Showing results by publisher "Simply Media" in Literature & Fiction

This letter is the closest that Kafka came to setting down his autobiography. He was driven to write it by his father's opposition to his engagement with Julie Wohryzek. The marriage did not take place; the letter was not delivered. 

> Walking is not as well known as Thoreau's other works Walden, The Maine Woods, and Civil Disobedience. But it is a good place to start exploring his writing because it was his last book, in 1862, published by the Atlantic Monthly shortly after his death. It is less well known because it is general, as opposed to singular, in focus. It is his summing up of his thoughts on life: One should saunter through life and take notice; one need not go far.

"The Nose" is the second best known story of Gogol, after "The Overcoat". A military major discovers his nose is missing and works to recover it. He finds the nose but it pretends to have a life of its own, as a fellow human. It in fact has a higher rank than the Major himself. The Major is perplexed, goes back to his apartment, and has the nose returned to him. With great joy he recovers his nose, only to find it won't reattach to his face. After much going on, he finds the nose reattached to his face.

The 251 poems are read in entirely, with a light commentary at the end. Wilfred Campbell focuses on the English Canadian tradition since French Canadians had their own history & influences, though Montreal & Quebec loom large in many poems. Women poets are not specifically recognized though authoring 40% of the poems.

Kiev suffers from abandonment by the Germans and takeover by the Soviet Bolsheviks. Streamlined for narration and the American ear. 

Plato's Allegory of the Cave is what many believe to be the foundation of Western Philosophy. It addresses what is visible and invisible, seen and observed versus intuited and imagined, and what is public versus private and just versus unjust. It also concerns the meaning and importance of education, the state of the soul, the conflict between truth and beauty, animal urges versus higher aspirations, knowledge versus ignorance, and on and on.

An historical romance set in London and the English countryside with remarkable nuance and descriptions about dress, parties, houses, men and women and their dealings with each other, with special insights into marriage. A wonderful ode to our better selves and what we can be if we move beyond the bumps and bruises in life.

This classic collection includes seven life-changing stories with ironic twists of fate, which can inform the young about their choices in life and recall the choices older people have made between success and happiness, duty and pleasure, and much more. Includes a short, final summing-up chapter, envoi. 

A Book of Five Rings is one of the three great historical strategy books, accompanying The Art of War and The Prince. They are best appreciated when listened to together. As the Japanese consulted Demming from MIT after World War II about quality American style, the Americans began to study Musashi's A Book of Five Rings in the 1970s when the Japanese. Keep your eye on the ball; focus on your goal single-mindedly and more.

A deep American South novel about a black & white intertwined in a relationship living in one house with various goings-on Southern style.

Moving philosophy and New Age insights given long ago. The Chicago Post reviewer said, “The words bring to one’s ears the magnificent myths of Ecclesiasticus. The work of a great man.”

The best literary analysis of novels ever written.

The classic transformation story by Kafka. A man is transformed into a bug and how everyone deals with the situation from his mother and father, to his employer and paying boarders, and himself. 

This is the remarkable story of a day in the life of one woman, Clarissa Dalloway, the people in her circle, and those touching upon her friends and acquaintances.

A rollicking good romance set in 1685 in Cromwell's tumultuous days with pirates, brigands, roundheads, parliament, fantasy, romance, castles, moats, the occult, sorcery, and more in play that should bring more men in as listeners, as women have been for decades. The author was the leading British play lyricist for 50 years, with 80 plays, which underscores the quality of his writing in this, his only book.

The novel focuses on love, society norms, and freedom, centered on Anna’s affair with Count Vronsky.

A novel about Soviet repression in the Russian tradition of Nikolai Gogol in Dead Souls and The Inspector General. Great fun as it explores the repression of that era. 

The brilliance of this story is in how a normal bureaucrat, a judge in this case, has a small accident that winds up gradually taking his life. As he deals with this incident, with hope at first and then despair, he comes to terms with his family, his life, and the mediocrities that we all suffer with, except for the exceptional few. This story rings a particularly poignant note for those in early middle age facing the next part of their lives. This story is considered Tolstoy's best.

The Pulitzer Prize novel describes the tradeoffs between medical research & money making & much more.

Seen through the eyes of a French Catholic missionary, Death Comes for the Archbishop is a tale about the development of the 19th-century American Southwest as the Indians and Spanish deal with each other and the arriving Americans.