Dary's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:26:30 -0700 60 Dary's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg A Delicate Balance 135503 A Delicate Balance reveals the emotional savagery of suburbia and the psychological terror of empty lives. First produced in 1966, this dark drawing room comedy may be Albee's masterpiece, as powerful in its 1996 revival as it was thirty years before.

Its characters maintain a delicate balance between self-destruction and survival when a bitter 36-year-old daughter returns home to the family nest after the collapse of her fourth marriage. The much wed Julia shatters the uneasy peace of her long-married parents, Agnes and Tobias, and their permanent guest � acerbic, unpredictable, and witty alcoholic sister-in-law Claire. When two lifelong friends gate-crash this impromptu reunion, the masks of civility drop and raw feelings emerge. Filled with shades of meaning, subtleties, and whole paragraphs of brilliant dialogue, A Delicate Balance has become classic theater, a timeless mirror of the worst, and sometimes the best, aspects of modern life.]]> 178 Edward Albee 0452278090 Dary 2 Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?]]> 3.91 1966 A Delicate Balance
author: Edward Albee
name: Dary
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1966
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:
Rather tame. Some strong moments, Tobias is definitely the highlight here, and I enjoyed the feminist discourse, but a step-down from Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf?
]]> The Malleus Maleficarum 771091
Contemporary cases illustrate methods by which witches attempt to control and subvert the How and why women roast their first-born male child; the confession of how to raise a tempest by a washwoman suspended "hardly clear of the ground" by her thumbs; methods of making a formal pact with the Devil; how witches deprive men of their vital member; and many others. Methods of destroying and curing witchcraft, such as remedies against incubus and succubus devils, are exemplified and weighed by the authors.

Formal rules for initiating a process of justice are set how it should be conducted and the method of pronouncing sentence; when to use the trial by the red-hot-iron; how the prosecutor should protect himself; how the body is to be shaved and searched for tokens and amulets, including those sewn under the skin. As Summers says, it was the casebook on every magistrate's desk.

Montague Summers has given a very sympathetic translation. His two introductions are filled with examples of witchcraft and the historical importance of Malleus Maleficarum. This famous document should interest the historian, the student of witchcraft and the occult, and the psychologist who is interested in the medieval mind as it was confronted with various forces which could be explained only by witchcraft.]]> 323 Heinrich Kramer 0486228029 Dary 0 to-read 3.30 1485 The Malleus Maleficarum
author: Heinrich Kramer
name: Dary
average rating: 3.30
book published: 1485
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Monsters: What Do We Do With Great Art By Bad People?]]> 215173595 How rare and nourishing this sort of roaming thought is and what a joy to read' MEGAN NOLAN, Sunday Times

Pablo Picasso beat his partners. Richard Wagner was deeply antisemitic. David Bowie slept with an underage fan.

But many of us still love Guernica and the Ring cycle and Ziggy Stardust. And what are we to do with that love? How are we, as fans, to reckon with the biographical choices of the artists whose work sustains us?

Wildly smart and insightful, Monsters is an exhilarating attempt to understand our relationship with art and the artist in the twenty-first century.]]> 273 Claire Dederer 1399715070 Dary 0 currently-reading 3.53 2023 Monsters: What Do We Do With Great Art By Bad People?
author: Claire Dederer
name: Dary
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[House Of Bernarda Alba (Methuen World Classics)]]> 74855 Edited with invaluable student notes - a must for students of Spanish drama]]> 208 Federico GarcĂ­a Lorca 0413724700 Dary 3 2025, classics, plays 3.61 1930 House Of Bernarda Alba (Methuen World Classics)
author: Federico GarcĂ­a Lorca
name: Dary
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1930
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 2025, classics, plays
review:
My introduction to Spanish theatre! I've been meaning to try Lorca for a while now. I found a second-hand student edition that was previously annotated, so thank you, kind stranger, for the comments, especially when it came to relevant Spanish words. The play itself is really fun, presenting the consequences of never getting laid. The symbolism is on point here, and it all comes together really nicely at the end.
]]> The 42nd Parallel (U.S.A. #1) 7101 U.S.A. trilogy, comprising The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money, John Dos Passos is said by many to have written the great American novel. While Fitzgerald and Hemingway were cultivating what Edmund Wilson once called their "own little corners," John Dos Passos was taking on the world. Counted as one of the best novels of the twentieth century by the Modern Library and by some of the finest writers working today, U.S.A. is a grand, kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation, buzzing with history and life on every page.

The trilogy opens with The 42nd Parallel, where we find a young country at the dawn of the twentieth century. Slowly, in stories artfully spliced together, the lives and fortunes of five characters unfold. Mac, Janey, Eleanor, Ward, and Charley are caught on the storm track of this parallel and blown New Yorkward. As their lives cross and double back again, the likes of Eugene Debs, Thomas Edison, and Andrew Carnegie make cameo appearances.]]> 325 John Dos Passos 0618056815 Dary 0 currently-reading 3.82 1930 The 42nd Parallel (U.S.A. #1)
author: John Dos Passos
name: Dary
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1930
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 72159 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof first heated up Broadway in 1955 with its gothic American story of brothers vying for their dying father’s inheritance amid a whirlwind of sexuality, untethered in the person of Maggie the Cat. The play also daringly showcased the burden of sexuality repressed in the agony of her husband, Brick Pollitt. In spite of the public controversy Cat stirred up, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Drama Critics Circle Award for that year. Williams, as he so often did with his plays, rewrote Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for many years—the present version was originally produced at the American Shakespeare Festival in 1974 with all the changes that made Williams finally declare the text to be definitive, and was most recently produced on Broadway in the 2003�2004 season. This definitive edition also includes Williams&rsquoi; essay “Person-to-Person,� Williams� notes on the various endings, and a short chronology of the author’s life. One of America’s greatest living playwrights, as well as a friend and colleague of Williams, Edward Albee has written a concise introduction to the play from a playwright’s perspective, examining the candor, sensuality, power, and impact of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof then and now.]]> 208 Tennessee Williams 0811216012 Dary 5
reread it for the third or fourth time, brilliant. several lines are forever ingrained into my brain.]]> 4.07 1955 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
author: Tennessee Williams
name: Dary
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1955
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: ebooks, 2023, 2023-favs, classics, plays, 2025, university-reads
review:
cannot explain why this play is so good it just is

reread it for the third or fourth time, brilliant. several lines are forever ingrained into my brain.
]]> Of Mice and Men 11935305 here and here.

The compelling story of two outsiders striving to find their place in an unforgiving world.

Drifters in search of work, George and his simple-minded friend Lennie have nothing in the world except each other and a dream--a dream that one day they will have some land of their own. Eventually they find work on a ranch in California’s Salinas Valley, but their hopes are doomed as Lennie, struggling against extreme cruelty, misunderstanding and feelings of jealousy, becomes a victim of his own strength. Tackling universal themes such as the friendship of a shared vision, and giving voice to America’s lonely and dispossessed, Of Mice and Men has proved one of Steinbeck’s most popular works, achieving success as a novel, a Broadway play and three acclaimed films.
--back cover]]> 106 John Steinbeck 0141185104 Dary 2
reread, just like i remember it.]]> 3.99 1937 Of Mice and Men
author: John Steinbeck
name: Dary
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1937
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: 2024, classics, 2025, university-reads
review:
was bored all the way through, but the ending made it worth it. closer to a three out of five, but i think i prefer the pearl over this one.

reread, just like i remember it.
]]> Camino Real 167584 161 Tennessee Williams 0811202186 Dary 4 2023, classics, plays, 2025 When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.

a lot of wasted potential over here, imagine introducing don quixote and not using him until the very end

edit: reread for research, enjoyed it wayyy more than i did the first time around]]> 3.57 1948 Camino Real
author: Tennessee Williams
name: Dary
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1948
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: 2023, classics, plays, 2025
review:
When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.

