Mathematical problems and visual illusions in the enigmatic work of M.C. Escher "A woman once rang me up and said, 'Mr. Escher, I am absolutely crazy about your work. In your print Reptiles you have given such a striking illustration of reincarnation.' I replied, 'Madame, if that's the way you see it, so be it.'" An engagingly sly comment by the renowned Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972)--the complex ambiguities of whose work leave hasty or single-minded interpretations far behind. Long before the first computer-generated 3-D images were thrilling the public, Escher was a master of the third dimension. His lithograph "Magic Mirror" dates as far back as 1946. In taking that title for this book, mathematician Bruno Ernst is stressing the magic spell Escher's work invariably casts on those who see it. Ernst visited Escher every week for a year, systematically talking through his entire oeuvre with him. Their discussions resulted in a friendship that gave Ernst intimate access to the life and conceptual world of Escher. Ernst's account was meticulously scrutinized and made accurate by the artist himself. Escher's work refuses to be pigeonholed. Scientific, psychological, or aesthetic criteria alone cannot do it justice. The questions remain. Why did he create the pictures? How did he construct them? What preliminary studies were necessary before he could arrive at the final version? And how are the various images Escher created interrelated? This book, complete with biographical data, 250 illustrations, and explications of mathematical problems, offers answers to these and many other questions, and is an authentic source text of the first order.

As a scholar of philosophy and propaganda and the child of refugees of WWII Europe, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding that democratic societies, including the United States, can be vulnerable to fascism. In How Fascism Works, he focuses on fascist politics-the language and beliefs that separate people into an "us" and a "them." Stanley knits together reflections on history, philosophy, sociology, and critical race theory with stories from contemporary Hungary, Poland, India, Myanmar, and the United States, among other nations, making clear the immense dangers of what he identifies as the ten pillars of fascist politics. By uncovering disturbing patterns that are as prevalent today as ever, Stanley reveals that the stuff of politics-rhetoric and myth-can become policy and reality all too quickly. Only by recognizing them, he argues, can we begin to resist their most harmful effects and return to democratic ideals. Book jacket.

A collection of 14 short stories, some of which are based on radio plays. When the title story was first presented as a play on 2JJ it achieved cult status.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the sixteenth emperor of Rome -- and by far the most powerful and wealthy man in the world. Yet he was also an intensely private person, with a rich interior life and deep reservoirs of personal insight. He collected his thoughts in notebooks, gems which have come to be called his Meditations. Never intended for publication, the work survived his death and has proved an inexhaustible source of wisdom and one of the most important Stoic texts of all time. In often passionate language, the entries range from essays to one-line aphorisms, and from profundity to bitterness. Marcus wrote to console himself in the face of the shortness of life, the shoddiness of the world, and the challenges of being human. He asks the very same questions that every thinking person must ask themselves today: Does the universe have a moral purpose, and what is my role in it? What exactly is it to be a good person, and how do I get there? Life is short: what does that mean for me? How can I get to know myself better? Anyone who is puzzled by such questions or searching for answers will profit from this timeless book, which is both an important historical document and a personal spiritual diary. This annotated edition will be the definitive translation of this classic and much-beloved text, with copious notes that will illuminate one of the greatest works of popular philosophy for new readers and enrich the understanding of even the most hardcore Stoic.

"One of the most popular drawing guides ever published, The Art of Drawing has been an informative and thorough guide to several generations of aspiring artists. For fifty years, Willy Pogany has given the main principles of drawing in a simple, constructive way. By following the sequences laid out in the lessons, students quickly master the art of drawing." "As a further aid, Pogany gives a complete anatomical description of the body for each section, including a list of all bones and a description of the muscles and their uses. The Art of Drawing provides a complete drawing system and includes hundreds of illustrations."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

