Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Pleasure of Thinking - Essays

  Wang Xiaob

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  An essay collection on the importance of critical thought, from one of the foremost Chinese intellectuals of the 1990s. 
   
    
   
  Wang Xiaobo's Pleasure of Thinking is an essay collection as riotous as it is contemplative. Between rollicking anecdotes about living between the East and West and serious musings on the intellectual situations at home and abroad, Xiaobo examines modern life with the levity missing from so much of today's politico-cultural discourse. 
   
   
    
  In "The Maverick Pig," he considers the existential differences between humans and livestock. In "Tales From Abroad: Food," he recounts the culture shock of discovering American diets while studying at Carnegie Mellon. Several pieces focus on literature, with notable essays devoted to Italo Calvino, Bertrand Russell, and Ernest Hemingway, whom Xiaobo admired greatly. Others are more personal in nature, ranging from a meditation on getting mugged, to the consideration of the question: why do I write? 
   
   
    
  Controversial, hilarious, and inimitable, Pleasure of Thinking is a delightful celebration of Wang Xiaobo's unique critical perspective.

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  Morphine - This story is perhaps...

  Mikhail Bulgakov

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  Mikhail Bulgakov was born on 15th May 1891 in Kiev, in the Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire, into a Russian family.  He was one of seven children. 
   
  In 1901, Bulgakov attended the First Kiev Gymnasium, and developed a keen interest in Russian and European literature, theatre and opera.  After the death of his father in 1907, his mother assumed responsibility for his education.  After graduating Bulgakov entered the Medical Faculty of Kiev University and then took up a post as physician at the Kiev Military Hospital. 
   
  At the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered as a doctor and was sent directly to the front, where he was badly injured at least twice.  To suppress chronic pain, especially in the abdomen, he injected morphine.  It took years to wean himself off. 
   
  He now took up medical posts in various towns and in 1919, he was mobilised by the Ukrainian People's Army and assigned to the Northern Caucasus.  There, he became seriously ill with typhus and barely survived.  
   
  After this illness, Bulgakov abandoned his medicine to pursue writing.  He moved to Vladikavkaz and had two plays staged there with great success.  He wrote too for various newspapers and other outlets, but his critics were many.  And growing. 
   
  When a Moscow's theatre director severely criticised Bulgakov, Stalin personally protected him, saying that a writer of Bulgakov's quality was above ‘party words’ like ‘left’ and ‘right’.   Indeed, it is said that Stalin watched ‘The Days of the Turbins’ at least 15 times. 
   
  It was not to last and by March 1929, Bulgakov's career was ruined when Government censorship stopped publication of any of his work and plays. 
   
  In despair, Bulgakov wrote a personal letter to Stalin.  He requested permission to emigrate.  He received a phone call from the Soviet leader, who asked the writer whether he really desired to leave. He replied that a Russian writer cannot live outside of his homeland.  Stalin thus gave him permission to continue working. In May 1930, he re-joined the theater, as stage director's assistant.  
   
  During the last stressful decade of his life, and in poor health, Bulgakov continued to work on ‘The Master and Margarita’, wrote plays, critical works, stories, and continued translations and dramatisations of novels.  Many of them were not published, others were derided by critics.  
   
  On 10th March 1940, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov died from nephrosclerosis.  He was 48. 
   
  ‘The Master and Margarita’ was not published in any form until the mid-1960’s 
   
  In this story Bulgakov relates the terrifying and hellish descent into addiction that seems so avoidable and yet so chillingly not.

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  Admiral Halsey's Story

  William Frederick Halsey

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  Admiral Halsey's Story is the personal memoir of Fleet Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey Jr., one of the most dynamic and influential naval commanders of World War II. Co-written with Lieutenant Commander J. Bryan III, the book offers a vivid, first-hand account of Halsey's experiences—from his early days in the U.S. Navy to his pivotal leadership in the Pacific Theater. With a commanding voice and candid insights, Halsey recounts major battles such as Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf, and the liberation of the Philippines, while also offering personal reflections on strategy, leadership, and the nature of war. Rich with historical detail, maps, and photographs, this autobiography is both an important military record and a compelling portrait of a bold and unrelenting wartime commander.

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  A Dress for Kathleen

  Heather Richardson

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  'Every family has shadow people, the ones who slipped out of the story too soon, leaving a blank space where they should have been. In my father's family that person was his sister Kathleen.'
  So begins Heather Richardson's astonishing fragmentary celebration of her aunt, Kathleen Hutchinson, whose life was cut tragically short aged just 14. It is the early days of WW2 and Kathleen has just left school to start her first job at a linen mill. But this dark and cold December night she doesn't make it home.
  Originally stitched into the fabric of a dress, Kathleen's life is presented here as a book for the first time. In the process, Heather Richardson also tells the stories of Kathleen's parents and their lives together in rural Northern Ireland in the first half of the 20th Century.
  A Dress For Kathleen is a labour of love from niece to the aunt she never met. Every sentence sparkles. Heather Richardson's masterpiece is a poetic portrait in prose and one of the finest books you will read this year.

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  The Gambler - A Brilliant...

  Fyodor Dostoevsky, Tim Zengerink

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  What if you could win everything—and lose yourself? 
  The Gambler is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s electrifying story of risk, addiction, and emotional collapse.  
  Based on his own gambling struggles, the tale follows Alexei Ivanovich, a young tutor whose descent into obsession begins with a spin of the roulette wheel—and spirals into madness, financial ruin, and unrequited love. 
  This modern translation captures the rush and tension of every high-stakes decision, immersing listeners in a world where luck is cruel, and every bet could be your last. 
  What You’ll Discover in This Audiobook: 
  -A Thrilling Psychological Descent – Follow a man’s unraveling through risk, pride, and desperation. 
  -A Tale of Passion and Power – Navigate love, obsession, and manipulation among the European elite. 
  -A Brilliantly Modernized Dostoevsky Classic – Narrated with clarity, urgency, and heart for today’s audience. 
  -Themes of Greed, Addiction, and Redemption – A cautionary parable that still strikes with force. 
  Place your bet—but be warned: in Dostoevsky’s world, the house always wins.

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  The Orchard - A Memoir

  Adele Crockett Robertson, Jane...

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  A stirring memoir of a young, single woman's laborious struggle to save her family's New England apple farm from going under during the Great Depression. 
   
   
   
  The Orchard is a poignant memoir of a young woman's single-handed struggle to save her New England farm in the depths of the Great Depression. Discovered by the author's daughter after the author's death, it tells the story of Adele "Kitty" Robertson, young and energetic, but unprepared by her Radcliffe education for the rigors of apple farming in those bitter years of the early 1930s. Alone at the end of a country road, with only a Great Dane for company, plagued by debts, broken machinery, and killing frosts, Kitty revives the old orchard after years of neglect. Every day is a struggle, but every day she is also rewarded by the beauty of the world and the unexpected kindness of neighbors and hired workers. 
   
   
   
  Animated by quiet courage and simple goodness, The Orchard is a deeply moving celebration of decency and beauty in the midst of grim prospects and crushing poverty. 
   
   
   
  In addition to a foreword and epilogue by Betsy Robertson Cramer, the author's daughter, this edition includes a new afterword by award-winning author Jane Brox.

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