Penguin Books strana 366 z 485

In Frog, Mo Yan turns his attention to the subject of China's one-child policy. A celebrated midwife, skilled at delivering babies in difficult rural circumstances, finds herself at the blunt end of enforcement of the country's controversial one-child policy. Through a complex family story told through letters and narrative forms, Mo explores the emotional and moral toll of state-controlled family planning on a traditional community that places a high value on a large family.

On the shrouded corpse hung a tablet of green topaz with the inscription: 'I am Shaddad the Great. I conquered a thousand cities; a thousand white elephants were collected for me; I lived for a thousand years and my kingdom covered both east and west, but when death came to me nothing of all that I had gathered was of any avail. You who see me take heed: for Time is not to be trusted.' Dating from at least a millennium ago, these are the earliest known Arabic short stories, surviving in a single, ragged manuscript in a library in Istanbul. Some found their way into The Arabian Nights but most have never been read in English before. Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange has monsters, lost princes, jewels beyond price, a princess turned into a gazelle, sword-wielding statues and shocking reversals of fortune.

Freud's epoch-making insights revolutionized our perception of who we are, forming the foundation for psychoanalysis. In Civilization and its Discontents he considers the incompatibility of civilization and individual happiness. Focusing on what he perceives to be one of society's greatest dangers; 'civilized' sexual morality, he asks, does repression compromise our chances of happiness? Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 and died in exile in London in 1939. As a writer and doctor he remains one of the informing voices of the twentieth century.

Get Shit Done. Less Meetings, More Doing. Passion Never Fails. These mantras have bred the likes of Twitter and Instagram. Now the essence of the startup world has been captured in book form. There's rocket-fuelled insight from the pioneers of the Lean revolution, alongside timeless wisdom from Zuckerberg, Bezos and Jobs. Whenever you're in search of inspiration and motivation, pick up this book. And then Get Shit Done. "It's the new buzz acronym taking over the start-up world and kicking workers into action". (Evening Standard). Lauris Liberts is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Startup Vitamins, which supplies motivation to the startup world. In Latvia he built the only European competitor of Facebook that's still locally dominant, then expanded globally with the Draugiem Group, Behappy.me and DeskTime. Startup Vitamins offers inspiration through posters, mugs, t-shirts and more. It's based in California and Latvia and ships globally - fast.

One of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer (1788-1860) believed that human action is determined not by reason but by 'will' - the blind and irrational desire for physical existence. This selection of his writings on religion, ethics, politics, women, suicide, books and many other themes is taken from Schopenhauer's last work, Parerga and Paralipomena, which he published in 1851. These pieces depict humanity as locked in a struggle beyond good and evil, and each individual absolutely free within a Godless world, in which art, morality and self-awareness are our only salvation. This innovative - and pessimistic - view has proved powerfully influential upon philosophy and art, directly affecting the work of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and Wagner among others. Arthur Schopenhauer was born in Danzig in 1788 where his family, of Dutch origin, owned a respected trading house. Arthur was expected to inherit the business, but hated the work and in 1807, after his father's suicide and the sale of the business, he enrolled in the grammar school at Gotha. He went on to study medicine and science at Gottingen University and in 1810 began to study philosophy. In 1811 he transferred to Berlin to write his doctoral thesis, and began to write The World as Will and Idea, a complete exploration of his philosophy, which was finished in 1818. Although the book failed to sell, his belief in his own views sustained him through twenty-five years of frustrated desire for fame. During his middle life he travelled widely in Europe and in 1844 brought out a much expanded edition of his book, which after his death became one of the most widely read of all philosophical works. His fame was established in 1851 with the publication of Parerga and Paralipomena, a collection of dialogues, essays and aphorisms. He died in 1860. R.J. Hollingdale has translated works by, among others, Schopenhauer, Goethe, T.A. Hoffmann, Lichtenburg and Theodor Fontane, as well as eleven of Nietzsche's books, many for the Penguin Classics. He has published two books on Nietzsche and was Honorary President of the British Nietzsche Society until his death in 2003.

