4 P. M. to 6:50 P. M., was recorded by Constantine Oumansky, then head of the Press Bureau of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. The text, as printed in this pamphlet, has been approved by Mr. Wells.

Ce livre des œuvres complètes de Guy de Maupassant est exhaustif. Il réunit ses huit romans (dont deux inachevés), ses quelques 350 nouvelles réunies en 24 recueils, ses sept pièces de théâtre (dont deux inachevées), toutes ses poésies (réunies en deux volumes), ses carnets de voyages ainsi que les centaines d’articles qu’il écrivit pour la presse entre 1876 et 1891 (classées par dates de publication et par recueils annuels). Une introduction de l’éditeur explique le parcours et l’œuvre de Guy de Maupassant. Ce livre est le fruit d'une somme de travail considérable. Les quelques milliers de pages de « Maupassant : Œuvres complètes » sont réparties en 57 volumes, ayant chacun un sommaire interactif propre. Aussi, un sommaire général permet d’accéder instantanément à n'importe lequel de ses volumes, ou, au choix, à un de ses chapitres, nouvelles, contes fantastiques, poésies, articles de presse, etc. Toutes ces œuvres ont été relues, corrigées lorsque cela était nécessaire, et mises en page avec soin pour en rendre leur lecture aussi agréable que possible.Au-delà d’une simple compilation, « Maupassant : Œuvres complètes » constitue également un formidable outil de recherche, facile et agréable à utiliser pour quiconque s’intéresse à l’œuvre de Guy de Maupassant. Pour le simple lecteur, il est une source de plaisir et de curiosité quasiment inépuisable.• Edition complétée d’une étude de l’éditeur.• Edition enrichie de notes explicatives interactives.