Caligula reveals some aspects of the existential notion of 'the absurd' by portraying an emperor so mighty and so desperate in his search for freedom that he inevitably destroys gods, men and himself. The dramatic impetus of Cross Purpose, however, comes from the tension between consent to and refusal of man's absurdity; it is the tragedy of a man who returns home to his mother and sister without revealing his identity to them. By the time of The Just and The Possessed, refusal and rebelli...

A collection of Valéry’s shorter prose writingsThis book brings together smaller volumes and booklets in which Paul Valéry published selections of his shorter prose writings: aphorisms, moral reflections, poetic observations, flashes of wit or fancy, even jokes—a variety of remarks and impressions, many of them first recorded in his Notebooks.The Collected Works of Paul Valéry, the first collected edition of the writer in English, features new tran...

Albert Camus's The Stranger is a spare, unsettling masterpiece of twentieth-century fiction, following Meursault, an emotionally detached French Algerian whose mother's death, casual relationships, and senseless act of violence expose the fragile conventions by which society judges meaning and guilt. Written in lucid, restrained prose, the novel exemplifies Camus's philosophy of the absurd: the clash between humanity's hunger for order and an indifferent universe. Its cool surface, colonia...

This is the sweet story of a paralyzed man in Venice, who sees out of his window a young girl across the way. Unbeknownst to her, she brightens his days over the course of several years, and he begins to fall in love with her. One day he throws out a flower into the canal between them to say "good morning" and she responds in kind. They still haven't spoken a word, but his heart is lifted. Until, that is, the young maid grows up and the gondolier boys start calling on her.

In The Future of the Jews, Stuart E. Eizenstat, a senior diplomat of international reputation, surveys the major geopolitical, economic, and security challenges facing the world in general, and the Jewish world and the United States in particular. These forces include the shift of power and influence from the United States and Europe to the emerging powers in Asia and Latin America; globalization and the new information age; the battle for the direction of the Muslim world; nontraditional ...

In a North American British province, a group of Norweigan settlers have carved a life for themselves in a lakeshore village called Skarkavik. Hunters and fishermen, they raise their families in peace under the natural cover of the surrounding forest.Decker Galloway believes the land’s natural resources are being wasted on the few when so many have a greater need. Having made his fortune logging the wilderness of the eastern provinces, he wants to turn his axes and saws loose on th...

WHEN IT COMES TO MURDER, THERE'S ALWAYS A CHOICE…The only thing more varied than how people are killed is the many, many ways people try to get away with this terrible crime. Now masterful mystery writer Dorothy Salisbury Davis brings together 23 classic stories of crime and suspense, whodunits and detective stories from some of the finest authors of the 1950s.Ross Macdonald's classic P.I. Lew Archer takes a chilling case in California, where the mob isn't ...

The Stranger, also published in English as The Outsider, is a novella by French author Albert Camus.The title character is Meursault, an indifferent French settler in Algeria described as "a citizen of France domiciled in North Africa, a man of the Mediterranean, an homme du midi yet one who hardly partakes of the traditional Mediterranean culture." He kills an Arab man in French Algiers, who was involved in a conflict with one of Meursault's neighbors. Meursault is tried and senten...

In The Future of the Jews, Stuart E. Eizenstat, a senior diplomat of international reputation, surveys the major geopolitical, economic, and security challenges facing the world in general, and the Jewish world and the United States in particular. These forces include the shift of power and influence from the United States and Europe to the emerging powers in Asia and Latin America; globalization and the new information age; the battle for the direction of the Muslim world; nontraditional ...

At a time when the United States exacts a greater and greater power over the rest of the world, America's leading voice of dissent needs to be heard more than ever. In over thirty timely, accessible and urgent essays, Chomsky cogently examines the burning issues of our post-9/11 world, covering the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bush presidency and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.This is an essential collection, from a vital and authoritative perspective....

“A compelling account . . . and a reminder that a true peace can be built only on justice.”—Desmond M. TutuTending one’s fields, visiting a relative, going to the hospital: for ordinary Palestinians, such activities require negotiating permits and passes, curfews and closures, “sterile roads” and “seam zones”—bureaucratic hurdles ultimately as deadly as outright military incursion. In Palestine Inside Out, Saree Makdisi draws on eye-opening statistics, aca...