Moses E. Herzog, the protagonist of Saul Bellow’s Herzog finds himself in a pickle. He may be handsome, witty and wise, but his wife has just taken off with his best friend, and he is without resources to face his troubles. What is an academic to do when his personal life turns to chaos? Well this one writes letters—to enemies and friends, the living and the dead, politicians and philosophers—and even to God, though this last, along with the others, remains undelivered. An eccentr...

“Bellow’s nonfiction has the same strengths as his stories and novels: a dynamic responsiveness to character, place and time (or era) . . . And you wonder—what other highbrow writer, or indeed lowbrow writer has such a reflexive grasp of the street, the machine, the law courts, the rackets?” —Martin Amis, The New York Times Book ReviewThe year 2015 marks several literary milestones: the centennial of Saul Bellow’s birth, the tenth anniversary of his death,...

Bellow evokes all the rich colour and exotic customs of a highly imaginary Africa in this comic novel about a middle-aged American millionaire who, seeking a new, more rewarding life, descends upon an African tribe. Henderson's awesome feats of strength and his unbridled passion for life earns him the admiration of the tribe - but it is his gift for making rain that turns him from mere hero into messiah. A hilarious, often ribald story, HENDERSON THE RAIN KING is also a profound look at th...

**“The work of a great master still locked in unequal combat with Eros and Time.” –**The New York Times Book ReviewA Penguin ClassicIn this dazzling work of fiction, Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow writes comically and wisely about the tenacious claims of first love. Harry Trellman, an aging, astute businessman, has never belonged anywhere and is as awkward in his human attachments as he is gifted in observing the people around him. But...

Whether intellectuals are counter-cultural escapists corrupting the young or secular prophets leading us to prosperity, they are a fixture of modern political life. In The Public Intellectual: Between Philosophy and Politics, Arthur M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, and M. Richard Zinman bring together a wide variety of noted scholars to discuss the characteristics, nature, and role of public thinkers. By looking at scholarly life in the West, this work explores the relationship betwee...

Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously — and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas which sustain humankind, or kill it. Much to Ravelstein's own surprise, the book makes him a millionaire. Ravelstein suggests in turn that Chick write a memoir or a life of him, and during the course of a celebratory tri...

A never-before-published collection of letters - an intimate self-portrait as well as the portrait of a century. Saul Bellow was a dedicated correspondent until a couple of years before his death, and his letters, spanning eight decades, show us a twentieth-century life in all its richness and complexity. Friends, lovers, wives, colleagues, and fans all cross these pages. Some of the finest letters are to Bellow's fellow writers-William Faulkner, John Cheever, Philip Roth, Martin Amis, Ral...

Expecting to be inducted into the army, Joseph has given up his job and carefully prepared for his departure to the battlefront. When a series of mix-ups delays his induction, he finds himself facing a year of idleness. Dangling Man is his journal, a wonderful account of his restless wanderings through Chicago's streets, his musings on the past, his psychological reaction to his inactivity while war rages around him, and his uneasy insights into the nature of freedom and choice.

'I think it A Work of genius, I think it The Work of a Genius' John CheeverFor many years, the great poet Von Humboldt Fleisher and Charlie Citrine, a young man inflamed with a love for literature, were the best of friends. At the time of his death, however, Humboldt is a failure, and Charlie's life has reached a low point: his career is at a standstill, and he's enmeshed in an acrimonious divorce, infatuated with a highly unsuitable young woman and involved with a...

'Sentence by sentence, page by page, Bellow is simply the best writer we have' The New York Times Book ReviewIn It All Adds Up, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow takes readers on a brilliantly insightful journey through literary America over a forty-year period. In sentence after sentence, page after page, readers are offered brilliant perceptions and unusual insights into everyday life in America and the life of the mind. Moving from political f...

She had lived by delays; she had meant to stop drinking; she had put off the time, and now she had smashed her car.At once harsh and tender, expansive and acutely funny, this is the story of an elderly and self-destructive dipsomaniac in a Western desert town, who finds herself faced with a final, impossible choice.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hi...

The story behind The Actual belongs to Harry Trellman, an aging, astute businessman who has never belonged anywhere.