a lot of wasted potential over here, imagine introducing don quixote and not using him until the very end

edit: reread for research, enjoyed it wayyy more than i did the first time around
]]> Sula 11346 174 Toni Morrison 0452283868 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.05 1973 Sula
author: Toni Morrison
name: Dary
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1973
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> Jazz (Beloved Trilogy, #2) 37398 229 Toni Morrison 0452269652 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.90 1992 Jazz (Beloved Trilogy, #2)
author: Toni Morrison
name: Dary
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> All the King's Men 2488848 661 Robert Penn Warren 0141188618 Dary 2 4.06 1946 All the King's Men
author: Robert Penn Warren
name: Dary
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1946
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: 2025, classics, university-reads
review:
Exhausting reading experience. Ordinary and pretentious at the same time. Utterly forgettable. The author leaves you with the word "Time", placing an overwhelming question in his readers' minds: Has this quasi-political tome just wasted my Time? Aye, undoubtedly. The second star is for the Cass Mastern chapter, the only part where I could keep my eyes open effortlessly.
]]> <![CDATA[The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love]]> 6656720 From the New York Times bestselling author of All About Love, a brave and astonishing work that challenges patriarchal culture and encourages men to reclaim the best part of themselves.Everyone needs to love and be loved—even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it’s so deeply ingrained in our society that it’s hard for men to not comply—but hooks wants to help change that. With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves—and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women.]]> 208 bell hooks Dary 0 to-read 4.47 2003 The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
author: bell hooks
name: Dary
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Daphnis and Chloe 6806562
About the For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.]]> 144 Longus 0199554951 Dary 0 to-read, wishlist 3.82 150 Daphnis and Chloe
author: Longus
name: Dary
average rating: 3.82
book published: 150
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> The Princess Casamassima 924477 ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý
Young bookbinder Hyacinth Robinson, the illegitimate son of a nobleman and a woman who died in prison after murdering him, has been raised by an impoverished seamstress. Hyacinth has grown up sensitive both to the beauty of the world and to the human suffering caused by social injustice, and when he is drawn into a circle of radicals he promises to commit an act of terror—a vow he comes to regret when the lovely and bored Princess Casamassima takes him under her wing. As Hyacinth travels across Europe and encounters a richly varied cast of characters from all levels of society, he is increasingly racked by his agonizing dilemma—until he resolves it in a shocking action that carries the emotional force of classical tragedy.]]> 616 Henry James 0679406727 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.06 1885 The Princess Casamassima
author: Henry James
name: Dary
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1885
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> Letters to a Young Poet 780534 Letters to a Young Poet are arguably the most famous and beloved letters of the twentieth century. Written when the poet was himself still a young man, with most of his greatest work before him, they were addressed to a student who had sent Rilke some of his own writing, asking for advice on becoming a writer. The two never met, but over a period of several years Rilke wrote him these ten letters, which have been cherished by hundreds of thousands of readers for what Stephen Mitchell calls in his Foreword the "vibrant and deeply felt experience of life" that informs them.

Eloquent and personal, Rilke’s meditations on the creative process, the nature of love, the wisdom of children, and the importance of solitude offer a wealth of spiritual and practical guidance for anyone. At the same time, this collection, in Stephen Mitchell’s definitive translation, reveals the thoughts and feelings of one of the greatest poets and most distinctive sensibilities of the twentieth century.]]> 109 Rainer Maria Rilke 0679642323 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.35 1929 Letters to a Young Poet
author: Rainer Maria Rilke
name: Dary
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1929
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> Alexander Pushkin 111730
Boris Godunow
Das Fräulein als Bäuerin
Der SchuĂź
Die Pique-Dame
Der Schneesturm
Der Sargmacher
Der Stationsaufseher
Dubrowskij
Die Russalka
˛Ńä°ůł¦łó±đ˛Ô
˛Ńä°ůł¦łó±đ˛Ô vom Fischer und dem Fischlein
Alexander Sergejewitsch Puschkin
˛Ńä°ůł¦łó±đ˛Ô vom Zaren Saltan, von seinem Sohn, dem berĂĽhmten, mächtigen Recken FĂĽrst Gwidon Saltanowitsch, und von der wunderschönen Schwanenprinzessin.
Alexander Sergejewitsch Puschkin
˛Ńä°ůł¦łó±đ˛Ô von der toten Zarentochter und den sieben Recken]]> 128 Alexander Pushkin 046087862X Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.13 1840 Alexander Pushkin
author: Alexander Pushkin
name: Dary
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1840
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> Complete Works 128453
This book brings together his poetry, prose, and letters, including "The Drunken Boat," "The Orphans' New Year," "After the Flood," and "A Season in Hell," considered by many to be his.

'Complete Works' is divided into eight "seasons" - Childhood, The Open Road, War, The Tormented Heart, The Visionary, The Damned Soul, A Few Belated Cowardices, and The Man with the Wind at His Heels - that reflect the facets of Rimbaud's life.

Insightful commentary by translator and editor Paul Schmidt reveals the courage, vision, and imagination of Rimbaud's poetry and sheds light on one of the most enigmatic figures in letters.]]> 384 Arthur Rimbaud 0060955503 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.43 1870 Complete Works
author: Arthur Rimbaud
name: Dary
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1870
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead]]> 42983724 WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . .

A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?]]> 274 Olga Tokarczuk 0525541330 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.92 2009 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Dary
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> Zofloya, or The Moor 2852363 Zofloya, or The Moor (1806), a tale of lust, betrayal, and multiple murder set in Venice in the last days of the fifteenth century. The novel follows Victoria's progress from spoilt daughter of indulgent aristocrats, through a period of abuse and captivity, to a career of deepening criminality conducted under Satan's watchful eye. Charlotte Dacre's narrative deftly displays her heroine's movement from the vitalized position of Ann Radcliffe's heroines to a fully conscious commitment to vice that goes beyond that of `Monk' Lewis's deluded Ambrosio. The novel's most daring aspect is its anatomy of Victoria's intense sexual attraction to her Moorish servant Zofloya that transgresses taboos both of class and race. A minor scandal on its first publication, and a significant influence on Byron and Shelley, Zofloya has been unduly neglected. Contradicting idealized stereotypes of women's writing, the novel's portrait of indulged desire, gratuitous cruelty, and monumental self-absorption retains considerable power to disturb. The introduction to this edition, the first for nearly 200 years, examines why Zofloya deserves to be read alongside established Gothic classics as the highly original work of an intriguing and unconventional writer.]]> 280 Charlotte Dacre 0199549737 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.50 1806 Zofloya, or The Moor
author: Charlotte Dacre
name: Dary
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1806
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> The Crucible 17250
Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing, "Political opposition... is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence."

WIth an introduction by Christopher Bigsby.
(back cover)]]> 143 Arthur Miller 0142437336 Dary 4 Death of a Salesman, so I wasn't very excited to start this, as Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ seems to hate it, but Acts Three & Four were actually amazing. I feel compelled to recommend Shaw's The Devil's Disciple to anyone who enjoyed this.]]> 3.60 1953 The Crucible
author: Arthur Miller
name: Dary
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1953
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: 2025, classics, plays, university-reads
review:
A surprise to be sure! I never really cared much about Death of a Salesman, so I wasn't very excited to start this, as Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ seems to hate it, but Acts Three & Four were actually amazing. I feel compelled to recommend Shaw's The Devil's Disciple to anyone who enjoyed this.
]]> <![CDATA[The Vicomte de Bragelonne (The d'Artagnan Romances, #3.1)]]> 6329048
The Vicomte de Bragelonne opens an epic adventure which continues with Louise de la Valliere and reaches its climax in The Man in the Iron Mask. This new edition is the only one in print and is fully annotated with an introduction that sets Dumas's saga in its historical and cultural context.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.]]> 658 Alexandre Dumas 0199538476 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.02 The Vicomte de Bragelonne (The d'Artagnan Romances, #3.1)
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Dary
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> Faust, and the Urfaust 864286
Goethe's Faust is a classic of European literature. Based on the fable of the man who traded his soul for superhuman powers and knowledge, it became the life's work of Germany's greatest poet. Beginning with an intriguing wager between God and Satan, it charts the life of a deeply flawed individual, his struggle against the nihilism of his diabolical companion Mephistopheles.

Part One presents Faust's pact with the Devil and the harrowing tragedy of his love affair with the young Gretchen. Part Two shows Faust's experience in the world of public affairs, including his encounter with Helen of Troy, the emblem of classical beauty and culture. The whole is a symbolic and panoramic commentary on the human condition and on modern European history and civilisation.

This new translation of both parts of Faust preserves the poetic character of the original, its tragic pathos and hilarious comedy. In addition, John Williams has translated the Urfaust, a fascinating glimpse into the young Goethe's imagination, and a selection from the draft scenarios for the Walpurgis Night witches' sabbath - material so ribald and blasphemous that Goethe did not dare publish it.]]> 468 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1840221151 Dary 4 2023, classics, plays Into the wilderness alone I fled,
And to escape that barren solitude
I fell into the Devil's hands instead.

I adored Part 1, loved some of Part 2, but felt that some of it dragged on a bit. Amazing as a whole.]]> 3.97 Faust, and the Urfaust
author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
name: Dary
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/25
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: 2023, classics, plays
review:
Into the wilderness alone I fled,
And to escape that barren solitude
I fell into the Devil's hands instead.