In Fear and Trembling, Soren Kierkegaard's infamous and controversial work made a lasting impression on both modern Protestant theology and existentialist philosophers such as Sartre and Camus. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Danish with an introduction by Alistair Hannay. Writing under the pseudonym of 'Johannes de silentio', Kierkegaard expounds his personal view of religion through a discussion of the scene in Genesis in which Abraham prepares to sacrifice his son Isaac at God's command. Believing Abraham's unreserved obedience to be the essential leap of faith needed to make a full commitment to his religion, Kierkegaard himself made great sacrifices in order to dedicate his life entirely to his philosophy and to God. The conviction shown in this religious polemic - that a man can have an exceptional mission in life - informed all Kierkegaard's later writings. His 'teleological suspension of the ethical' challenged the contemporary views of Hegel's universal moral system, and was also hugely influential for both protestant theology and the existentialist movement. Alastair Hannay's introduction evaluates Kierkegaard's philosophy and the ways in which it conflicted with more accepted contemporary views. This edition also includes detailed notes to complement this groundbreaking analysis of religion, and a new chronology. Danish-born S ren Kierkegaard (1813-55) wrote on a wide variety of themes, including religion, psychology, and literature. He is remembered for his philosophy, which pioneered the idea of the Absurd, and was influential and in the development of 20th century existentialism. His other works include The Sickness unto Death, Either/Or, and Papers and Journals, all of which are available in Penguin Classics. If you enjoyed Fear and Trembling, you might like Kierkegaard's The Sickness unto Death, also available in Penguin Classics.

The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory is firmly established as a key work of reference in the complex and varied field of literary criticism. Now in its fifth edition, it remains the most comprehensive and accessible work of its kind, and is invaluable for students, teachers and general readers alike. - Gives definitions of technical terms (hamartia, iamb, zeugma) and critical jargon (aporia, binary opposition, intertextuality) - Explores literary movements (neoclassism, romanticism, vorticism) and schools of literary theory - Covers genres (elegy, fabliau, pastoral) and literary forms (haiku, ottava rima, sonnet)

For more than 2,000 years, Sun Tzu's The Art of War has provided leaders with essential advice on battlefield tactics, managing troops and terrain, and employing cunning and deception. An elemental part of Chinese culture, it has also become a touchstone for the Western struggle for survival and success, whether in battle, in business or in relationships. Now, in this crisp, accessible new translation, John Minford brings this seminal work to life for today's readers. A lively, learned introduction, chronologies and suggested further reading are among the valuable apparatus included in this authoritative volume. Even those readers familiar with The Art of War will experience it a new, finding it more fascinating - and more chilling - than ever. Little is known about Sun Tzu (544-496 B.C.) and his life during the Warring States period after the decline of the Zhou dysnasty, but his classic, The Art of War, has been one of the central works of Chinese literature for 2500 years

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

Kino finds a large pearl, which he thinks will save his family from poverty. But the pearl is what they think they want instead of what they need. The misfortune it brings changes the life of the family forever.

This title includes: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and, Love and Freindship. Few novelists have conveyed the subtleties and nuances of their own social milieu with the wit and insight of Jane Austen. Through her vivacious and spirited heroines and their circle, she paints vivid portraits of English middle-class life as the eighteenth century came to a close. Each of the novels is a love story and a story about marriage - marriage for love, for financial security, for social status. But they are not mere romances; ironic, comic and wise, they are masterly studies of the society Jane Austen observed. The seven books in this box set contain some of the most brilliant, dazzling prose in the English language.

The founder of Blackwater offers the gripping true story of the world's most controversial military contractor. In 1997, former Navy SEAL Erik Prince started a business that would recruit civilians for the riskiest security jobs in the world. As Blackwater's reputation grew, demand for its services escalated, and its men eventually completed nearly 100,000 missions for both the Bush and Obama administrations.It was a huge success except for one problem: Blackwater was demonized around the world. Its employees were smeared as mercenaries, profiteers, or worse. And because of the secrecy requirements of its contracts with the Pentagon, the State Department, and the CIA, Prince was unable to correct false information. But now he's finally able to tell the full story about some of the biggest controversies of the War on Terror, in a memoir that reads like a thriller.

