DescriptionThis multi-layered novel concerns complex social relationships in a provincial Victorian neighborhood and the struggle to hold fast to personal integrity in a materialistic environment.
DescriptionAmerica in Gridlock is Volume 6 of A Basic History of the United States . This volume describes the philosophic and religious divide inherent in the issues of materialism, chronicles the debacle of the welfare state, depicts the continued polarity between conservative and liberal camps, addresses the collapse of Communism in Europe, and investigates government obstacles to production as well as assaying future trends in work, including self-employment.
DescriptionOne of renowned French author Honore de Balzac's finest works, Pere Goriot provides a fascinating glimpse into Parisian life of the early 19th century. The rich character studies and themes of class, personal ambition, and materiality make this ins…
DescriptionLa gente siempre esta en el filo de una navaja, dice un proverbio oriental y en el se baso el ingles Somerset Maugham para una de sus ultimas novelas, en donde los protagonistas son un joven intelectual y una muchacha que solo ansia ser rica. Ese conflicto entre la mente y lo material lleva a una serie de interesantes desarrollos. Larry Darrell is a young man whose experiences in World War I lead him to question the meaning of his comfortable life. Postponing his engagement to Isabel, he travels first to Europe and then to India, where his studies with a Hindu holy man change his life.
DescriptionNow a major motion picture, Vanity Fair is one of the greatest of English novels, a vast satirical panorama of a materialistic society and a landmark in the history of realistic fiction. Generally considered to be his masterpiece, Vanity Fair…
DescriptionSiddhartha is Nobel Prize-winning author Hermann Hesse's most famous and influential work, a novel of self-exploration that will linger in your mind and spirit for a lifetime. A young man, blessed with loving parents and a safe home in a world where want and neglect abound, leaves this haven in search of himself. He joins the Samanas, a band of wandering ascetics without possessions or earthly ties. His quest unfulfilled, he descends into a life of unbounded luxury and indulgence. Where is truth? Where will his soul find true ease? In denial? In decadence? Or in some truth far greater than himself, so simple, so close to him, yet so obvious that only clear eyes may see it? Siddhartha reawakens questions most of us have long ceased asking ourselves and opens paths to spirituality many of us have never traveled. Translated by Joachim Neugroschel.
DescriptionIn 1845 Henry David Thoreau, one of the principal New England Transcendentalists, left the town for the country. Beside the lake of Walden, he built himself a log cabin and returned to nature, to observe and reflect, while surviving on $8 a year. From this experience emerged one of the great classics of American literature, a deeply personal reaction against the commercialism and materialism that he saw as the main impulses of mid-19th century America.