I adored Part 1, loved some of Part 2, but felt that some of it dragged on a bit. Amazing as a whole.
]]> De profundis 128820471 163 Oscar Wilde Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 0.0 1897 De profundis
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Dary
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1897
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> Joseph and His Brothers 88076
Thomas Mann regarded his monumental retelling of the biblical story of Joseph as his magnum opus. He conceived of the four parts–The Stories of Jacob, Young Joseph, Joseph in Egypt, and Joseph the Provider–as a unified narrative, a “mythological novel� of Joseph’s fall into slavery and his rise to be lord over Egypt. Deploying lavish, persuasive detail, Mann conjures for us the world of patriarchs and pharaohs, the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, and the universal force of human love in all its beauty, desperation, absurdity, and pain. The result is a brilliant amalgam of humor, emotion, psychological insight, and epic grandeur.

Now the award-winning translator John E. Woods gives us a definitive new English version of Joseph and His Brothers that is worthy of Mann’s achievement, revealing the novel’s exuberant polyphony of ancient and modern voices, a rich music that is by turns elegant, coarse, and sublime.
--front flap]]> 1492 Thomas Mann 1400040019 Dary 0 to-read, wishlist 4.43 1943 Joseph and His Brothers
author: Thomas Mann
name: Dary
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1943
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: to-read, wishlist
review:

]]> Augustus 19072449 Stoner, the surprise international bestseller

After the brutal murder of his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, Octavian, a shy and scholarly youth of nineteen, suddenly finds himself heir to the vast power of Rome. He is destined, despite vicious power struggles, bloody wars and family strife, to transform his realm and become the greatest ruler the western world had ever seen: Augustus Caesar, the first Roman Emperor.

Building on impeccable research, John Williams brings the legendary figure of Augustus vividly to life, and invests his characters with such profound humanity that we enter completely into the heat and danger of their lives and times.]]> 337 John Williams Dary 0 to-read, hmmph 4.27 1972 Augustus
author: John Williams
name: Dary
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read, hmmph
review:

]]> The Name of the Rose 8694005 gothic novel, cronaca medievale, romanzo poliziesco, racconto ideologico a chiave, allegoria) questo romanzo (la cui storia si intreccia con la Storia - perché l'autore, forse mendacemente, asserisce che di suo non vi è una sola parola)può forse essere letto in tre modi. La prima categoria di lettori sarà avvinta dalla trama e dai colpi di scena, e accetterà anche le lunghe discussioni libresche, e i dialoghi filosofici, perché avvertirà che proprio in quelle pagine svagate si annidano i segni, le tracce, i sintomi rivelatori. La seconda categoria si appassionerà al dibattito di idee, e tenterà connessioni (che l'autore si rifiuta di autorizzare) con la nostra attualità. La terza si renderà conto che questo testo è un tessuto di altri testi, un "giallo" di citazioni, un libro fatto di libri. A ciascuna delle tre categorie l'autore comunque rifiuta di rivelare che cosa il libro voglia dire. Se avesse voluto sostenere una tesi, avrebbe scritto un saggio (come tanti altri che ha scritto). Se ha scritto un romanzo è perché ha scoperto, in età matura, che di ciò di cui non si può teorizzare, si deve narrare.]]> 552 Umberto Eco Dary 0 currently-reading, hmmph 3.92 1980 The Name of the Rose
author: Umberto Eco
name: Dary
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: currently-reading, hmmph
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Farewell to Arms (A Scribner Classic)]]> 919566 332 Ernest Hemingway 0020519001 Dary 2 3.60 1929 A Farewell to Arms (A Scribner Classic)
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Dary
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1929
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: 2025, classics, university-reads
review:
A Farewell to Hemingway. Forever, I hope.
]]> Fernande 778239 144 Alexandre Dumas 0312025750 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.88 1988 Fernande
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Dary
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> The Lais of Marie de France 119079
originally published circa 1160]]> 164 Marie de France 0140447598 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.84 1160 The Lais of Marie de France
author: Marie de France
name: Dary
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1160
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> Dracul 38363799 The prequel to Dracula, inspired by notes and texts left behind by the author of the classic novel, Dracul is a supernatural thriller that reveals not only Dracula's true origins but Bram Stoker's--and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them.

It is 1868, and a twenty-one-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here...

A sickly child, Bram spent his early days bedridden in his parents' Dublin home, tended to by his caretaker, a young woman named Ellen Crone. When a string of strange deaths occur in a nearby town, Bram and his sister Matilda detect a pattern of bizarre behavior by Ellen--a mystery that deepens chillingly until Ellen vanishes suddenly from their lives. Years later, Matilda returns from studying in Paris to tell Bram the news that she has seen Ellen--and that the nightmare they've thought long ended is only beginning.]]> 497 Dacre Stoker 0735219346 Dary 0 to-read, hmmph 4.14 2018 Dracul
author: Dacre Stoker
name: Dary
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/24
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]]> Middlemarch 961783 Middlemarch (1871-2) is perhaps the masterpiece of a writer who is now recognized as a major literary figure of the nineteenth century. Virginia Woolf hailed as 'one of the few English novels written for adult people' this magnificent work in which George Eliot paints a luminous and spacious landscape of life in a provincial town. With sure and subtle touch she draws together the links of the rural network: Dorothea, a modern St Teresa; Dr Lydgate, the young doctor defeated by self and circumstance; Rosamond, that masterly study in triviality and egoism, and the unprepossessing and doomed banker, Bulstrode. Indeed, in her analysis of human nature George Eliot achieved what Dr Leavis has called 'a Tolstoyan depth and reality'.]]> 908 George Eliot 0140430024 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.18 1872 Middlemarch
author: George Eliot
name: Dary
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1872
rating: 0
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]]> The Canterbury Tales 2698 The Canterbury Tales into modern verse - the first to appear in over thirty years - makes one of the greatest works of English literature accessible to all readers while preserving the wit and vivacity of Chaucer's original text.]]> 465 Geoffrey Chaucer 019283360X Dary 0 to-read, hmmph, physical-tbr 3.66 1400 The Canterbury Tales
author: Geoffrey Chaucer
name: Dary
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1400
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)]]> 133539
He claims that people are defined by the objects that surround them and must piece together their identities bit by bit each time they wake up. The young Marcel is so nervous about sleeping alone that he looks forward to his mother's goodnight kisses, but also dreads them as a sign of an impending sleepless night. One night, when Charles Swann, a friend of his grandparents, is visiting, his mother cannot come kiss him goodnight. He stays up until Swann leaves and looks so sad and pitiful that even his disciplinarian father encourages "Mamma" to spend the night in Marcel's room.]]> 615 Marcel Proust 0375751548 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.28 1913 Swann’s Way (In Search of Lost Time, #1)
author: Marcel Proust
name: Dary
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1913
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/23
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review:

]]> War and Peace 656
War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.

As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.


Tolstoy gave his personal approval to this translation, published here in a new single volume edition, which includes an introduction by Henry Gifford, and Tolstoy's important essay `Some Words about War and Peace'.]]> 1392 Leo Tolstoy 0192833987 Dary 0 currently-reading 4.14 1869 War and Peace
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Dary
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1869
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Sweet Bird of Youth 200754 175 Tennessee Williams 0822211041 Dary 4 2025, classics, plays Streetcar.
I think this might be my 10th Williams play, and what a play it is! One of his best.]]> 3.72 1959 Sweet Bird of Youth
author: Tennessee Williams
name: Dary
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1959
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: 2025, classics, plays
review:
Realistically, a 4.5/5, on the same level as Streetcar.
I think this might be my 10th Williams play, and what a play it is! One of his best.
]]> Angels in America 34993151 352 Tony Kushner 1848426313 Dary 5 2022, plays, 2022-favs
The fountain's not flowing now, they turn it off in the winter, ice in the pipes. But in the summer it's a sight to see. I want to be around to see it. I plan to be. I hope to be.
This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.
Bye now.
You are fabulous creatures, each and every one. ]]> 4.44 1995 Angels in America
author: Tony Kushner
name: Dary
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2022/11/18
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: 2022, plays, 2022-favs
review:
If there is such thing as a must-read, this is it.

The fountain's not flowing now, they turn it off in the winter, ice in the pipes. But in the summer it's a sight to see. I want to be around to see it. I plan to be. I hope to be.
This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.
Bye now.
You are fabulous creatures, each and every one.
]]> Man and Superman 364284 Man and Superman in 1901 and determined to write a play that would encapsulate the new century's intellectual inheritance. Shaw drew not only on Byron's verse satire, but also on Shakespeare, the Victorian comedy fashionable in his early life, and from authors from Conan Doyle to Kipling. In this powerful drama of ideas, Shaw explores the role of the artist, the function of women in society, and his theory of Creative Evolution. As Stanley Weintraub says in his new introduction, this is "the first great twentieth-century English play" and remains a classic exposé of the eternal struggle between the sexes.

