Eiland von Huxley, Aldous

Antic Hay is one of Aldous Huxley's earlier novels, and like them is primarily a novel of ideas involving conversations that disclose viewpoints rather than establish characters; its polemical theme unfolds against the backdrop of London's post-war nihilistic Bohemia. This is Huxley at his biting, brilliant best, a novel, loud with derisive laughter, which satirically scoffs at all conventional morality and at stuffy people everywhere, a novel that's always charged with excitement.

Mortal Coils is a collection of five short fictional pieces written by Aldous Huxley in 1921. 'The Gioconda Smile' is a mixture of social satire and murder story, which Huxley later adapted into a film called A Woman's Vengeance (1948). 'Permutations Among the Nightingales' is a play concerning the amorous problems encountered by various patrons of a hotel. 'The Tillotson Banquet' tells of an old artist who was thought to be dead, and is 'rediscovered'; a not entirely successful honorary dinner is organised for him. 'Green Tunnels' is about the boredom of a young girl on holiday with her family. She develops a romantic fantasy, and is ultimately disillusioned. 'Nuns at Luncheon' is a second-hand story told of a nun falling in love. The story mocks the writer's process, a concept Huxley used in his novel Crome Yellow.

Excerpt: 'From Bocca di Magra to Bocca d'Arno, mile after mile, the sandy beaches smoothly, unbrokenly extend. Inland from the beach, behind a sheltering belt of pines, lies a strip of coastal plain-flat as a slice of Holland and dyked with slow streams. Corn grows here and the vine, with plantations of slim poplars interspersed, and fat water-meadows. Here and there the streams brim over into shallow lakes, whose shores are fringed with sodden fields of rice. And behind this strip of plain, four or five miles from the sea, the mountains rise, suddenly and steeply: the Apuan Alps. Their highest crests are of bare limestone, streaked here and there with the white marble which brings prosperity to the little towns that stand at their feet: Massa and Carrara, Serravezza, Pietrasanta. Half the world's tombstones are scooped out of these noble crags. Their lower slopes are grey with olive trees, green 10with woods of chestnut. Over their summits repose the enormous sculptured masses of the clouds.'

These are a really interesting set of poems. Definitely an author one should own all of his works. Such an interesting person. For those of us who have been enamoured by Aldous' later writing, it's quite interesting to come back to the very beginning and do Aldous chronologically. (Goodreads)

C. G. Jungs geheimnisvolles »Rotes Buch« wurde erstmals im Oktober 2009, fünfzig Jahre nach dem Tod Jungs, veröffentlicht. Bis dahin war es in einem Schweizer Banksafe unter Verschluss gehalten worden. Das Rote Buch dokumentiert Jungs Auseinandersetzung mit dem Unbewussten und enthält als eine Art Tagebuch seine Träume, Visionen und Fantasien - Material, das Jung später als "Urstoff für ein Lebenswerk" bezeichnet hat. Dieser Band bietet erstmals nur den Text, ohne die Bilder - für alle, die sich mit Jungs Erkundungen des Unbewussten intensiv beschäftigen wollen. "Ich habe an diesem Buch 16 Jahre lang gearbeitet. Dem oberflächlichen Betrachter wird es wie eine Verrücktheit vorkommen. Es wäre auch zu einer solchen geworden, wenn ich die überwältigende Kraft der ursprünglichen Erlebnisse nicht hätte auffangen können. Ich wusste immer, dass jene Erlebnisse Kostbares enthielten, und darum wusste ich nichts Besseres, als sie in ein 'kostbares', d.h. teures Buch aufzuschreiben?" C. G. JUNG, ERINNERUNGEN, TRÄUME, GEDANKEN

Renowned urban artist Shepard Fairey's new look for Orwell's timeless satire

'All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.'

Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one day he forgets to feed his livestock. The ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organised to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the ideals of the rebellion are corrupted, then forgotten. And something new and unexpected emerges. . .

Animal Farm - the history of a revolution that went wrong - is George Orwell's brilliant satire on the corrupting influence of power.

The ancient Chinese military classic that is widely admired today by both military and business strategists--in a new translation, with new notes and commentary.

For more than two thousand years, The Art of War has provided leaders with essential tactical and management advice. An elemental part of Chinese culture, it has also become a touchstone in the West for achieving success, whether on the battlefield or in business. This Everyman's Library edition features a brilliant new translation by Peter Harris. Alongside the pithy and powerful ancient text, Harris includes:
     --Extracts from the canon of traditional Chinese commentators who have explained Sun Tzu's wisdom over the centuries
     --Notes
     --A bibliography
     --A chronology of Chinese dynasties
     --A map
     --An illuminating introduction on the warrior-philosopher Sun Tzu and the role of The Art of War in history and today“Like Thucydides, [Sun Tzu] has a reputation today at least as great as it was well over two millennia ago . . . Given the peculiarly personal acumen and insight that inform Sun Tzu’s brief, sometimes enigmatic, but always practical Art of War . . . we are surely reading the words of an acutely intelligent military man with a subtle, original mind and a wealth of experience all his own.”
—from the Introduction by Peter Harris