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Born in 1728, French aristocrat Charles d'Eon de Beaumont had served his country as a diplomat, soldier, and spy for fifteen years when rumors that he was a woman began to circulate in the courts of Europe. D'Eon denied nothing and was finally compelled by Louis XVI to give up male attire and live as a woman, something d'Eon did without complaint for the next three decades. Although celebrated as one of the century's most remarkable women, d'Eon was revealed, after his death in 1810, to have been unambiguously male. Gary Kates's acclaimed biography of d'Eon recreates eighteenth-century European society in brilliant detail and offers a compelling portrait of an individual who challenged its conventions about gender and identity.

It would be impossible to overstate the influence of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. A work with one metaphorical foot planted in the Florentine Renaissance literary tradition of Boccaccio’s Decameron and the other in works ranging from John Bunyan, Voltaire, and Mark Twain to the popular entertainments of our own time, The Canterbury Tales stands astride the cultures of Great Britain and America, and much of Europe, like a benign colossus.

Beyond its importance as a cultural touchstone and literary work of unvarnished genius, Chaucer’s unfinished epic poem is also one of the most beloved works in the English language–and for good reason: It is lively, absorbing, perceptive, and outrageously funny–an undisputed classic that has held a special appeal for generations of readers. Chaucer has gathered twenty-nine of literature’s most indelible archetypes–from the exalted Knight to the bawdy Wife to the besotted Miller to the humble Plowman–in a vivid group portrait that captures the full spectrum of late-medieval English society and both informs and expands our discourse on the human condition.

Presented in these pages in a new unabridged translation by the esteemed poet, translator, and scholar Burton Raffel–whose translation of Beowulf has sold more than a million copies–this Modern Library edition also features an Introduction by the well-known and widely influential medievalist and author John Miles Foley that discusses Chaucer’s work as well as to his life and times.

Despite the brilliance of Geoffrey Chaucer’s work, the continual evolution of our language has rendered his words unfamiliar to many of us. Burton Raffel’s magnificent new translation brings Chaucer’s poetry back to life, ensuring that none of the original’s wit, wisdom, or humanity is lost to the modern reader.

Set in the African republic of Botswana--the locale of his acclaimed short story collection, Whites--Norman Rush's novel simultaneously explores the highest of intellectual high grounds and the most tortuous ravines of the erotic. tackles the geopolitics of poverty and the mystery of what men and women really want.

The victim of a cruel frame-up that robbed her of her daughter, reputation, and career, a young actress seeks vindication and is led into an illicit world of mobsters, flappers and slumming socialites.

A new version of John Payne's Victorian translation, with an Introduction by Cormac O Cuilleanain.

1348. The Black Death is sweeping through Europe. In Florence, plague has carried off one hundred thousand people. In their Tuscan villas, seven young women and three young men tell tales to recreate the world they have lost, weaving a rich tapestry of comedy, tragedy, ribaldry and farce.

Boccaccio's Decameron recasts the storytelling heritage of the ancient and medieval worlds into perennial forms that inspired writers from Chaucer and Shakespeare down to our own day. Boccaccio makes the incredible believable, with detail so sharp we can look straight into the lives of people who lived six hundred years ago. His Decameron hovers between the fading glories of an aristocratic past - the Crusades, the Angevins, the courts of France, the legendary East - and the colourful squalor of contemporary life, where wives deceive husbands, friars and monks pursue fleshly ends, and natural instincts fight for satisfaction.

Here are love and jealousy, passion and pride - and a shrewd calculation of profit and loss which heralds the rise of a dynamic merchant class. These stories show us early capitalism during a moment of crisis and revelation.