This edition:
Man and Superman was the first drama to be broadcast on the BBC's Third Program on October 1, 1946. To celebrate Radio 3's 50th anniversary, the play was directed by Sir Peter Hall, and preserved for all time in this lush audio dramatization.

"A comedy and a philosophy", Man and Superman is based on the Don Juan theme, and using all the elements from Mozart's Don Giovanni, Shaw reordered them so that Don Juan becomes the quarry instead of the huntsman.

Boasting an outstanding cast including Ralph Fiennes, Juliet Stevenson, Dame Judi Dench, John Wood, Nicholas Le Prevost, and Paul Merton, this release includes an exclusive interview with director Sir Peter Hall.]]> 288 George Bernard Shaw 0140437886 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.85 1903 Man and Superman
author: George Bernard Shaw
name: Dary
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1903
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A View from the Bridge and All My Sons]]> 1420931 176 Arthur Miller 0140480293 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.67 1955 A View from the Bridge and All My Sons
author: Arthur Miller
name: Dary
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1955
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A Shorter Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of Saint Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica]]> 168726 165 Peter Kreeft 0898704383 Dary 0 to-read, hmmph 4.03 1485 A Shorter Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of Saint Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica
author: Peter Kreeft
name: Dary
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1485
rating: 0
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]]> Orlando 18839 Orlando 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature', playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Constantinople, awakes to find that he is now a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.]]> 336 Virginia Woolf 0141184272 Dary 3 2025, classics
Witty and humorous, devoid of unity. Aside from its gimmick, everything else is explored better in some of her other novels, I believe.]]> 3.88 1928 Orlando
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Dary
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1928
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: 2025, classics
review:
3.5/5

Witty and humorous, devoid of unity. Aside from its gimmick, everything else is explored better in some of her other novels, I believe.
]]> <![CDATA[Four Major Plays: A Doll's House / Ghosts / Hedda Gabler / The Master Builder]]> 80521 A Doll's House, Ghosts, Hedda Gabler and The Master Builder.]]> 370 Henrik Ibsen 0192833871 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.12 1879 Four Major Plays: A Doll's House / Ghosts / Hedda Gabler / The Master Builder
author: Henrik Ibsen
name: Dary
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1879
rating: 0
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]]> The Woman in White 1445709 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Like few novels before it, The Woman in White thrilled readers across England when it debuted in 1860. It famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit road. Engaged as a drawing-master to beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his charming friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons, and poison...]]> 648 Wilkie Collins 0140430962 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr, hmmph 4.08 1859 The Woman in White
author: Wilkie Collins
name: Dary
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1859
rating: 0
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]]> Chekhov: The Major Plays 270400 Chekhov: The Major Plays
Ivanov * The Sea Gull * Uncle Vanya
The Three Sisters * The Cherry Orchard

"Let the things that happen on stage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life. For instance, people are having a meal, just having a meal, but at the same time their happiness is being created, or their lives are being smashed up." Thus Chekhov summed up the credo that finds expression in the subtle construction and electrically charged atmosphere of his plays. In these portrayals of human beings trapped in a stultifying environment, victimized as much by their own weakness as by the greed of others, the most casual words and everyday actions assume the import of acts of destiny. Tragedy is mingled with farce, protest wars with resignation, in a world that yields from its darkest despair a singular moral affirmation--an affirmation that stands as the final mark and measure of Chekov's art. As Robert Brustein declares in the foreword to this edition: "...in the modern theater...there are none who bring the drama to a higher realization of its human role."

]]> 384 Anton Chekhov 0451527763 Dary 0 to-read 4.03 1887 Chekhov: The Major Plays
author: Anton Chekhov
name: Dary
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1887
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> The Symposium 81779
In the course of a lively drinking party, a group of Athenian intellectuals exchange views on eros, or desire. From their conversation emerges a series of subtle reflections on gender roles, sex in society and the sublimation of basic human instincts. The discussion culminates in a radical challenge to conventional views by Plato's mentor, Socrates, who advocates transcendence through spiritual love. The Symposium is a deft interweaving of different viewpoints and ideas about the nature of love--as a response to beauty, a cosmic force, a motive for social action and as a means of ethical education.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 90 Plato 0140449272 Dary 0 to-read 4.11 -380 The Symposium
author: Plato
name: Dary
average rating: 4.11
book published: -380
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> The Two-Character Play 1554954
In the course of its evolution, several earlier versions of The Two-Character Play have been produced. The first of them was presented in 1967 in London and Chicago and brought out in 1969 by New Directions in a signed limited edition. The next, staged in 1973 in New York under the title Out Cry , was published by New Directions in 1973 The third version (New York, 1975), again titled The Two-Character Play , is the one Tennessee Williams wished to include in New Directions' The Theatre of Tennessee Williams series. It is this version which is presented in this ND paperback.]]> Tennessee Williams 0811207293 Dary 3 2025, classics, ebooks, plays 3.46 1979 The Two-Character Play
author: Tennessee Williams
name: Dary
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1979
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
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review:

]]> On Anger 17676276 “Kısa süre sonra şu son nefesimizi vereceğiz. Bu anda, henüz nefes alıp verirken, henüz insanların arasındayken insanlığı onurlandıralım. Kimseye korku salmayalım, kimse için tehlike arz etmeyelim, kayıplarımızı, uğradığımız haksızlıkları, suiistimalleri, sataşmaları hiçe sayalım ve zaten kısa ömürlü olan aksiliklere yüce gönüllülükle katlanalım. Dedikleri gibi, biz hesap kitap yapıp kaygılanmakla meşgul olurken ölüm her an bizi bulabilir.”]]> Seneca Dary 0 to-read 4.21 41 On Anger
author: Seneca
name: Dary
average rating: 4.21
book published: 41
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> Till We Have Faces 17343
Set against the backdrop of Glome, a barbaric, pre-Christian world, the struggles between sacred and profane love are illuminated as Orual learns that we cannot understand the intent of the gods "till we have faces" and sincerity in our souls and selves.]]> 313 C.S. Lewis Dary 0 to-read 4.19 1956 Till We Have Faces
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Dary
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1956
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book of the City of Ladies]]> 18004164
Christine de Pizan (c.1364-1430) was France's first professional woman of letters. Her pioneering Book of the City of Ladies begins when, feeling frustrated and miserable after reading a male writer's tirade against women, Christine has a dreamlike vision where three virtues - Reason, Rectitude and Justice - appear to correct this view. They instruct her to build an allegorical city in which womankind can be defended against slander, its walls and towers constructed from examples of female achievement both from her own day and the past: ranging from warriors, inventors and scholars to prophetesses, artists and saints. Christine de Pizan's spirited defence of her sex was unique for its direct confrontation of the misogyny of her day, and offers a telling insight into the position of women in medieval culture.

THE CITY OF LADIES provides positive images of women, ranging from warriors and inventors, scholars to prophetesses, and artists to saints. The book also offers a fascinating insight into the debates and controversies about the position of women in medieval culture.]]> 324 Christine de Pizan Dary 0 to-read 3.76 1405 The Book of the City of Ladies
author: Christine de Pizan
name: Dary
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1405
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sebastopol Sketches (Penguin Classics)]]> 50269 192 Leo Tolstoy 0140444688 Dary 0 to-read 3.92 1855 The Sebastopol Sketches (Penguin Classics)
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Dary
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1855
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/06
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]]> Four Tragedies and Octavia 97415 319 Seneca 0140441743 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.99 64 Four Tragedies and Octavia
author: Seneca
name: Dary
average rating: 3.99
book published: 64
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> A Room with a View 17258035
Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George.

Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?]]> 223 E.M. Forster Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.83 1908 A Room with a View
author: E.M. Forster
name: Dary
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1908
rating: 0
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]]> Vathek 859694 Vathek (1786), originally written in French, remains one of the strangest eighteenth-century novels and one of the most difficult to classify. Perverse and grotesque comedy alternates with scenes of 'oriental' magnificence and evocative beauty in the story of the ruthless Caliph Vathek's journey to superb damnation among the subterranean treasures of Eblis. Underlying the elegant prose is a strong element of self-indulgent personal fantasy on the part of Beckford, youthful millionaire, dreamer, and eventually social outcast. Byron, Poe, Mallarmé, and Swinburne are some of the literary figures who have admired Vathek's imaginative power.]]> 180 William Beckford 0192836560 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.26 1786 Vathek
author: William Beckford
name: Dary
average rating: 3.26
book published: 1786
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder]]> 58045504 An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here.

