On Being Ill with Notes from Sick Rooms

Virginia Woolf

"By turns lyrical, self-mocking, and outlandish, Woolf's meditation on the perils and privileges of the sickbed lampoons the loneliness that makes one 'glad of a kick from a housemaid.' When Woolf imagines beauty in a frozen-over garden . . . it seems less a triumph of nature than of art."—The New Yorker "Brilliant and beautiful."—Francine Prose, Bookforum "[A] long-neglected reverie on illness . . . reprinted by the sterling Paris Press. This is a brilliant and odd book, charged with restrained emotion and sudden humor."—Los Angeles Times Book Review "The resurrection of this forgotten work on illness is a boon indeed. . . . This is Woolf at her spangled best."—Booklist In this poignant and humorous book, Virginia Woolf observes that no human being is spared toothaches, colds, and the flu. Yet illness—transformative and as common as love and war—is rarely the subject of polite conversation, let alone literature. This paperback facsimile of the 1930 Hogarth Press edition, with Hermione Lee's introduction to Woolf's life, work, and On Being Ill, is ideal for book groups, general readers, students, caregivers, and of course anyone suffering from a cold or more serious illness. Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) is among the greatest literary geniuses of the twentieth century. Her groundbreaking books include Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and A Room of One's Own. Hermione Lee is the renowned author of Virginia Woolf. Her other best-selling biographies include Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, and Philip Roth. She is president of Wolfson College, University of Oxford, England.

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The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides

Aeschylus

Alternate covers of this ISBN here, here, here, here. Most recent cover is here. In the Oresteia—the only trilogy in Greek drama which survives from antiquity—Aeschylus took as his subject the bloody chain of murder and revenge within the royal family of Argos. Moving from darkness to light, from rage to self-governance, from primitive ritual to civilized institution, their spirit of struggle and regeneration becomes an everlasting song of celebration.

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The Fellowship of the Ring: The Lord of the Rings: Part One

J.R.R. Tolkien

ACE 0547928211 (ISBN13: 9780547928210) One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkeness bind them In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, The Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.

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1984

George Orwell

A masterpiece of rebellion and imprisonment where war is peace freedom is slavery and Big Brother is watching Thought Police Big Brother Orwellian These words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell s classic dystopian novel 1984 The story of one man s nightmare odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory 1984 is a prophetic haunting tale More relevant than ever before 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable the destruction of truth freedom and individuality With a foreword by Thomas Pynchon With a foreword by Thomas Pynchon A masterpiece of rebellion and imprisonment where war is peace freedom is slavery and Big Brother is watching View our feature on George Orwell s 1984 Thought Police Big Brother Orwellian These words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell s classic dystopian novel 1984 The story of one man s nightmare odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory 1984 is a prophetic haunting tale More relevant than ever before 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable the destruction of truth freedom and individuality This beautiful paperback edition features deckled edges and french flaps a perfect gift for any occasion Alternate cover edition can be found here.

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1984

George Orwell

A masterpiece of rebellion and imprisonment where war is peace freedom is slavery and Big Brother is watching Thought Police Big Brother Orwellian These words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell s classic dystopian novel 1984 The story of one man s nightmare odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory 1984 is a prophetic haunting tale More relevant than ever before 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable the destruction of truth freedom and individuality With a foreword by Thomas Pynchon With a foreword by Thomas Pynchon A masterpiece of rebellion and imprisonment where war is peace freedom is slavery and Big Brother is watching View our feature on George Orwell s 1984 Thought Police Big Brother Orwellian These words have entered our vocabulary because of George Orwell s classic dystopian novel 1984 The story of one man s nightmare odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory 1984 is a prophetic haunting tale More relevant than ever before 1984 exposes the worst crimes imaginable the destruction of truth freedom and individuality This beautiful paperback edition features deckled edges and french flaps a perfect gift for any occasion Alternate cover edition can be found here.

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Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

Sixty years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

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The Iliad

Homer

After nine years fighting the Trojan War, the Greeks sense imminent defeat. The gods have cursed them with a plague; the Trojans have set their ships on fire; and their best warrior, the impenetrable Achilles, has turned his back on them. But when the Trojans go too far and kill Patroclus, his beloved brother-in-arms, Achilles returns to the battlefield with a vengeance so terrible that it shocks even the gods. Written by Homer more than twenty-five hundred years ago, The Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature—the seminal epic narrative of infantry combat, the scars of battle, and the inevitability of fate. Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War.

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Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

Sixty years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

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I Cheerfully Refuse

Leif Enger

Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of Rainy, an aspiring musician setting sail on Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. An endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, he seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. After encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, he eventually lands to find an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, a crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society. As his guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his wake.

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