The Greedy Hand is an illuminating examination of the culture of tax and a persuasive call for reform, written by one of the nation's leading policy makers, Amity Shlaes of" The Wall Street Journal.
The father of the modern American state was an obscure Macy's department store executive named Beardsley Ruml. During World War II, he devised the plan for withholding taxes from your paycheck, thereby laying in place a system that allows the hand of government to reach into your wallet and take what it wants.
Today, taxes make up more than a third of our economy, the highest level in history outside war. We live in the nation revolutionary father Thomas Paine foresaw when he wrote of "the Greedy Hand of government thrusting itself into every corner of industry." This book is a cultural examination of the way taxes influence our behavior, how they force us into an arbitrary system that punishes families and individual enterprise.
Amity Shlaes unveils the hidden perversities of our lifelong tax experience: how family tax breaks do little to help the family, and can even hurt it. She demonstrates how married women pay a special women's tax rate, higher than anybody else's. She shows how problems that engage and enrage us--Social Security problems, or the things we don't like about schools--are, at heart, tax problems. And she explains why the solutions Washington offers merely accelerate a vicious cycle.
Finally, Amity Shlaes shows us a way out of this madness, endorsing a number of common-sense reforms that will give all Americans a fairer and simpler tax system. Written with eloquent compassion for working Americans and their families, The Greedy Hand makesthe best case yet for rethinking our tax code. It is a book no tax-paying citizen can afford to ignore.

Nicholas Wades articles are a major reason why the science section has become the most popular, nationwide, in theNew York Times. In his groundbreaking Before the Dawn, Wade reveals humanitys origins as never beforea journey made possible only recently by genetic science, whose incredible findings have answered such questions as: What was the first human language like? How large were the first societies, and how warlike were they? When did our ancestors first leave Africa, and by what route did they leave? By eloquently solving these and numerous other mysteries, Wade offers nothing less than a uniquely complete retelling of a story that began 500 centuries ago.

"An extraordinary, powerful fable--a marvel."--Alberto Manguel

"Sj�n writes like a man under a spell, filled with enchantment and magic and great wit. He is a rogue of the first order."--Keith Donohue

The year is 1949 and Valdimar Haraldsson, an eccentric Icelander with elevated ideas about the influence of fish consumption on Nordic civilization, has had the singular good fortune to be invited to join a Danish merchant ship on its way to the Black Sea.

Among the crew is the mythical hero Caeneus, disguised as the second mate. Every evening after dinner he entrances his fellow travelers with the tale of how he sailed with the fabled vessel, the Argo, on the Argonauts' quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece.

Sj�n is a celebrated poet, novelist, and songwriter. His novels have been translated into twenty-five languages, and include From the Mouth of the Whale and The Blue Fox (both Telegram Books). In 2005 Sj�n won the Nordic Council Literary Prize, the equivalent of the Man Booker Prize, for The Blue Fox and Best Icelandic Novel for The Whispering Muse. Sj�n has written lyrics for Bj�rk, including for her most recent musical project, Biophilia. He lives in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Victoria Cribb lived in Iceland for many years. She now lives in England, where she is completing a PhD in Old Icelandic literature at the University of Cambridge. Her translations include three novels in collaboration with Olaf Olafsson.

“A palaeontological howdunnit…[Spying on Whales] captures the excitement of…seeking answers to deep questions in cetacean science.” —Nature
 
Called “the best of science writing” (Edward O. Wilson) and named a best book by Popular Science, a dive into the secret lives of whales, from their four-legged past to their perilous present.


Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. They evolved from land-roaming, dog-sized creatures into animals that move like fish, breathe like us, can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and travel entire ocean basins. Whales fill us with terror, awe, and affection--yet there is still so much we don't know about them. Why did it take whales over 50 million years to evolve to such big sizes, and how do they eat enough to stay that big? How did their ancestors return from land to the sea--and what can their lives tell us about evolution as a whole? Importantly, in the sweepstakes of human-driven habitat and climate change, will whales survive?

Nick Pyenson's research has given us the answers to some of our biggest questions about whales. He takes us deep inside the Smithsonian's unparalleled fossil collections, to frigid Antarctic waters, and to the arid desert in Chile, where scientists race against time to document the largest fossil whale site ever found. Full of rich storytelling and scientific discovery, Spying on Whales spans the ancient past to an uncertain future--all to better understand the most enigmatic creatures on Earth.