The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize only his spiritual and social distance from them.]]> 480 Evelyn Waugh 0141182482 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.04 1945 Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder
author: Evelyn Waugh
name: Dary
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1945
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Angels & Saints: With a Guide to the Illustrations by Mary Wellesley]]> 50922731
From a litany of angelic voices, Weinberger’s lyrical meditation then turns to the earthly counterparts, the saints, their lives retold in a series of vibrant and playful capsule biographies, followed by a glimpse of the afterlife.

Threaded throughout Angels & Saints are the glorious illuminated grid poems by the eighteenth-century Benedictine monk Hrabanus Maurus. These astonishingly complex, proto-“concrete� poems are untangled in a lucid afterword by the medieval scholar and historian Mary Wellesley.]]> 160 Eliot Weinberger 0811229866 Dary 0 to-read 4.10 2020 Angels & Saints: With a Guide to the Illustrations by Mary Wellesley
author: Eliot Weinberger
name: Dary
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> <![CDATA[The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos]]> 150252
This clear-eyed, brutal, moving, darkly funny book tells a single story in an immediate, accessible voice�29 “tangos� of narrative verse that take us vividly through erotic, painful, and heartbreaking scenes from a long-time marriage that falls apart. Only award-winning poet Anne Carson could create a work that takes on the oldest of lyrical subjects–love–and make it this powerful, this fresh, this devastating.]]> 160 Anne Carson 0375707573 Dary 0 to-read 4.22 2001 The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos
author: Anne Carson
name: Dary
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature]]> 17861591 A German Jew, Auerbach was forced out of his professorship at the University of Marburg in 1935. He left for Turkey, where he taught at the state university in Istanbul. There he wrote "Mimesis," publishing it in German after the end of the war. Displaced as he was, Auerbach produced a work of great erudition that contains no footnotes, basing his arguments instead on searching, illuminating readings of key passages from his primary texts. His aim was to show how from antiquity to the twentieth century literature progressed toward ever more naturalistic and democratic forms of representation. This essentially optimistic view of European history now appears as a defensive--and impassioned--response to the inhumanity he saw in the Third Reich. Ranging over works in Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English, Auerbach used his remarkable skills in philology and comparative literature to refute any narrow form of nationalism or chauvinism, in his own day and ours.
For many readers, both inside and outside the academy, "Mimesis" is among the finest works of literary criticism ever written.
]]> 579 Erich Auerbach 0691160228 Dary 0 to-read 4.37 1942 Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature
author: Erich Auerbach
name: Dary
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1942
rating: 0
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]]> Poetics 13270 'What is poetry, how many kinds of it are there, and what are their specific effects?'

Aristotle's Poetics is the most influential book on poetry ever written. A founding text of European aesthetics and literary criticism, from it stems much of our modern understanding of the creation and impact of imaginative writing, including poetry, drama, and fiction. For Aristotle, the art of representation conveys universal truths which we can appreciate more easily than the lessons of history or philosophy. In his short treatise Aristotle discusses the origins of poetry and its early development, the nature of tragedy and plot, and offers practical advice to playwrights.]]> 144 Aristotle 0140446362 Dary 0 2025, classics, ebooks imperative 3.84 -335 Poetics
author: Aristotle
name: Dary
average rating: 3.84
book published: -335
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/05
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review:
imperative
]]> Ivanhoe 424971
"Exuberant, colourful and packed with incident, Ivanhoe is Sir Walter Scott's great romance of the Age of Chivalry"

Scott's noble knight, brave Ivanhoe, returns home from the Crusades to claim Rowena, an Anglo-Saxon princess, to be his bride. Before long he is embroiled in the struggle between Prince John and his brother, Richard the Lionheart, who has returned inocgnito and enlisted the aid of Robin Hood and his merry men to win back the throne of England.]]> 528 Walter Scott 0140620508 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr, hmmph 3.61 1819 Ivanhoe
author: Walter Scott
name: Dary
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1819
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> Stairs to the Roof 705129 Stairs to the Roof is a rare and different Williams' work: a love story, a comedy, an experiment in meta-theater, with a touch of early science fiction. Tennessee Williams called Stairs to the Roof "a prayer for the wild of heart who are kept in cages" and dedicated it to "all the little wage earners of the world." It reflects the would-be poet's "season in hell" during the Depression when he had to quit college to type orders eight hours a day at the International Shoe Factory in St. Louis.

Stairs is Williams' revenge, expressed through his alter ego, Benjamin Murphy, the clerk who stages a one-man rebellion against the clock, the monotony of his eight-to-five job, and all the dehumanizing forces of an increasingly mechanized and commercial society. Ben's swift-moving series of fantastic adventures culminate in an escape from the ordinary that is an endorsement of the American dream. In 1941 with the world at war and civilization in danger of collapse, Williams dared to imagine a utopian future as Ben leads us up his stairs towards the Millennium.

Stairs to the Roof was produced only twice, once at the Playbox in Pasadena, California, in 1945, and subsequently at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1947. Now, in an edition meticulously prepared by noted Williams scholar Allean Hale, Williams fans can share this play of youthful optimism.]]> 160 Tennessee Williams 0811214354 Dary 0 to-read 3.97 2000 Stairs to the Roof
author: Tennessee Williams
name: Dary
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Theatre and its Double (Theatre Makers)]]> 138522800
Translated into a contemporary English that accurately conveys the detail and impact of the original, this is the first English-language version of The Theatre and its Double to be at once faithful to the original and more easy for today's readers to understand.

It brings together all of the key texts that formed the 1938 Le théâtre et son double , including 2 texts not included in Victor Corti's established translation - 'Le théâtre et la culture' and 'Le théâtre alchimique' - as well as a translation of 'Le théâtre de Séraphin', which was intended for, but omitted from, the original 1938 publication.

By including, too, a newly translated selection of Artaud's letters about the book's original publication and the author's concept of a 'theatre of cruelty', we are able to form a fuller appreciation of Artaud's objectives. The commentary further contextualizes this material within Artaud's broader oeuvre, from his collaboration with the Surrealist group through to his plans to stage his own adaptation Les Cenci in 1935.

The contributions of key works of Artaud scholarship from the last two decades are summarised and contextualised, including work in the area by Adrian Morfee, Kimberly Jannarone and Stephen Barber.

Additionally, a selection of Artaud's correspondence with his publisher and friends on the subject of 'cruelty' and on his ambitions for his book has been newly translated here to complement the correspondence that already exists as part of the volume. These include letters to Roger Blin, Jean-Louis Barrault, Anaïs Nin, André Rolland and Jean Paulhan.

Each chapter features endnotes clarifying Artaud's numerous, often obscure allusions and references to help today's student.

Ultimately, we come to understand how these writings manifest and mobilise a particular Artaudian concern for art and life to operate inseparably, and Artaud's articulation of his own ambition, placing these in the context of his practice and European mid-century practice more widely.

A welcome addition any theatre-lover's or student's bookshelf, this is a much-needed opportunity to gain clear and faithful insights into Artaud's theatre.]]> 280 Antonin Artaud 1350288713 Dary 0 to-read 3.00 1938 The Theatre and its Double (Theatre Makers)
author: Antonin Artaud
name: Dary
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1938
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> Another Country 38474
Stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, this book depicts men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime.]]> 448 James Baldwin 0141186372 Dary 4 2025, classics 4.32 1962 Another Country
author: James Baldwin
name: Dary
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: 2025, classics
review:

]]> Absalom, Absalom! 36339274
Quentin Compson and Shreve, his Harvard roommate, are obsessed by the tragic rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen.

As a poor white boy, Sutpen was turned away from a plantation owner's mansion by a negro butler. From then on, he was determined to force his way into the upper echelons of Southern society. His relentless will ensured his ambitions were soon realised; land, marriage, children, his own troop to fight in the Civil War...but Sutpen returns from the conflict to find his estate in ruins and his family collapsing. Secrets from own past threaten to ruin the lives of his children and destroy everything he has worked for.]]> 316 William Faulkner Dary 0 on-hold 4.25 1936 Absalom, Absalom!
author: William Faulkner
name: Dary
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1936
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: on-hold
review:

]]> Naked Lunch 24832260 Naked Lunch is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century, a book that redefined literature. A startling tale of a narcotics addict unmoored in New York, Tangier, and ultimately a nightmarish wasteland known as Interzone, its formal innovation, taboo subject matter, and virtuoso style have exerted a significant influence on authors like Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, William Gibson, and Will Self, as well as on music, film, and the media generally. This restored edition incorporates Burroughs’s notes on the text, several essays he wrote about the book, and an appendix of new material and alternate drafts from the original manuscript. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume is a definitive and fresh experience of this classic of our culture.]]> 289 William S. Burroughs Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.28 1959 Naked Lunch
author: William S. Burroughs
name: Dary
average rating: 3.28
book published: 1959
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/31
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)]]> 16054217 The #1 New York Times bestselling series finale and sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