GOTH is an entertaining and engaging historical memoir of the genre of Goth music and culture, exploring creative giants like The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Joy Division and many more great bands that offered a place of refuge for the misfits of the 80s and ever since. Written by Lol Tolhurst, co-founder of The Cure, this book offers a fascinating deep dive into the movers and shakers of goth with stories and anecdotes from Tolhurst's personal memories as well as the musicians, magicians and artists who made it all happen - the people, places and events that made goth an inevitable and enduring movement . Starting with the Origins of Goth, Tolhurst explores early art and literature that inspired the genre and looks into the work of T.S Eliot, Edgar Allan Poe, Sylvia Plath, Albert Camus and more. He also outlines the path of Gothic forebears and shows how many musicians played in punk bands before transitioning into goth endeavours. Next, he introduces readers to the 'Architects of Darkness' - Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division and The Cure - the godfathers of goth who established the genre's roots. Following these early bands, Tolhurst discusses a group he calls the 'Spiritual Alchemists', consisting of bands like Depeche Mode, Cocteau Twins and more, who helped the darkness expand into the culture. He also tracks the expansion of the genre overseas, from England to New York, Los Angeles and beyond. Gothic fashion was an important part of the movement as well and Tolhurst discusses the clothing that accompanied and complemented the music. Finally, Tolhurst examines the legacy of goth music and shows how its influence can still be seen to this day across music, film, TV, visual arts, social media and so much more, finally concluding with 'Why Goth matters!'

Darlinghurst Funeral Rites is a collection of poems by the writer and journalist Mark Mordue. It’s also a song cycle that takes the reader on a journey through Mark’s experiences in the Sydney post-punk music scene of the 1980s. It begins with his arrival in the big city, his immersion in the culture and the spirit of the times, his deep contact with bands, art and films as a leading rock journalist of the era, the corresponding hedonism and bohemianism that characterised iconic suburbs like Newtown, Surry Hills and Darlinghurst, and the disintegration of that world as a relationship ends and drugs, disillusion and displacement overtake people’s lives. The nature of the book is effectively a Dante-esque journey though Sydney in the post-punk 1980s. As such it is both a personal and a cultural history of the times: a creative history and internalised autobiography of a now mythical era.

Nick Cave has spent over three decades living on the artistic edge, building up a sizable following, but never compromising his vision. Mark Mordue's biography of Nick Cave leaves no stone unturned. It is written with the input of Cave and his close colleagues but retains an independent, critical spirit.

In a letter from 1845, the 14-year-old Emily Dickinson asked her friend Abiah Root if she had started collecting flowers and plants for a herbarium: "it would be such a treasure to you; 'most all the girls are making one." Emily's own album of more than 400 pressed flowers and plants, carefully preserved, has long been a treasure of Harvard's Houghton Library. This beautifully produced, slipcased volume now makes it available to all readers interested in the life and writings of Emily Dickinson. The care that Emily put into her herbarium, as Richard Sewall points out, goes far beyond what one might expect of a botany student her age: "Take Emily's herbarium far enough, and you have her." The close observation of nature was a lifelong passion, and Emily used her garden flowers as emblems in her poetry and her correspondence. Each page of the album is reproduced in full color at full size, accompanied by a transcription of Dickinson's handwritten labels. Introduced by a substantial literary and biographical essay, and including a complete botanical catalog and index, this volume will delight scholars, gardeners, and all readers of Emily Dickinson's poetry.

Time is our biggest worry: there is too little of it. The acclaimed Guardian writer Oliver Burkeman offers a lively, entertaining philosophical guide to time and time management, setting aside superficial efficiency solutions in favor of reckoning with and finding joy in the finitude of human life. The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks. Nobody needs telling there isn't enough time. We're obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we're deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and "life hacks" to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks. Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern fixation on "getting everything done," Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we've come to think about time aren't inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we've made as individuals and as a society--and that we could do things differently.

Our democracy today is fraught with political campaigns, lobbyists, liberal media, and Fox News commentators, all using language to influence the way we think and reason about public issues. Even so, many of us believe that propaganda and manipulation aren't problems for us--not in the way they were for the totalitarian societies of the mid-twentieth century. In How Propaganda Works, Jason Stanley demonstrates that more attention needs to be paid. He examines how propaganda operates subtly, how it undermines democracy--particularly the ideals of democratic deliberation and equality--and how it has damaged democracies of the past. Focusing on the shortcomings of liberal democratic states, Stanley provides a historically grounded introduction to democratic political theory as a window into the misuse of democratic vocabulary for propaganda's selfish purposes. He lays out historical examples, such as the restructuring of the US public school system at the turn of the twentieth century, to explore how the language of democracy is sometimes used to mask an undemocratic reality.Drawing from a range of sources, including feminist theory, critical race theory, epistemology, formal semantics, educational theory, and social and cognitive psychology, he explains how the manipulative and hypocritical declaration of flawed beliefs and ideologies arises from and perpetuates inequalities in society, such as the racial injustices that commonly occur in the United States. How Propaganda Works shows that an understanding of propaganda and its mechanisms is essential for the preservation and protection of liberal democracies everywhere.