Exodus is an insightful, expert foray into the explosive issue of immigration, from Paul Collier, award-winning economist and author of The Bottom Billion Mass international migration is a response to extreme global inequality, and immigration has a profound impact on the way we live. Yet our views - and those of our politicians - remain caught between two extremes: popular hostility to migrants, tinged by xenophobia and racism; and the view of business and liberal elites that 'open doors' are both economically and ethically imperative. With migration set to accelerate, few issues are so urgently in need of dispassionate analysis - and few are more incendiary. Here, world-renowned economist Paul Collier seeks to defuse this explosive subject. Exodus looks at how people from the world's poorest societies struggle to migrate to the rich West: the effects on those left behind and on the host societies, and explores the impulses and thinking that inform Western immigration policy. Migration, he concludes, is a fact, and we urgently need to think clearly about its possibilities and challenges: it is not a question of whether migration is good or bad, but how much is best? "Exodus is an important book and one I have been waiting to read for many years ...[it is] a work that is humane and hard-headed about one of the greatest issues of our times". (David Goodhart, Sunday Times). "Paul Collier is one of the world's most thoughtful economists. His books consistently illuminate and provoke. Exodus is no exception". (Economist). "Tinged with poignancy ...a humane and sensible voice in a highly toxic debate". (Colin Kidd, Guardian). Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University and a former director of Development Research at the World Bank. He is the author of, among others, the award-winning The Bottom Billion and The Plundered Planet.

Like all of us, though few so visibly, Alan Greenspan was forced by the financial crisis of 2008 to question some fundamental assumptions about risk management and economic forecasting. How had our models so utterly failed us? Virtually every day, we make wagers on the future - but, even when we're not driven by factors entirely beyond our conscious control, the maps by which we are steering are often out-of-date. The Map and the Territory is an important attempt to update our forecasting conceptual grid using twenty-first-century technologies, offering a lucid and empirical grounding in what we can know about economic forecasting and what we can't.

Adelina Amouteru is a survivor of the blood plague: marked by a jagged scar, snow-white hair and lashes. Cast out by her family, Adelina has finally found a place to belong within the secret society of Young Elites. To some, the Elites are heroes, here to save innocents in desperate situations. But to the Inquisition Axis, the white-robed soldiers of Kenettra, they are monsters with demonic powers who must be brought to justice. As Adelina learns more about this perilous world where politics and magic clash, she soon realizes that her own powers may be in danger of bringing on an era of panic such as the world has never seen.

From Liane Moriarty, million copy selling author of The Husband's Secret, comes The Last Anniversary, a captivating story laced with mystery. One abandoned baby. Two sisters with a secret. One chance to rewrite the past. Over seventy years have passed since sisters Rose and Connie Doughty found an abandoned baby near their home on the island Scribbly Gum. With no one to take care of it, Rose and Connie took the baby in as their own. Since then the 'Munro Baby Mystery' has brought fame and fortune, putting Scribbly Gum on the tourist map, especially for the island's annual celebration. But now, with Connie dead and outsider Sophie Honeywell about to move into her home, Rose begins to wonder if they made the right decision all those years ago. How much longer can they cover up the lie that has sustained their community for generations? And what other secrets are about to be revealed? Praise for Liane Moriarty: "Highly addictive". (She). "Gripping, acutely observed, thought-provoking and funny". (Marie Claire). "The writing is beautiful: sometimes funny, sometimes sad but always compelling". (Good Housekeeping). "The Husband's Secret is a staggeringly brilliant novel. It is literally unputdownable". (Sophie Hannah). Liane Moriarty is the author of six novels including Three Wishes, The Last Anniversary, What Alice Forgot, The Hypnotist's Love Story, The Husband's Secret, which was a million copy bestseller and won the most popular Richard and Judy book club title for the autumn 2013 book club and, most recently, Little Lies. Liane lives in Sydney with her husband, son and daughter.