A Bachelor Party for Odysseus
A Bachelor Party for Odysseus

Author: Albert M. Balesh

Publisher: Sunstone Press

Published: 2015-09-01

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 1632930749

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In this first in the Alex Bales Fiction Series, high-powered, Chicago CEO Alex Bales has it all, including a loyal friend named Randy Danhurst. Yet something is missing in his life. Alex’s flings with strange women and drunken debauchery bring him no satisfaction, and he has already begun to see the telltale signs of his body’s decline. He’s gone on like this for years, devoid of true happiness that transcends the material. Then a straw breaks the camel’s back, when Alex finds his friend Randy’s body dripping blood on a cold bathroom floor. That shock triggers introspection and a quest to relive his life, further encouraged by a mysterious ad Alex sees buried in the “Chicago Tribune.” It appears that a new experimental drug called FOY1 is about to be employed in a suburban research project. Alex makes the trek to the address listed in the ad, and that becomes the beginning of his plunge into deep, dark waters. He knows not whether the new characters he meets are real or imaginary. The strange character of Dr. Edward Stawson, the principal investigator in the experiment, promises to give Alex a new mental and physical identity at very little risk. Is Stawson, however, an uncompromising researcher or something far more sinister? Alex relives his life post-experiment, and goes down the “rabbit hole,” with the growing grim realization that something is amiss. Was his participation in Stawson’s experiment nearsighted, at best? Includes Readers Guide.

Homer's Epics
Homer's Epics

Author: Homer

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2020-11-03

Total Pages: 632

ISBN-13: 1504064941

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These two timeless epics by the ancient Greek poet—each translated by a world-renowned author—have captured the Western imagination for millennia. The Iliad: Alexander Pope “works miracles” in this beautiful verse translation of Homer’s epic poem set near the end of the Trojan War. It centers on a quarrel between the invading Greek king Agamemnon and his greatest asset in battle, the warrior Achilles. From this conflict, Homer weaves a tale of warring nations, vengeful gods, and the terrible consequences of prideful rage (The New York Times). The Odyssey: The Trojan War is over and Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, embarks to return home. But he is cursed by the god Poseidon to wander the perilous earth for ten years before reaching his destination. Homer’s epic adventure of survival by wit and battling mythical creatures is presented here in a stirring prose translation by Samuel Butler.

Ulysses Annotated
Ulysses Annotated

Author: Don Gifford

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 704

ISBN-13: 9780520067455

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"Teaches more than how to read a particular novel; it teaches us more profoundly how to read anything. This, I think, is the book's main virtue. It teaches us readers to transform the brute fact of our world."--Hugh Kenner

The Forgetful Gentleman
The Forgetful Gentleman

Author: Nathan Tan

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Published: 2013-05-07

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1452124183

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A twenty-first century gentleman’s guide to self-improvement, featuring thirty tips on style, hygiene, exercise, etiquette, culture, and more. The modern man has good intentions—all he lacks are the tools to turn them into gentlemanly action. This illustrated reference guide instructs and informs readers on the subtle art of being a contemporary gentleman by incorporating both traditional and modern practices, bringing the classic idea of gentlemanliness forward into the twenty-first century. As stylish and as dapper as its readers will become, this book offers action-oriented guidance on a range of subjects, including advice on managing social networks, choosing the right suit silhouette, fostering the art of conversation, hosting a successful party, mixing a signature cocktail, working out like a Navy SEAL, developing creativity, and much more. With wit and humor, The Forgetful Gentleman offers the necessary encouragement to help any modern man become the best gentleman he can be.

Seeing Like a State
Seeing Like a State

Author: James C. Scott

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2020-03-17

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 0300252986

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“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University

The Odyssey
The Odyssey

Author: Homer

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2010-05-25

Total Pages: 471

ISBN-13: 1407066277

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Penelope has been waiting for her husband Odysseus to return from Troy for many years. Little does she know that his path back to her has been blocked by astonishing and terrifying trials. Will he overcome the hideous monsters, beautiful witches and treacherous seas that confront him? This rich and beautiful adventure story is one of the most influential works of literature in the world.