Bringing the magic and suspense of the All Souls Trilogy to a deeply satisfying conclusion, this highly anticipated finale went straight to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In The Book of Life, Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.]]> 561 Deborah Harkness 0670025593 Dary 5 fantasy 4.15 2014 The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Dary
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: fantasy
review:

]]> Martyr! 139400713 Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others—in which a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Dary 0 to-read 4.22 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Dary
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
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date added: 2025/01/06
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]]> Daisy Miller 1106873 Daisy Miller James created his first great portrait of the enigmatic and dangerously independent American woman, a figure who would come to dominate his later masterpieces.]]> 128 Henry James 0141441348 Dary 1 terrible 3.31 1879 Daisy Miller
author: Henry James
name: Dary
average rating: 3.31
book published: 1879
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: classics, ebooks, university-reads, 2025
review:
terrible
]]> <![CDATA[Scarlet and Black: A Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century]]> 679826 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Handsome and ambitious, Julien Sorel is determined to rise above his humble peasant origins and make something of his life-by adopting the code of hypocrisy by which his society operates. Julien ultimately commits a crime-out of passion, principle, or insanity-that will bring about his downfall. The Red and the Black is a lively, satirical picture of French Restoration society after Waterloo, riddled with corruption, greed, and ennui. The complex, sympathetic portrayal of Julien, the cold exploiter whose Machiavellian campaign is undercut by his own emotions, makes him Stendhal's most brilliant and human creation-and one of the greatest characters in European literature.

Translated with an introduction by Margaret R. B. Shaw.]]> 512 Stendhal 0140440305 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.76 1830 Scarlet and Black: A Chronicle of the Nineteenth Century
author: Stendhal
name: Dary
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1830
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> Capodopere în dialog 173548018
Spune-mi cum privesti (cum «vezi» lucrurile) ca sa-ti spun cine esti� A privi e, uneori, si a visa, a imagina (o vedenie�) sau a avea revelatia cvasipalpabila a unui adevar.

Candva, Leonardo nu va mai fi pentru noi decat ceea ce fiecare pictor, fiecare artist, devine pana la urma: un nume despre care povestesc cartile, dar pe care muzeele, memoria vizuala a lumii l-au pierdut. Vom spune Leonardo cum spunem Apelles sau Polignot, fara ca vreo imagine sa se mai asocieze in mintea noastra acestor nume. Si vom spune, poate, la fel, «pictura» cu sentimentul ca ne referim la un dat arheologic, la o realitate defuncta, cu acelasi sentiment, probabil, cum vom spune si «Venetia», si jungla Amazoanelor, si pictura etrusca si atatea altele: lucruri minunate, din care nu va mai fi ramas decat nimbul. S-ar putea totusi ca, pana si in asemenea momente, Gioconda sa-i supravietuiasca lui Leonardo ca o emblema a Paradisului pierdut: Paradisul pierdut al picturii...“]]> 220 Andrei Pleșu 9735078694 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.23 Capodopere în dialog
author: Andrei Pleșu
name: Dary
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 0
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]]> Fear and Trembling 19742521 Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard, writing under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio, expounds his personal view of religion through a discussion of the scene in Genesis in which Abraham prepares to sacrifice his son at God's command. Believing Abraham's unreserved obedience to be the essential leap of faith needed to make a full commitment to his religion, Kierkegaard himself made great sacrifices in order to dedicate his life entirely to his philosophy and to God. The conviction shown in this religious polemic - that a man can have an exceptional mission in life - informed all Kierkegaard's later writings, and was also hugely influential for both Protestant theology and the existentialist movement.

Alastair Hannay's introduction elucidates Kierkegaard's philosophy and the ways in which it conflicted with more accepted contemporary views. This edition also includes detailed notes to complement this groundbreaking analysis of religion, and a new chronology.]]> 166 Søren Kierkegaard 0140444491 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.92 1843 Fear and Trembling
author: Søren Kierkegaard
name: Dary
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1843
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> The Portrait of a Lady 15994544 'She knew of no wrong that he had done; he was not violent, he was not cruel; she simply believed that he hated her'

When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy her freedom, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. Then she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond. Charming and cultivated, Osmond sees Isabel as a rich prize waiting to be taken. In this portrait of a 'young woman affronting her destiny', Henry James created one of his most magnificent heroines, and a story of intense poignancy.]]> 688 Henry James 0141199121 Dary 3 3.71 1881 The Portrait of a Lady
author: Henry James
name: Dary
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1881
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: 2024, classics, university-reads
review:

]]> The First Bad Man 21412400 No One Belongs Here More Than You, a spectacular debut novel that is so heartbreaking, so dirty, so tender, so funny--so Miranda July--readers will be blown away.

Here is Cheryl, a tightly-wound, vulnerable woman who lives alone, with a perpetual lump in her throat. She is haunted by a baby boy she met when she was six, who sometimes recurs as other people's babies. Cheryl is also obsessed with Phillip, a philandering board member at the women's self-defense non-profit where she works. She believes they've been making love for many lifetimes, though they have yet to consummate in this one.

When Cheryl's bosses ask if their twenty-one-year-old daughter Clee can move into her house for a little while, Cheryl's eccentrically-ordered world explodes. And yet it is Clee--the selfish, cruel blond bombshell--who bullies Cheryl into reality and, unexpectedly, provides her the love of a lifetime.

Tender, gripping, slyly hilarious, infused with raging sexual fantasies and fierce maternal love, Miranda July's first novel confirms her as a spectacularly original, iconic and important voice today, and a writer for all time. The First Bad Man is dazzling, disorienting, and unforgettable.]]> 288 Miranda July 1439172560 Dary 0 to-read 3.67 2015 The First Bad Man
author: Miranda July
name: Dary
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/20
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]]> Bel-Ami 780581 416 Guy de Maupassant 0140443150 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.85 1885 Bel-Ami
author: Guy de Maupassant
name: Dary
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1885
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Metamorphosis and Other Stories]]> 7723 The Metamorphosis,� a story that is both harrowing and amusing, and a landmark of modern literature.

Bringing together some of Kafka’s finest work, this collection demonstrates the richness and variety of the author’s artistry. �The Judgment,� which Kafka considered to be his decisive breakthrough, and �The Stoker,� which became the first chapter of his novel Amerika, are here included. These two, along with �The Metamorphosis,� form a suite of stories Kafka referred to as “The Sons,� and they collectively present a devastating portrait of the modern family.

Also included are �In the Penal Colony,� a story of a torture machine and its operators and victims, and �A Hunger Artist,� about the absurdity of an artist trying to communicate with a misunderstanding public. Kafka’s lucid, succinct writing chronicles the labyrinthine complexities, the futility-laden horror, and the stifling oppressiveness that permeate his vision of modern life.]]> 224 Franz Kafka 1593080298 Dary 2 4.08 1915 The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
author: Franz Kafka
name: Dary
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1915
rating: 2
read at: 2023/02/04
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: 2023, classics, university-reads
review:

]]> Summer and Smoke 10247031 Vintage paperback 127 Tennessee Williams 0451020197 Dary 3 2024, classics, plays 3.68 1948 Summer and Smoke
author: Tennessee Williams
name: Dary
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1948
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/15
date added: 2024/11/15
shelves: 2024, classics, plays
review:

]]> The Woodlanders 898260 The Woodlanders, a novel revolving around a small village community coming to terms with a radically changing world.

Plain Marty South, a young country girl mature beyond her years, endures her love for Giles Winterbourne in silence. He works in partnership with George Melbury, the local timber-merchant and chief man of business in the area. Giles has deep unspoken feelings for Mr Melbury's daughter Grace who has been away at boarding school and now returns to Little Hintock an educated young woman with modern ideas. Giles belongs to a past she no longer wants to be a part of and she is soon attracted to the new, handsome young doctor in the village, Edred Fitzpiers. As they all follow their lonely course, their lives become inextricably intertwined.

First published in 1887, The Woodlanders, which in later years Hardy came to regard as his favourite story, reflects Hardy's own changing attitude to the past and recognition of the dawn of a modern, dramatically different age.]]> 444 Thomas Hardy 0140620907 Dary 3 2024, classics 3.84 1887 The Woodlanders
author: Thomas Hardy
name: Dary
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1887
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/15
date added: 2024/11/15
shelves: 2024, classics
review:

]]> Life for Sale 43685241 'Life for sale. Use me as you wish. I am a twenty-seven-year-old male. Discretion guaranteed. Will cause no bother at all.'

When Hanio Yamada realizes the future holds nothing of worth to him, he puts his life for sale in a Tokyo newspaper, thus unleashing a series of unimaginable exploits.

