Into the Fantastic


Book Description

DescriptionTom McNeight's book Into the Fantastic explores the vicissitudes of mental illness. He deals with this broad topic from both an academic, philosophical and a personal viewpoint. Tom feels he has been unjustly treated by the mental health authorities ever since he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic at the tender age of nineteen years. Tom subsequently spent most of his adult life being heavily drugged upon what the psychiatrists refer to as anti-psychotic medication. Despite such huge challenges, Tom has risen up to become a successful artist and writer and he has gained deep spiritual insights into his life. About the AuthorThomas Edward McNeight is a published author on mental health issues. He draws on his background in philosophical studies with the university. He lives in Wanganui, New Zealand, where he writes and paints. And gathers insights into the plight of the mentally ill, amongst his many acquaintances. Tom is impassioned in his endeavours to highlight the plight of the emotionally affected and he would like to see the status of the psychiatric institutions be raised to a level befitting that of the twenty first century. His experience has been bleak: As with many of his friends, Tom feels that psychoanalysis is a much healthier option available to psychiatrists than is the current ubiquitous use of harmful chemicals to treat mental illness.




Indirections of the Novel


Book Description

Professor Graham explores the art of indirection in the work of three masters of the technique: Henry James, Joseph Conrad and E. M. Forster.




Ernest Hemingway


Book Description

Ernest Hemingway’s groundbreaking prose style and examination of timeless themes made him one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century. Yet in Ernest Hemingway: Thought in Action, Mark Cirino observes, “Literary criticism has accused Hemingway of many things but thinking too deeply is not one of them.” Although much has been written about the author’s love of action—hunting, fishing, drinking, bullfighting, boxing, travel, and the moveable feast—Cirino looks at Hemingway’s focus on the modern mind, paralleling the interest in consciousness of such predecessors and contemporaries as Proust, Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner, and Henry James. Hemingway, Cirino demonstrates, probes the ways his character’s minds respond when placed in urgent situations or when damaged by past traumas. In Cirino’s analysis of Hemingway’s work through this lens—including such celebrated classics as A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, and “Big Two-Hearted River” and less-appreciated works including Islands in the Stream and “Because I Think Deeper”—an entirely different Hemingway hero emerges: intelligent, introspective, and ruminative.




From the Corner of His Eye


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A thrilling and emotionally powerful novel from the author of the Jane Hawk series “A literary miracle . . . a tapestry of intrigue and suspense.”—The Boston Globe His birth was marked by wonder and tragedy. He sees beauty and terror beyond our deepest dreams. His story will change the way you see the world. Bartholomew Lampion is born on a day of tragedy and terror that will mark his family forever. All agree that his unusual eyes are the most beautiful they have ever seen. On this same day, a thousand miles away, a ruthless man learns that he has a mortal enemy named Bartholomew. He embarks on a relentless search to find this enemy, a search that will consume his life. And a girl is born from a brutal rape, her destiny mysteriously linked to Barty and the man who stalks him. At the age of three, Barty Lampion is blinded when surgeons remove his eyes to save him from a fast-spreading cancer. As he copes with his blindness and proves to be a prodigy, his mother counsels him that all things happen for a reason and that every person’s life has an effect on every other person’s, in often unknowable ways. At thirteen, Bartholomew regains his sight. How he regains it, why he regains it, and what happens as his amazing life unfolds and entwines with others results in a breathtaking journey of courage, heart-stopping suspense, and high adventure.




Awake Where You Are


Book Description

The body is of course integral to meditation, but there are only a few books that focus this specifically on the body and the meditative experience. Awake Where You Are addresses that need, and additionally integrates psychological concepts, which provides a more familiar entry point for people less familiar with Buddhism. “Embodied awareness is the way back home—intimacy with where and how we are right now, with what is happening and how we are meeting it. My intention is to lead you into the heart of your life. Inside your body, where everything happens—within a quality of listening rather than knowledge, of feeling rather than reaction. This meditative practice is radically transformative.” —Martin Aylward Pulled around by desires and distractions, we’re so easily disconnected from ourselves. Life is happening right in front of us, and within us—but still, we manage to miss so much of it. Awake Where You Are provides the antidote, inviting us to go deep into our own bodies, to inhabit our sensory experience carefully; to learn the art of living from the inside out, and in the process to find ease, clarity, and an authentic, unshakeable freedom. The practices in the book literally bring us back into our skin, where we can reconnect with a more rich, meaningful, and peaceful life. Aylward writes with sophisticated subtlety, as well as the heart-opening simplicity and clarity born of deep experience. And this book is more than a meditation guide—it’s a guide to living an embodied life. You’ll learn about the following areas and practices: - Understanding and liberating our primal human drives. Aylward explains how the three primary drives—survival, sexual, and social—function within us, and how we can engage their energy to explore, understand, and liberate them. - Integrating psychological understanding with meditative practice. Awake Where You Are goes beyond the broad brushstrokes of Buddhist psychology, inviting the reader into an exploration of their own particular psychological history and conditioning. - Investigating the nuances of love. Readers will learn to see the classical Buddhist heart qualities, or brahmaviharas (loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity) as distinct flavors of love, and as the natural resting places of a free heart. “Martin is a marvelous teacher and offers us the refreshing wisdom of an embodied life.” —Jack Kornfield, author of No Time Like the Present




Conrad on Film


Book Description

This book offers the first comprehensive, international survey of more than eighty films and videos based on the life and work of Joseph Conrad. Essays by leading film and literary scholars examine the films, both in the context of film history and technology, and in terms of the theoretical and practical problems facing directors - including Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Francis Ford Coppola and Andrzej Wajda - who have attempted to put Conrad on film. Conrad was the first major English author to adapt his work for the screen, and the story of his unpublished 'film-play' is told in an important chapter. The challenges of finding visual analogues for Conrad's narrative irony and filmic equivalents for his narrators are also examined. The volume is well illustrated and includes a detailed filmography and film bibliography, making it a landmark study of Conrad films and film adaptations in general.




The Hollow Sea


Book Description

THE ISLANDERS SAY IT'S CURSED. BUT THAT'S ONLY ONE SIDE OF THE STORY . . . 'A bold, magical story' JO BROWNING WROE, Sunday Times bestselling author of A Terrible Kindness 'A majestic work of the imagination . . . I woke up thinking about it' ROSIE ANDREWS, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Leviathan 'An atmospheric tale, shot through with folklore. The writing shimmers' KATE SAWYER, Costa shortlisted author of The Stranding _______ They say the Hollow Sea is cursed. A wild expanse separating the remote islands of St Hía, not even the locals brave its treacherous waters. But new arrival Scottie feels a pull she can't ignore. Because behind the curse is the legend of Thordis: a woman whose story feels eerily familiar. No one knows what became of her, but Scottie believes Thordis's fate may answer questions about her own past. Despite the islanders' warnings, Scottie sets out to discover the truth. But as she dares to cross the Hollow Sea, will its secrets give her the answers she needs? Or will the past drag her under? _______ 'A heart-rending atmospheric novel of finding what makes one whole' Melissa Fu, author of Peach Blossom Spring 'Mesmerising' Good Housekeeping 'A poetic tale' Prima




The Miscellaneous Works ...


Book Description







Jewish Themes in Spinoza's Philosophy


Book Description

Explores Jewish aspects of Spinoza's philosophy from a wide variety of perspectives.