"Not many living artists would be sufficiently brave or inspired to attempt reflecting in art what Borges constructs in words. But the detailed, evocative etchings by Erik Desmazieres provide a perfect counterpoint to the visionary prose. Like Borges, Desmazieres has created his own universe, his own definition of the meaning, topography and geography of the Library of Babel. Printed together, with the etchings reproduced in fine-line duotone, text and art unite to present an artist's book that belongs in the circle of Borges's sacrosanct Crimson Hexagon - "books smaller than natural books, books omnipotent, illustrated, and magical.""--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

“Borges’s composed, carefully wrought, gnarled style is at once the means of his art and its object—his way of ordering and giving meaning to the bizarre and terrifying world he creates: it is a brilliant, burnished instrument, and it is quite adequate to the extreme demands his baroque imagination makes of it . . . . Absolutely and most vividly original.”—Saturday ReviewThe seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the gargantuan powers of imagination, intelligence, and style of one of the greatest writers of this or any other century. Borges sends us on a journey into a compelling, bizarre, and profoundly resonant realm; we enter the fearful sphere of Pascal’s abyss, the surreal and literal labyrinth of books, and the iconography of eternal return. More playful and approachable than the fictions themselves are Borges’s Prologues, brief elucidations that offer the uninitiated a passageway into the whirlwind of Borges’s genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his obsession with fantasy. To enter the worlds in Ficciones is to enter the mind of Jorge Luis Borges, wherein lies Heaven, Hell, and everything in between.

From the legendary vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, lessons in investment strategy, philanthropy, and living a rational and ethical life.“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up,” Charles T. Munger advises in Poor Charlie’s Almanack. Originally published in 2005, this compendium of eleven talks delivered by the legendary Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman between 1986 and 2007 has become a touchstone for a generation of investors and entrepreneurs seeking to absorb the enduring wit and wisdom of one of the great minds of the 20th and 21st centuries. Edited by Peter D. Kaufman, chairman and CEO of Glenair and longtime friend of Charlie Munger—whom he calls “this generation’s answer to Benjamin Franklin”—this abridged Stripe Press edition of Poor Charlie’s Almanack features a brand-new foreword by Stripe cofounder John Collison. Poor Charlie’s Almanack draws on Munger’s encyclopedic knowledge of business, finance, history, philosophy, physics, and ethics—and more besides—to introduce the latticework of mental models that underpin his rational and rigorous approach to life, learning, and decision-making. Delivered with Munger’s characteristic sharp wit and rhetorical flair, it is an essential volume for any reader seeking to go to bed a little wiser than when they woke up.

Read the award-winning, critically acclaimed, multi-million-copy-selling science-fiction phenomenon – soon to be a Netflix Original Series from the creators of Game of Thrones. 1967: Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death during China's Cultural Revolution. This singular event will shape not only the rest of her life but also the future of mankind.Four decades later, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a spate of inexplicable suicides. Wang's investigation will lead him to a mysterious online game and immerse him in a virtual world ruled by the intractable and unpredictable interaction of its three suns.This is the Three-Body Problem and it is the key to everything: the key to the scientists' deaths, the key to a conspiracy that spans light-years and the key to the extinction-level threat humanity now faces.Praise for The Three-Body Problem: 'Your next favourite sci-fi novel' Wired 'Immense' Barack Obama 'Unique' George R.R. Martin 'SF in the grand style' Guardian 'Mind-altering and immersive' Daily Mail Winner of the Hugo and Galaxy Awards for Best Novel

An Italian septuagenarian recounts his life before and after World War I in this novel from the author of Paris in the Present Tense.For Alessandro Giullani, the young son of a prosperous Roman lawyer, golden trees shimmer in the sun beneath a sky of perfect blue. At night, the moon is amber and the city of Rome seethes with light. He races horses across the country to the sea, and in the Alps, he practices the precise and sublime art of mountain climbing. At the ancient university in Bologna he is a student of painting and the science of beauty. And he falls in love. His is a world of adventure and dreams, of music, storm, and the spirit. Then the Great War intervenes.Half a century later, in August of 1964, Alessandro, a white-haired professor, still tall and proud, finds himself unexpectedly on the road with an illiterate young factory worker. As they walk toward Monte Prato, a village seventy kilometers distant, the old man tells the story of his life. How he became a soldier. A hero. A prisoner. A deserter. A wanderer in the hell that claimed Europe. And how he tragically lost one family and gained another.The boy is dazzled by the action and envious of the richness and color of the story, and realizes that the old man's magnificent tale of love and war is more than a tale: it is the recapitulation of his life, his reckoning with mortality, and above all, a love song for his family. “[A] testimony to the indomitable human spirit. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal

Douglas Hofstadter's book is concerned directly with the nature of ?maps” or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel Escher and Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.

