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  Essays 2: On the Firmness of the...

  Seneca

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  In On the Firmness of the Wise Man Seneca argues that Stoicism is not as harsh as it first appears. Recalling the figure of Cato the Younger, Seneca argues that Cato as a wise person suffered neither injury nor insult. Although Serenus objects to this paradox, Seneca provides further analogies to emphasize the impervious nature of the wise person. In chapter 5 Seneca distinguishes between contumelia (insults) and iniuria (injuries). The rest of the treatise through to chapter 19 consists of discussions on the nature of both themes, showing that the wise person is immune from both insults and injuries. Seneca concludes the treatise praising the idea of the wise person while offering practical advice for all of us who are imperfect. 
  Produced by Vox Stoica

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  Bethink Yourselves!

  Leo Tolstoy

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  As Russia goes to war against Japan, Tolstoy urges those at all levels of society, from the Tsar down to the common soldier, to consider their actions in the light of Christ's teaching. "However strange this may appear, the most effective and certain deliverance of men from all the calamities which they inflict upon themselves and from the most dreadful of all—war—is attainable, not by any external general measures, but merely by that simple appeal to the consciousness of each separate man which, nineteen hundred years ago, was proposed by Jesus—that every man bethink himself, and ask himself, who is he, why he lives, and what he should and should not do."

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  Jonathan Ball - A Tribute

  Various Various

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  'Jonathan is the peerless South African book publisher and ranks in the highest echelons of the global business.' – Doug Band
  'He is a businessman, to be sure, hard, clever and fair. But her is also in an incessant state of imaginative flight, always here and elsewhere, always on the move.' – Jonny Steinberg
  'Jonathan Ball filled my life with joy. Even the most godawful moments with him evoke pleasant memories. It comes as no surprise that so many of those memories are of lunches and long, languid afternoons in restaurants.' – Kerneels Breytenbach
  'His favourite outing was to Chartwell, which was Winston Churchill's home for many years. Jonathan spent the whole day there, he seemed to have read everything on Churchill.' – Mark Streatfield
  'His books were warriors in a war on ignorance.' – Hannes van Zyl
  'Were it not for Jonathan Ball, many South African stories would remain unearthed and untold.' – Michele Magwood
  'I was struck by his ferocious energy. I remember thinking that he was a pugilist on the side of angels.' – Stephen Page
  Jonathan Ball, the founder of Jonathan Ball Publishers, died on 3 April 2021 after a short illness. This collection of essays, commissioned in tribute to him, is edited by Michele Magwood.
  Jonathan Ball left a deep impression on many different people in different ways. The 40 or so essays reflect the many facets of Jonathan: businessman, friend, brother, colleague, husband, father. But it is in the reading that we begin to understand the shape of him: publisher extraordinaire, history expert, gourmand, liberal thinker, suitor, philosemite and so on.
  It cannot be exaggerated how deep an imprint Jonathan has left on the political and cultural life of South Africa, too. The shelves of Jonathan Ball Publishers are weighted with serious history and biographies of eminent figures, with books that other publishers didn't have the boldness to take on. But there are many smaller, more finespun stories that tell us, too, who we are as a people and as a nation.

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  Because of the Hate - The Murder...

  Kirk McCracken

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  Because of the Hate is the true story about the murder of Jerry Bailey, a beloved high school football coach in Oklahoma. 
  In 1976, Jerry Bailey had resigned as the Sapulpa High School head football coach but was murdered by his assistant Paul Reagor Jr. The book goes into detail about the day the coaches went missing, the murder, the trial and the fall out from it. Five years removed from winning a state championship in Nowata, Jerry Bailey had ended his run as the head coach at Sapulpa and was ready to move on to another high school and another football team. However, Bailey and his assistant, Reagor, left school on a January morning and never returned. An exhaustive search eventually found both coaches the next day but only one was still alive. Reagor was found inside of an abandoned farmhouse several towns away from Sapulpa and Bailey was dead inside of the truck of Reagor's car. 
  Why did Reagor kill Bailey? Why did they leave the school that day? The town of Sapulpa has never really discussed the murder out of respect for Bailey's wife and children. It left nothing but rumor, speculation and questions, but now, over forty years later, every question can be answered.

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  Jonathan Franzen - The Comedy of...

  Philip Weinstein

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  Jonathan Franzen's work raises major questions about the possibilities of contemporary fiction: How does one appeal to a broad mass of mainstream readers, on the one hand, while persuading connoisseurs, on the other, that one's fiction has is high art? Even more acutely, how did Franzen move from the rage that animates his first two novels to the more generous comic stance of the two later novels on which his reputation rests?Wrestling with these questions, Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage unpacks the becoming of Franzen as a person and a writer-from his ultra-sensitive Midwestern childhood, through his heady years at Swarthmore College, his marriage, and the alienating decade of the 1990s, up to his spectacular ascent and assimilation into pop-culture as one of the literary figures of his generation. Philip Weinstein joins biography and criticism in ways that fully respect their differences but also grant that the work comes, however unpredictably, out of the life.

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  Finding Family - My Search for...

  Richard Hill

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  Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA was a Global Ebook Awards gold medal winner and a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist. It is Richard Hill's true and intensely personal story of how he pieced together the long-kept secret of his own origins. This highly suspenseful book is a compelling saga of personal detective work that will appeal to anyone who loves a good mystery.But this isn't fiction. It's an engrossing account of an adoptee trying to reclaim the biological family denied him by sealed birth records. This fascinating quest, including the author's landmark use of DNA testing, takes listeners on an exhilarating roller-coaster ride and concludes with a twist that rivals anything Hollywood has to offer.

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