Classical Myth in Alfred Hitchcock's Wrong Man and Grace Kelly Films
Classical Myth in Alfred Hitchcock's Wrong Man and Grace Kelly Films

Author: Mark William Padilla

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-12-12

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 1498563511

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Mark Padilla’s classical reception readings of Alfred Hitchcock features some of the director’s most loved and important films, and demonstrates how they are informed by the educational and cultural classicism of the director’s formative years. The six close readings begin with discussions of the production histories, so as to theorize and clarify how classicism could and did enter the projects. Exploration of the films through a classical lens creates the opportunity to explore new themes and ideological investments. The result is a further appreciation of both the engine of the director’s storytelling creativity and the expressionism of classicism, especially Greek myth and art, in British and American modernism. The analysis organizes the material into two triptychs, one focused on the three films sharing a wrong man pattern (wrongly accused man goes on the run to clear himself), the other treating the films starring the actress Grace Kelly. Chapter One, on The 39 Steps (1935), finds the origins of the wrong man plot in early 20th-century British classicism, and demonstrates that the movie utilizes motifs of Homer’s Odyssey. Chapter Two, on Saboteur (1942), theorizes the impact of the director’s memories of the formalism and myths associated with the Parthenon sculptures housed in the British Museum. Chapter Three, on North by Northwest, participates in the myths of the hero Oedipus, as associated with early Greek epic, Freud, Nietzsche, and Sophocles. Chapter Four, on Dial M for Murder (1954), returns to Homer’s Odyssey in the interpretive use of “the lay of Demodocus,” a story about the sexual triangle of Hephaestus, Aphrodite, and Ares. Chapter Five, on Rear Window (1954), finds its narrative archetype in The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite; the erotic theme of Sirius, the Dog Star, also marks the film. Chapter Six, on To Catch a Thief (1955), offers the opportunity to break from mythic analogues, and to consider the film’s philosophical resonances (Plato and Epicurus) in the context of motifs coalesced around the god Dionysus/Bacchus.

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Author: Michael Lewis

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2004-03-17

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0393066231

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Michael Lewis’s instant classic may be “the most influential book on sports ever written” (People), but “you need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the wit, snap, economy and incisiveness of [Lewis’s] thoughts about it” (Janet Maslin, New York Times). One of GQ's 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century Just before the 2002 season opens, the Oakland Athletics must relinquish its three most prominent (and expensive) players and is written off by just about everyone—but then comes roaring back to challenge the American League record for consecutive wins. How did one of the poorest teams in baseball win so many games? In a quest to discover the answer, Michael Lewis delivers not only “the single most influential baseball book ever” (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what “may be the best book ever written on business” (Weekly Standard). Lewis first looks to all the logical places—the front offices of major league teams, the coaches, the minds of brilliant players—but discovers the real jackpot is a cache of numbers?numbers!?collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors. What these numbers prove is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Even the box score misleads us by ignoring the crucial importance of the humble base-on-balls. This information had been around for years, and nobody inside Major League Baseball paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He paid attention to those numbers?with the second-lowest payroll in baseball at his disposal he had to?to conduct an astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win . . . how can we not cheer for David?

Busy Monsters
Busy Monsters

Author: William Giraldi

Publisher: WW Norton

Published: 2012-08-07

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780393342932

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“The best literary present . . . has a delicate sweetness that shows through at just the right moments.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post Book World Echoing a narrative line that includes Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, William Giraldi’s Busy Monsters has been hailed as one of the most exciting fiction debuts in years. Penned with a linguistic bravado that explores the diaphanous line between fiction and fact, this “very funny, very inventive début novel” (The New Yorker) has at last revived the great American picaresque tradition.