When Richard Feynman, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics, died in February 1988 after a courageous battle with cancer, the "New York Times" called him "the most brilliant, iconoclastic, and influential of the postwar generation of theoretical physicists." Here, in these "further adventures, " a companion volume to "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, " is another healthy dose of Feynman's irreverent zest for life and an even deeper, wiser level of reminiscence. He tells us of his father, who taught him to think, and of his first wife, Arlene, who taught him to love, even as she lay dying. And Feynman takes us behind the scenes of the presidential commission investigating the space shuttle "Challenger's" explosion and to the dramatic moment when the cause of the disaster was revealed simply and elegantly as Feynman dropped a rubber ring into a glass of ice water and pulled it out, misshapen.

A bold and all-embracing exploration of the nature and progress of knowledge from one of today's great thinkers. Throughout history, mankind has struggled to understand life's mysteries, from the mundane to the seemingly miraculous. In this important new book, David Deutsch, an award-winning pioneer in the field of quantum computation, argues that explanations have a fundamental place in the universe. They have unlimited scope and power to cause change, and the quest to improve them is the basic regulating principle not only of science but of all successful human endeavor. This stream of ever improving explanations has infinite reach, according to Deutsch: we are subject only to the laws of physics, and they impose no upper boundary to what we can eventually understand, control, and achieve. In his previous book, The Fabric of Reality, Deutsch describe the four deepest strands of existing knowledge-the theories of evolution, quantum physics, knowledge, and computation-arguing jointly they reveal a unified fabric of reality. In this new book, he applies that worldview to a wide range of issues and unsolved problems, from creativity and free will to the origin and future of the human species. Filled with startling new conclusions about human choice, optimism, scientific explanation, and the evolution of culture, The Beginning of Infinity is a groundbreaking book that will become a classic of its kind.

Planetary has been hailed as a timeless story that turned modern superhero conventions on their heads.Written by Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan) and with stunning art by John Cassaday (Astonishing X-Men), this critically acclaimed, landmark series took a look at the inter-dimensional peace-keeping force known as Planetary. The trio on the ground includes Elijah Snow, a hundred-year-old man, Jakita Wagner, an extremely powerful woman, and The Drummer, a man with the ability to communicate with machines. Tasked with tracking down evidence of super-human activity, these mystery archaeologists uncover unknown paranormal secrets and histories, such as a World War II supercomputer that can access other universes, a ghostly spirit of vengeance, and a lost island of dying monsters.All 27 issues of the original series are collected in this hardbound omnibus edition.

The Incredibles meets The West Wing meets Marvel: Agents of Shield - the list goes on! Doctor Impossible - evil genius, mad scientist, diabolical time-traveller, wannabe world dominator - has just broken out of prison. Again. After twelve foiled ploys (doomsday devices, mass mind-control, robot armies, insect armies, alien invasions, etc.), he's not about to be foiled again. Fatale, a patchwork woman of skin and alloy built by the NSA to be the next generation of warfare, is suddenly given the chance every superhero dreams of: to join the Champions, the once-famous group of beautiful young superheroes who have been newly reunited to stop Dr Impossible. We watch as Fatale becomes part of a team - its greatest hero missing, its members struggling with their damaged pasts as they come together in the face of unthinkable evil. Soon I Will Be Invincible is a wildly entertaining adventure about good and evil, bursting with attitude and humour, that features a cast of superheroes and supervillains with remarkably human emotions, and who inhabit a world strangely similar to our own. About the author: Austin Grossman graduated from Harvard University in 1991 and became a video game designer at Looking Glass Studios. He is currently a freelance game design consultant and is studying for a PhD in English literature. He lives in Brooklyn.