A world of revenge, murderous mobsters, hidden cameras, a vampire woman, poisonous carrots, espionage and code-breaking, a junkie heiress, home-made explosives and decoys reveals itself to the unwitting Hanio. Is there anything he can do to stop it?]]> 192 Yukio Mishima 0241333148 Dary 0 to-read, wishlist 3.74 1968 Life for Sale
author: Yukio Mishima
name: Dary
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1968
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/13
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]]> The Idiot 226383 Crime and Punishment, which explored the mind of a murderer, Dostoevsky produced another masterpiece, The Idiot. This time the author portrays a truly beautiful soul—a character he found difficult to bring to life because, as he wrote, "beauty is the ideal, and neither my country, nor civilized Europe, know what that ideal of beauty is.� The result was one of Dostoevsky’s greatest characters—Prince Myshkin, a saintly, Christ-like, yet deeply human figure.

The story begins when Myshkin arrives on Russian soil after a stay in a Swiss sanatorium. Scorned by St. Petersburg society as an idiot for his generosity and innocence, the prince finds himself at the center of a struggle between a rich, kept woman and a beautiful, virtuous girl, who both hope to win his affection. Unfortunately, Myshkin’s very goodness seems to bring disaster to everyone he meets. The shocking denouement tragically reveals how, in a world obsessed with money, power, and sexual conquest, a sanatorium is the only place for a saint. ]]> 619 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0140440542 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.02 1869 The Idiot
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Dary
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1869
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/09
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]]> At the Mountains of Madness 32767 At the Mountains of Madness. The deliberately told and increasingly chilling recollection of an Antarctic expedition's uncanny discoveries --and their encounter with an untold menace in the ruins of a lost civilization--is a milestone of macabre literature.

This Definitive Edition of At the Mountains of Madness (The Modern Library) also includes Lovecraft's long essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature."]]> 194 H.P. Lovecraft 0812974417 Dary 2 hmmph, 2024, classics, ebooks 3.86 1931 At the Mountains of Madness
author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: Dary
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1931
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/31
date added: 2024/10/31
shelves: hmmph, 2024, classics, ebooks
review:

]]> Paradise Lost 15997 Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the center of the conflict are Adam and Eve, who are motivated by all too human temptations but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love.

Marked by Milton's characteristic erudition, Paradise Lost is a work epic both in scale and, notoriously, in ambition. For nearly 350 years, it has held generation upon generation of audiences in rapt attention, and its profound influence can be seen in almost every corner of Western culture.]]> 453 John Milton 0140424393 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr, hmmph 3.83 1667 Paradise Lost
author: John Milton
name: Dary
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1667
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/25
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]]> Dictator (Cicero, #3) 24179513 The long-awaited final volume of the Cicero Trilogy, from a beloved bestselling author "incapable of writing an unenjoyable book" (The Wall Street Journal).

At the age of forty-eight, Cicero--the greatest orator of his time--is in exile, his power sacrificed on the altar of his principles. The only way to return to Rome is to pledge his support to a charismatic and dangerous enemy: Julius Caesar. Harnessing his political cunning, unrivalled intellect, and the sheer brilliance of his words, Cicero fights his way back to prominence. Yet no public figure is completely safeguarded against the unscrupulous ambition of others.

Riveting and tumultuous, Dictator encompasses the most epic events in ancient history, including the collapse of the Roman Republic, the murder of Pompey, and the assassination of Caesar. But its central question is a timeless one: how to keep political freedom unsullied by personal gain, vested interests, and the corrosive effects of ceaseless foreign wars. In Robert Harris's indelible portrait, Cicero is a deeply fascinating hero for his own time and for ours.]]> 449 Robert Harris 0091752108 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.48 2015 Dictator (Cicero, #3)
author: Robert Harris
name: Dary
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/16
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]]> The Go-Between 1770025 The Go-Between is edited with an introduction and notes by Douglas Brooks-Davies in Penguin Modern Classics.

'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there'

When one long, hot summer, young Leo is staying with a school-friend at Brandham Hall, he begins to act as a messenger between Ted, the farmer, and Marian, the beautiful young woman up at the hall. He becomes drawn deeper and deeper into their dangerous game of deceit and desire, until his role brings him to a shocking and premature revelation. The haunting story of a young boy's awakening into the secrets of the adult world, The Go-Between is also an unforgettable evocation of the boundaries of Edwardian society.

Leslie Poles Hartley (1895-1972) was born in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, and educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. For more than thirty years from 1923 he was an indefatigable fiction reviewer for periodicals including the Spectator and Saturday Review. His first book, Night Fears (1924) was a collection of short stories; but it was not until the publication of Eustace and Hilda (1947), which won the James Tait Black prize, that Hartley gained widespread recognition as an author. His other novels include The Go-Between (1953), which was adapted into an internationally-successful film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, and The Hireling (1957), the film version of which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

If you enjoyed The Go-Between, you might like Barry Hines's A Kestrel for a Knave, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'Magical and disturbing'
Independent

'On a first reading, it is a beautifully wrought description of a small boy's loss of innocence long ago. But, visited a second time, the knowledge of approaching, unavoidable tragedy makes it far more poignant and painful'
Express]]> 288 L.P. Hartley 0140183078 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.00 1953 The Go-Between
author: L.P. Hartley
name: Dary
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1953
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/16
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]]> The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 93261 108 Washington Irving 0809594080 Dary 2 3.71 1820 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
author: Washington Irving
name: Dary
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1820
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/11
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: 2024, classics, ebooks, university-reads
review:

]]> If Beale Street Could Talk 38463 197 James Baldwin 0307275930 Dary 3 2024, classics 4.28 1974 If Beale Street Could Talk
author: James Baldwin
name: Dary
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1974
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/03
date added: 2024/10/03
shelves: 2024, classics
review:

]]> Beyond the Pleasure Principle 706554 The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud under the general editorship of James Strachey.


Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions.Newly designed in a uniform format, each new paperback in the Standard Edition opens with a biographical essay on Freud's life and work —along with a note on the individual volume—by Peter Gay, Sterling Professor of History at Yale.]]> 92 Sigmund Freud 0393007693 Dary 0 to-read 3.78 1920 Beyond the Pleasure Principle
author: Sigmund Freud
name: Dary
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1920
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/01
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]]> <![CDATA[So Bright and Delicate: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne]]> 7062932 131 John Keats 0141442476 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.35 2009 So Bright and Delicate: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne
author: John Keats
name: Dary
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/09
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]]> Goodbye to Berlin 368527
Written as a connected series of six short stories the book, first published in 1939, is a brilliant evocation of the decadence and repression, glamour and sleaze of Berlin society. Isherwood shows the lives of people at threat from the rise of the Nazis: Natalia Laundauer, the rich, Jewish heiress, Peter and Otto, a gay couple andthe 'divinely decadent' Sally Bowles, a young English woman who was so memorably portrayed by Liza Minnelli.]]> 272 Christopher Isherwood 0749390549 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.91 1939 Goodbye to Berlin
author: Christopher Isherwood
name: Dary
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1939
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/07
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]]> Notes of a Native Son 35997466 'The story of the negro in America is the story of America ... it is not a very pretty story'

James Baldwin's breakthrough essay collection made him the voice of his generation. Ranging over Harlem in the 1940s, movies, novels, his preacher father and his experiences of Paris, they capture the complexity of black life at the dawn of the civil rights movement with effervescent wit and prophetic wisdom.

'A classic ... In a divided America, James Baldwin's fiery critiques reverberate anew' Washington Post

'Edgy and provocative, entertainingly satirical' Robert McCrum, Guardian

'Cemented his reputation as a cultural seer ... Notes of a Native Son endures as his defining work, and his greatest' Time]]> 179 James Baldwin 0241334004 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.28 1955 Notes of a Native Son
author: James Baldwin
name: Dary
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1955
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone (Penguin Modern Classics)]]> 36303872 384 James Baldwin 0241342031 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.27 1968 Tell Me How Long The Train's Been Gone (Penguin Modern Classics)
author: James Baldwin
name: Dary
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1968
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/06
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]]> Eseu despre experienĹŁa morĹŁii 28052101 128 Paul-Ludwig Landsberg 9732803436 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.00 1936 Eseu despre experienĹŁa morĹŁii
author: Paul-Ludwig Landsberg
name: Dary
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1936
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/31
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]]> Portnoy's Complaint 394964
"Deliciously funny...absurd and exuberant, wild and uproarious...a brilliantly vivid reading experience." � The New York Times Book Review

"Touching as well as hilariously lewd.... Roth is vibrantly talented. " —New York Review of Books

