A Lover's Discourse


Book Description

"Barthes's most popular and unusual performance as a writer is "A Lover's Discourse," a writing out of the discourse of love. This language primarily the complaints and reflections of the lover when alone, not exchanges of a lover with his or her partner is unfashionable. Thought it is spoken by millions of people, diffused in our popular romances and television programs as well as in serious literature, there is no institution that explores, maintains, modifies, judges, repeats, and otherwise assumes responsibility for this discourse . . . Writing out the figures of a neglected discourse, Barthes surprises us in "A Lover's Discourse" by making love, in its most absurd and sentimental forms, an object of interest." Jonathan Culler




Fragments of a Love Story


Book Description

The mystical path is the most intoxicating and paradoxical, difficult, and even dangerous journey one can ever take. Fragments of a Love Story is a series of personal writings describing the passionate love, heartache, and confusion that belong to this journey. In particular Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee explores what for him is a central paradox: what belongs to the individual, the "I" who makes the journey, and what belongs to God. Whose journey really is it? He discusses this primary mystical question from his own experiences of 40 years travelling the mystical path within the context of the Sufi tradition. Some of these passages are very personal, heartfelt, full of contradictions and difficulties he has experienced. Other passages are more objective, more detached, placing his experiences and questions clearly within this ancient mystical tradition. In this way he shows how the Sufi path is lived today by a contemporary mystic. Fragments of a Love Story takes the reader beneath the surface into the heart of the mystical relationship with the Divine, which for the Sufi is the relationship of lover and Beloved. He describes how this secret love affair is within the heart of each of us, waiting to come alive, unique to each of us, and yet how confusing it can be, especially for our rational Western consciousness.This book is about the story of the soul and the passion that exists within the core of our being, and how demanding and difficult it is to live this love affair. But it also describes the beauty, wonder, and power of the divine love that awakens within the heart -- a love that is within each of us. Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee is a Sufi teacher and author, and these writings come from his own experience of the Sufi path.




Fragments of the Lost


Book Description

Even though she thinks Caleb's mom blames her for his accidental death two months ago, Jessa agrees to pack up her ex-boyfriend's bedroom, but every item she touches makes Jessa question what she knows about his death, his family, and their year-long relationship.




Fragments of Femininity


Book Description

This is a collection of portraits of 7 women, of all different ages, backgrounds, circumstances and eras. Each one of them is facing a defining moment in her life. They are bound together by the symbol of their femininity: their breasts. We see an awkward college girl getting to grips with her womanhood; a 1960s house-wife freeing herself from the restraints of propriety; the manager of a small underwear shop fighting against corporate giants; a woman nude modeling for an unexpected reason... Love, illness, sex, liberation, sensuality: Olivier Pont draws us into the lives of these women with astounding force.




The Fragments


Book Description

From the award-winning, bestselling author of Addition and Nine Days, a superbly crafted and captivating literary mystery about a lost book and a secret love.




Fragments of You


Book Description

Barnes and Nobles




History of Shit


Book Description

"A brilliant account of the politics of shit. It will leave you speechless." Written in Paris after the heady days of student revolt in May 1968 and before the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, History of Shit is emblematic of a wild and adventurous strain of 1970s' theoretical writing that attempted to marry theory, politics, sexuality, pleasure, experimentation, and humor. Radically redefining dialectical thought and post-Marxist politics, it takes an important—and irreverent—position alongside the works of such postmodern thinkers as Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, and Lyotard. Laporte's eccentric style and ironic sensibility combine in an inquiry that is provocative, humorous, and intellectually exhilarating. Debunking all humanist mythology about the grandeur of civilization, History of Shit suggests instead that the management of human waste is crucial to our identities as modern individuals—including the organization of the city, the rise of the nation-state, the development of capitalism, and the mandate for clean and proper language. Far from rising above the muck, Laporte argues, we are thoroughly mired in it, particularly when we appear our most clean and hygienic. Laporte's style of writing is itself an attack on our desire for "clean language." Littered with lengthy quotations and obscure allusions, and adamantly refusing to follow a linear argument, History of Shit breaks the rules and challenges the conventions of "proper" academic discourse.




Fragments That Fit


Book Description

Hating Luc Davin is easy. Working for him? Shoshi's only hope. When Shoshana Glass lands an interview for a senior position at a top venture capital firm, she can't believe her good luck. Until she’s dismissed before even saying hello. It might be that she’s underqualified. Or maybe turning down Luc Davin’s drunken advances the night before did the trick. When she calls him out, Davin wastes no time cutting her down to size. Not finished humiliating her, he then offers her a different job—as his personal assistant. Shoshi knows she should refuse. But being able to afford luxuries like food and heat trumps any remaining shreds of her pride. Shoshi’s determined to make the most of this opportunity and walk away on her terms: with a résumé boost, a stronger network, and a cushion of savings tucked away. All she has to do is survive Davin's mind games. So if Davin thinks he can chew her up and spit her out, he's got another thing coming. This is Shoshi's last chance to turn her life around, and not even the worst boss ever will stand in her way. -- Fragments That Fit is a standalone romantic women's fiction novel, perfect for fans of Kristan Higgins and Colleen Hoover. With a broke millennial struggling to find her way, a romance she never saw coming, and the grumpy boss you’ll love to hate, this is one heartfelt story you won’t want to miss!




Keats's Odes


Book Description

"When I say this book is a love story, I mean it is about things that cannot be gotten over-like this world, and some of the people in it." In 1819, the poet John Keats wrote six poems that would become known as the Great Odes. Some of them-"Ode to a Nightingale," "To Autumn"-are among the most celebrated poems in the English language. Anahid Nersessian here collects and elucidates each of the odes and offers a meditative, personal essay in response to each, revealing why these poems still have so much to say to us, especially in a time of ongoing political crisis. Her Keats is an unflinching antagonist of modern life-of capitalism, of the British Empire, of the destruction of the planet-as well as a passionate idealist for whom every poem is a love poem. The book emerges from Nersessian's lifelong attachment to Keats's poetry; but more, it "is a love story: between me and Keats, and not just Keats." Drawing on experiences from her own life, Nersessian celebrates Keats even as she grieves him and counts her own losses-and Nersessian, like Keats, has a passionate awareness of the reality of human suffering, but also a willingness to explore the possibility that the world, at least, could still be saved. Intimate and speculative, this brilliant mix of the poetic and the personal will find its home among the numerous fans of Keats's enduring work.




The History of Love: A Novel


Book Description

ONE OF THE MOST LOVED NOVELS OF THE DECADE. A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness. Leo Gursky taps his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he’s still alive. But it wasn’t always like this: in the Polish village of his youth, he fell in love and wrote a book…Sixty years later and half a world away, fourteen-year-old Alma, who was named after a character in that book, undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With virtuosic skill and soaring imaginative power, Nicole Krauss gradually draws these stories together toward a climax of "extraordinary depth and beauty" (Newsday).