NEW YORK TIMES best-selling series!Stories Are the Only Thing Worth Dying ForTom Taylor has spent his entire life as a hostage to his father’s literary legacy. Wilson Taylor’s wildly successful 13-volume series chronicling the adventures of a bespectacled boy wizard named Tommy Taylor made him the most popular author on Earth-and destroyed his son’s future. On the day that the 13th title was published, Wilson vanished, leaving young Tom alone beneath the shadow of his famous namesake. Years later, Tom is still struggling to build an identity independent of his magical doppelgänger when disturbing new questions about his childhood suddenly arise. These revelations cast doubt upon his heritage, his memories-his very existence. Is it possible that nothing of his own past is actually true? That he is merely his father’s imaginary character somehow brought to life? Desperate to disprove this horrifying idea, Tom embarks on an epic journey that takes him and a strangely improbable group of companions around the world and deep into the realms of fiction-all while being hunted relentlessly by an ancient and sinister power determined to bring his story to a premature end.Mike Carey and Peter Gross’ masterpiece of metatextual storytelling is presented here for the first time in six definitive hardcover volumes. THE UNWRITTEN: THE DELUXE EDITION BOOK ONE collects issues #1-12 of the acclaimed Vertigo series and features a special behind-the-scenes section from Gross, Carey and cover artist Yuko Shimizu, as well as a new introduction by series editor Pornsak Pichetshote.

In a future where consumerism, superficiality and corruption reign supreme, outlaw journalist Spider Jerusalem has decided to stop sitting by idly and watching the world crumble around him. Back in the saddle, no one in The City is safe.After years of self-imposed exile from a civilization rife with degradation and indecency, cynical journalist Spider Jerusalem is forced to return to a job that he hates and a city that he loathes. Working as an investigative reporter for the newspaper The Word, Spider attacks the injustices of his surreal 21st century surroundings. Combining black humor, life-threatening situations and moral ambiguity, Warren Ellis' legendary series is the first look into the mind of an outlaw journalist and the world he seeks to destroy. This new trade paperback recut series features behind-the-scenes material, variant covers and scripts from the graphic novel series run. Collects issues #1-12.

The final battle between the free Fables of the mundane world and the Empire occupying their former Homelands is here! The creatures of myth and fairytale lore have assembled together to finally face the Adversary and his hordes. But victory will not come without a price--who will live and who will die for the fate of the Homelands? Bill Willingham's Eisner Award-winning, New York Times best-selling series comes to the deluxe hardcover format here in FABLES: THE DELUXE EDITION BOOK NINE in one of the most epic storylines in the series' long history. This deluxe edition collects FABLES issues #70-82.

Born in poverty in India, Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) became a leading spiritual and philosophical thinker whose ideas continue to influence us today. George Bernard Shaw declared that he was the most beautiful human being he had ever seen and Aldous Huxley was one of his close friends. Whether debating politics with Nehru, discussing theories with Rupert Sheldrake and Iris Murdoch, or challenging his students not to take his words at face value, Krishnamurti engaged fully with every aspect of life. He is regarded by many modern religious figures as a great teacher, an extraordinary individual with revolutionary insights; Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra are all indebted to his writings.Freedom from the Known is one of Krishnamurti's most accessible works. Here, he reveals how we can free ourselves radically and immediately from the tyranny of the expected. By changing ourselves, we can alter the structure of society and our relationships. The vital need for change and the recognition of its very possibility form an essential part of this important book's message.

In the cloud-washed airspace between the cornfields of Illinois and blue infinity, a man puts his faith in the propeller of his biplane. For disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer Richard Bach, belief is as real as a full tank of gas and sparks firing in the cylinders ... until he meets Donald Shimoda - former mechanic and self-described messiah who can make wrenches fly and Richard's imagination soar...In Illusions, the unforgettable follow-up to his phenomenal New York Times bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach takes to the air to discover the ageless truths that give our souls wings: that people don't need airplanes to soar ... that even the darkest clouds have meaning once we lift ourselves above them ... and that messiahs can be found in the unlikeliest places - like hay fields, one-traffic-light midwestern towns, and most of all, deep within ourselves.

'It is philosophy that has the duty of protecting us ... without it no one can lead a life free of fear or worry'For several years of his turbulent life, in which he was dogged by ill health, exile and danger, Seneca was the guiding hand of the Roman Empire. This selection of Seneca's letters shows him upholding the ideals of Stoicism - the wisdom of the self-possessed person immune to life's setbacks - while valuing friendship and courage, and criticizing the harsh treatment of slaves and the cruelties in the gladiatorial arena. The humanity and wit revealed in Seneca's interpretation of Stoicism is a moving and inspiring declaration of the dignity of the individual mind.Selected and translated with an Introduction by Robin Campbell

Economics in One Lesson