A charming and funny space-based story about the power of friendship and memory, perfect for fans of Oliver Jeffers, Boy + Bot, and The Invisible String, from a Radiolab podcasterThere once was a little black hole who loved her universe, and especially her friends: the stars and the planets, the space rocks and the space fox, even the flying astronauts. She loved to play and laugh with them as they soared through the galaxy. That is, until they disappeared—which was always what happened. The little black hole felt all alone. But when she meets a big black hole and shares her worries, the big black hole knows just how to help! And the little black hole finds out that she has the power to find her friends, wherever she goes.With a quirky, playful story, sweet and silly art, and information about the real science of black holes, this heartwarming story reminds us all that friendship is never more than a quick thought—and glow—away.

An illustrated book for young children which tells the story of Tom, whose room is so cluttered with toys that there is no room to swing a cat, or a moose, or even a dinosaur - until his mother comes up with a solution.

The Cure are arguably the biggest alternative rock band in the world. Their popularity is not limited to any one country, or even continent. Between 1985 and 2000 every album they released went to at least Gold in the UK, the US or both. In America they have earned four Platinum albums, and they are estimated to have sold 30 million albums worldwide. Their iconic status as elder statesmen of Alternative Rock remains undiminished - if anything, their tireless touring has ensured that it has grown with every passing year - and lead singer Robert Smith is an endlessly fascinating figure to successive generations of fans. The Cure's influence reverberates through genres including Emo, Goth, Industrial and Indie Rock. The book is an encyclopaedic A-Z of The Cure examining and riffing on miscellaneous trivia, biographies of the band members past and present, summaries of each album and selected songs, details of the band's various tours and films, and essays on broader topics such as their image, their politics and their influences. Playful, eccentric and irreverent - true to the spirit of the band itself - CUREPEDIA is a comprehensive biography of one of the biggest alternative rock bands in the world. The hardback edition features interior pages printed in red and black ink, a ribbon marker, and bespoke C-U-R-E letter endpapers specially designed by Andy Vella - celebrated artist and collaborator (as part of Parched Art) with The Cure on their album artwork for four decades.

A stunning achievement in speculative fiction, A Voyage to Arcturus has inspired, enchanted, and unsettled readers for decades. It is simultaneously an epic quest across one of the most unusual and brilliantly depicted alien worlds ever conceived, a profoundly moving journey of discovery into the metaphysical heart of the universe, and a shockingly intimate excursion into what makes us human and unique.øAfter a strange interstellar journey, Maskull, a man from Earth, awakens alone in a desert on the planet Tormance, seared by the suns of the binary star Arcturus. As he journeys northward, guided by a drumbeat, he encounters a world and its inhabitants like no other, where gender is a victory won at dear cost; where landscape and emotion are drawn into an accursed dance; where heroes are killed, reborn, and renamed; and where the cosmological lures of Shaping, who may be God, torment Maskull in his astonishing pilgrimage. At the end of his arduous and increasingly mystical quest waits a dark secret and an unforgettable revelation.øA Voyage to Arcturus was the first novel by writer David Lindsay (1878?1945), and it remains one of the most revered classics of science fiction. This commemorative edition features an introduction by noted scholar and writer of speculative fiction John Clute and a famous essay by Loren Eiseley.

The sudden death of a Hollywood actor during a production of King Lear marks the beginning of the world's dissolution, in a story told at various past and future times from the perspectives of the actor and four of his associates. By the author of The Lola Quartet. 50,000 first printing.

In March 2014, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was first reported. By October 2014, it had become the largest and deadliest occurrence of the disease.Over 4,500 people have died. Almost 10,000 cases have been reported, across Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and the United States.Impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone is the terrifying, true-life account of when this highly infectious virus spread from the rainforests of Africa to the suburbs of Washington, D.C in 1989. A secret SWAT team of soldiers and scientists were quickly tasked with halting the outbreak. And they did. But now, that very same virus is back. And we could be just one wrong move away from a pandemic.