Gesture of Balance: A Guide to Awareness, Self-healing, and Meditation by Tarthang Tulku presents topics relevant to daily life that turn the mind to the Dharma: the truths of impermanence; honesty, the starting point for change; taking responsibility; awakening compassion; relaxation and meditation; and discovering and experiencing the natural state of mind. In clear, direct language, Gesture of Balance relates the profound insights of an ancient wisdom tradition to our present situation, showing us how to develop our inner resources and awaken body, mind, and senses to new horizons of experience. Tarthang Tulku speaks to us like a good friend, offering ways to clear away confusion, strengthen self-confidence, and brighten our lives with meaning and joy.
Our best selling title, Gesture of Balance has been used in college classrooms to introduce fundamental Buddhist topics, practices, and perspectives on common human problems. Individuals of any spiritual background can turn to Gesture for comfort and inspiration at difficult junctures of their lives. Gesture can also be reflected upon systematically, paragraph by paragraph, page by page, chapter by chapter, and returned to again and again, each time with greater benefit. Taken to heart, nurtured in the quietude of meditation, these simple statements will open ever richer dimensions of meaning.

On the 12th of July 1995 the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica fell. During and after the town's conquest Bosnian Serb troops killed between 3000 and 8000 Muslims. This was the largest single war crime in Europe since the end of World War II, and what made it even more shocking was that it took place under the eyes of Dutch UN troops who were stationed there specifically to prevent such a disaster. Also, there had been clear warnings of a looming bloodbath. How could the massacre have happened and could it have been avoided? These are questions this account tries to answer.

vertaling van - La FORZA della RAGIONE

With enthusiasm and probing intelligence, Colin McGinn (“an ingenious philosopher who thinks like a laser and writes like a dream”–Steven Pinker) embarks on a fascinating philosophical consideration of the allure of movies–what it is we experience when we watch them and what makes them such a universally compelling form of entertainment. McGinn examines how movies work on our minds: how looking “into” the movie screen allows us to imagine the characters portrayed and know their thoughts and feelings . . . how what we see on the screen can seem to recapitulate the workings of consciousness itself . . . how the screen image is ideally suited to capturing both physical and emotional movements, depicting human feeling in all its variations . . . how heightened reality characterizes both film narrative and dreams . . . how our connection to and perception of movies enables us to better understand aspects of our own nature. A fresh, invigorating look into the art of film and the minds of filmmakers and filmgoers,The Power of Moviesis certain to change the way you watch movies. From the Hardcover edition.

In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father. Situating Jefferson within the context of America's evolution and tracing his legacy over the past two hundred years, Hitchens brings the character of Jefferson to life as a man of his time and also as a symbolic figure beyond it.

Conflicted by power, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as Minister to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. Predicting that slavery would shape the future of America's development, this professed proponent of emancipation elided the issue in the Declaration and continued to own human property. An eloquent writer, he was an awkward public speaker; a reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy.

Jefferson's statesmanship enabled him to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase with France, doubling the size of the nation, and he authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition, opening up the American frontier for exploration and settlement. Hitchens also analyzes Jefferson's handling of the Barbary War, a lesser-known chapter of his political career, when his attempt to end the kidnapping and bribery of Americans by the Barbary states, and the subsequent war with Tripoli, led to the building of the U.S. navy and the fortification of America's reputation regarding national defense.

In the background of this sophisticated analysis is a large historical drama: the fledgling nation's struggle for independence, formed in the crucible of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and, in its shadow, the deformation of that struggle in the excesses of the French Revolution. This artful portrait of a formative figure and a turbulent era poses a challenge to anyone interested in American history -- or in the ambiguities of human nature.

Hoeveel?piketpaaltjes? heeft de kantoortijger afgelopen week tijdens een bilat geparkeerd? Welke quick wins zijn er onder laaghangend fruit behaald? En FYI: check ff hoe goed de digivaardige tiener zich op social media redt met een LMFAO op de mislukte dab van de niet zo big pimpin? klasgenoot. LKR! Om van de slimme geheimtaal van de familie Holleeder nog maar te zwijgen. U begrijpt het: we hebben per subgroep een bepaald taalgebruik. Functie en vormgeving, daarin zit het verschil.0Begin 2008 was er een relletje:?de jeugd? zou geen Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands meer spreken. Hun zogenaamde?straattaal? luidde de teloorgang in van onze taal. Maar wat is eigenlijk de definitie van straattaal? Varieert die per cultuur en tijdsgewricht? Wie ontwikkelt, spreekt en verandert haar? En waarom? Jiska Duurkoop deed onderzoek naar straattaal en het ontstaan ervan. Dat levert een dynamisch boek op over streetgangs en taalontwikkeling, over de self-reported speaker en een vertaalapp. Je weet toch!