Portnoy's Complaint n. [after Alexander Portnoy (1933- )] A disorder in which strongly-felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature. Spielvogel 'Acts of exhibitionism, voyeurism, fetishism, auto-eroticism and oral coitus are plentiful; as a consequence of the patient's "morality," however, neither fantasy nor act issues in genuine sexual gratification, but rather in overriding feelings of shame and the dread of retribution, particularly in the form of castration.' (Spielvogel, O. "The Puzzled Penis," Internationale Zeitschrift fĂĽr Psychoanalyse, Vol. XXIV, p. 909.) It is believed by Spielvogel that many of the symptoms can be traced to the bonds obtaining in the mother-child relationship.]]> 274 Philip Roth 0679756450 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.69 1969 Portnoy's Complaint
author: Philip Roth
name: Dary
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/31
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]]> A Thousand Splendid Suns 834713 An alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. It is his second, following his bestselling 2003 debut, The Kite Runner. The book, which spans a period of over 40 years, from the 1960s to 2003, focuses on the tumultuous lives and relationship of Mariam and Laila, two Afghan women. Mariam, an illegitimate child, suffers from the stigma surrounding her birth and the abuse she faces throughout her marriage. Laila, born a generation later, is comparatively privileged during her youth until their lives intersect and she is also forced to accept a marriage proposal from Rasheed, Mariam's husband.]]> 372 Khaled Hosseini 0747582971 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.46 2007 A Thousand Splendid Suns
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Dary
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> The Little Demon 17346322
Mad, lascivious, sadistic and ridiculous, the provincial schoolteacher Peredonov torments his students and has hallucinatory fantasies about acts of savagery and degradation, yet to everyone else he is an upstanding member of society. As he pursues the idea of marrying to gain promotion, he descends into paranoia, sexual perversion, arson, torture and murder.

Sologub's anti-hero is one of the great comic monsters of twentieth-century fiction, subsequently lending his name to the brand of sado-masochism known as Peredonovism.

'The Little Demon' (1907) made an immediate star of its author who, refuting suggestions that the work was autobiographical, stated 'No, my dear contemporaries ... it is about you'. This grotesque mirror of a spiritually bankrupt society is arguably the finest Russian novel to have come out of the Symbolist movement.]]> 336 Fyodor Sologub 0141392932 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.89 1905 The Little Demon
author: Fyodor Sologub
name: Dary
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1905
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> Troilus and Cressida 187518 343 William Shakespeare 0671669168 Dary 2 2024, classics, plays 3.40 1601 Troilus and Cressida
author: William Shakespeare
name: Dary
average rating: 3.40
book published: 1601
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/27
date added: 2024/08/27
shelves: 2024, classics, plays
review:

]]> Poems 51881 224 Maya Angelou 0553255762 Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 4.34 Poems
author: Maya Angelou
name: Dary
average rating: 4.34
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> The Prophet 2547 The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone have sold more than nine million copies.

The Prophet is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational. Gibran’s musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.]]> 127 Kahlil Gibran 000100039X Dary 4 2024, classics 4.27 1923 The Prophet
author: Kahlil Gibran
name: Dary
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1923
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/09
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves: 2024, classics
review:
The perfect thing to read on a summer night, in a sort of silence that becomes sweeter every time someone passes by your window and leaves some laughter behind. As I was reading this, I often looked at a couple of lines as a stranger, as they spoke of a truth that belongs to other people, one that only vaguely applies to some of the ways in which I feel the world around me. But the poet masterfully made sure to write about the human condition in a way that is beyond universal, one that reminds me why I came to find such pleasure in reading other people's words in the first place. I left his pages with such a newfound peace that I am sure life will send me back to them.
]]> Phaedrus (Penguin Classics) 1328 Phaedrus is a dialogue between the philosopher Socrates and his young friend Phaedrus, inspired by their reading of a clumsy speech by the writer Lysias about love. After first considering the virtues of romantic love, their conversation develops into a wide-ranging discussion on such subjects as the pursuit of beauty, the nature of humanity, the immortality of the soul and the attainment of truth, and ends with an in-depth consideration of the principles of rhetoric. Probably a work of Plato’s maturity, the Phaedrus represents a high point in his achievement as a writer. It remains a fascinating exploration of love, mortality, destiny and what it means to be human.]]> 90 Plato 0140449744 Dary 4 2024, classics dare I say life changing 3.81 -370 Phaedrus (Penguin Classics)
author: Plato
name: Dary
average rating: 3.81
book published: -370
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/08
date added: 2024/08/08
shelves: 2024, classics
review:
dare I say life changing
]]> The Phoenician Women 464763 112 Euripides 0195077083 Dary 4 2024, classics, plays King Oedipus and Oedipus at Colonus, explaining in more detail the events that led to Antigone's struggle. Thebes is saved, but fratricide is added to the list of "crimes committed by the house of Laios against the gods", Jocasta cannot catch a break and Creon remains a coward (although I like what Euripides decided to do with him, we already know he's a prick in Antigone , so here despite being super ok with fucking everyone over, he is above sacrificing his own child, so at least he is better than Agamemnon in that sense). Sons fight for power, a mother fights for peace and Oedipus still laments tragically fighting the Fates. I quite enjoyed Jocasta's description of him:

But in the palace the blind old man constantly strives to master his tearful longing for the pair of like feather who were severed from the yoke of family love. He hastens to take his own life with bloody sword or noose slung over rafters, groaning in distress at the curses he levelled at his sons. With persistent cries of anguish he hides away in darkness. ]]> 3.67 -410 The Phoenician Women
author: Euripides
name: Dary
average rating: 3.67
book published: -410
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/08
date added: 2024/08/08
shelves: 2024, classics, plays
review:
Aims to fill in the gap between Sophocles' King Oedipus and Oedipus at Colonus, explaining in more detail the events that led to Antigone's struggle. Thebes is saved, but fratricide is added to the list of "crimes committed by the house of Laios against the gods", Jocasta cannot catch a break and Creon remains a coward (although I like what Euripides decided to do with him, we already know he's a prick in Antigone , so here despite being super ok with fucking everyone over, he is above sacrificing his own child, so at least he is better than Agamemnon in that sense). Sons fight for power, a mother fights for peace and Oedipus still laments tragically fighting the Fates. I quite enjoyed Jocasta's description of him:

But in the palace the blind old man constantly strives to master his tearful longing for the pair of like feather who were severed from the yoke of family love. He hastens to take his own life with bloody sword or noose slung over rafters, groaning in distress at the curses he levelled at his sons. With persistent cries of anguish he hides away in darkness.
]]> <![CDATA[Twenty Years After (The d'Artagnan Romances, #2)]]> 4953893 Twenty Years After (1845), the sequel to The Three Musketeers, is a supreme creation of suspense and heroic adventure.

Two decades have passed since the musketeers triumphed over Cardinal Richelieu and Milady. Time has weakened their resolve, and dispersed their loyalties. But treasons and strategems still cry out for justice: civil war endangers the throne of France, while in England Cromwell threatens to send Charles I to the scaffold. Dumas brings his immortal quartet out of retirement to cross swords with time, the malevolence of men, and the forces of history. But their greatest test is a titanic struggle with the son of Milady, who wears the face of Evil.

The only edition in print, David Coward sets both the author and his exciting tale in their historical and cultural contexts.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
]]> 880 Alexandre Dumas 0199537267 Dary 4 2023, classics 4.18 1845 Twenty Years After (The d'Artagnan Romances, #2)
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Dary
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1845
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/29
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: 2023, classics
review:

]]> Lysistrata and Other Plays 1567 Achanians is a plea for peace set against the background of the long war with Sparta. In Lysistrata a band of women tap into the awesome power of sex in order to end a war. The darker comedy of The Clouds satirizes Athenian philosophers, Socrates in particular, and reflects the uncertainties of a generation in which all traditional religious and ethical beliefs were being challenged.

For this edition Alan Sommerstein has completely revised his translation of these three plays, bringing out the full nuances of Aristophanes� ribald humour and intricate word play, with a new introduction explaining the historical and cultural background to the plays.]]> 241 Aristophanes Dary 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.94 -423 Lysistrata and Other Plays
author: Aristophanes
name: Dary
average rating: 3.94
book published: -423
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Selected Poems of Baudelaire]]> 385614 Charles Pierre Baudelaire pushed the accepted limits of his time. His dissolute bohemian life was as shocking to his nineteenth-century readers as his poetry. Writing in classical style but with brutal honesty, Baudelaire laid bare human suffering, aspirations, and perversions.]]> 256 Charles Baudelaire Dary 5 4.02 1860 The Selected Poems of Baudelaire
author: Charles Baudelaire
name: Dary
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1860
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/25
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: 2023, 2023-favs, classics, poetry
review:
Spleen and Ideal!!!!!!!!!! SUBLIME
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