Uncover the truth under all the BS

In the daily battle for our hearts and minds--not to mention our hard-earned cash--the truth is usually the first casualty. It's time we learned how to see through the rhetoric, faulty reasoning, and misinformation that we're subjected to from morning to night by talk-radio hosts, op-ed columnists, advertisers, self-help gurus, business "thinkers," and, of course, politicians. And no one is better equipped to show us how than award-winning philosopher Jamie Whyte.

In Crimes Against Logic Whyte take us on a fast-paced, ruthlessly funny romp through the mulligan stew of can, folderol, and bogus logic served up in the media, at the office, and even in your own home. Applying his laserlike wit to dozens of timely examples, Whyte cuts through the haze of facts, figures, and double-talk and gets at the real truth behind what they're telling us.

"An incisive philosopher."
--Sunday Telegraph

Voor alle duidelijkheid Infofiche nieuw boek Leerlingen met autisme in het gewoon onderwijs Peter Vermeulen . De krijtlijnen voor een 'autismevriendelijke' school . Verschijnt 10 december 2002 Een leerling met autisme is misschien niet de gemakkelijkste van de klas, maar wellicht wel een van de boeiendste. In dit boek houdt Peter Vermeulen een pleidooi om de uitdaging die normaal begaafde kinderen en jongeren met autisme voor het gewone onderwijs betekenen, aan te gaan. Het boek schetst de krijtlijnen voor een 'autismevriendelijke' school. Aan de hand van voorbeelden uit het gewone onderwijs verneem je wat autisme is en welke de oorzaken ervan zijn. Leerlingen met autisme kunnen in hun gedrag erg verschillend zijn maar delen allen een specifieke manier van waarnemen en informatie verwerken. Vertrekkend van een begrip voor dat 'autistisch denken' behandelt dit boek de verschillende aspecten van een autismevriendelijke onderwijsstijl. De sleutelbegrippen van concrete communicatie, sociale veiligheid, overzicht en voorspelbaarheid worden rijkelijk geïllustreerd met concrete tips. De bijlagen bevatten een aantal voorbeelden van concrete actieplannen voor taken en proefwerken, spreekbeurten en leeruitstappen... Ten slotte is er aandacht voor het omgaan met probleemgedrag, met nadruk op een binnenkantbenadering, en het creëren van een autismecultuur op school. Peter Vermeulen is pedagoog en als autismedeskundige werkzaam bij Autisme Centraal.

Een jongeman in het naoorlogse Amsterdam wordt afwisselend geplaagd door verveling, onbestemde angsten en halfbegrepen verlangens. In deze editie is een brief van Jacques Presser aan de schrijver opgenomen.

Een selectie uit het werk van de Russische dichteres Anna Achmatova (1889-1966). Van haar gedichten verschenen eerder wel wat bloemlezingen in Nederlandse vertaling, maar nooit eerder een zo uitvoerige selectie uit haar werk. Voor onze Russische Bibliotheek maakten vertaalsters Marja Wiebes en Margriet Berg een keuze van ruim driehonderd gedichten, waaronder de beroemde cyclus 'Requiem', en de lange gedichten 'Gedicht zonder held' en 'De zee'.

Een man, die als jongen door een misverstand zijn familie verloor, wordt op verschillende momenten in zijn leven met de schuldvraag geconfronteerd.

Bundeling verhalen over de verguisde Indiase goeroe van geld en seks over zichzelf.

Nieuwe visie op verslaving, waarbij de invloed van de onbewuste emotionele processen een belangrijke plaats innemen in het schijnbaar irrationele gedrag van de verslaafde. Waarom gebruiken mensen verslavende middelen terwijl ze weten dat het slecht voor ze is? Tot voor kort gingen veel mensen ervan uit dat mensen ook bij verslavingsgedrag voor- en nadelen afwegen en dat verslavingsgedrag dus een rationele beslissing is. Maar verslaving is juist beter te begrijpen als irrationeel gedrag.