Download or read book Deaths in Venice written by Philip Kitcher and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published in 1913, Thomas Mann's Death in Venice is one of the most widely read novellas in any language. In the 1970s, Benjamin Britten adapted it into an opera, and Luchino Visconti turned it into a successful film. Reading these works from a philosophical perspective, Philip Kitcher connects the predicament of the novella's central character to Western thought's most compelling questions. In Mann's story, the author Gustav von Aschenbach becomes captivated by an adolescent boy, first seen on the lido in Venice, the eventual site of Aschenbach's own death. Mann works through central concerns about how to live, explored with equal intensity by his German predecessors, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Kitcher considers how Mann's, Britten's, and Visconti's treatments illuminate the tension between social and ethical values and an artist's sensitivity to beauty. Each work asks whether a life devoted to self-sacrifice in the pursuit of lasting achievements can be sustained and whether the breakdown of discipline undercuts its worth. Haunted by the prospect of his death, Aschenbach also helps us reflect on whether it is possible to achieve anything in full awareness of our finitude and in knowing our successes are always incomplete.
Download or read book Death in Venice written by Thomas Mann and published by urzeni yayınevi. This book was released on 2017-07-04 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most famous literary works of the 20th century, the novella “Death in Venice” embodies themes that preoccupied Thomas Mann (1875–1955) in much of his work; the duality of art and life, the presence of death and disintegration in the midst of existence, the connection between love and suffering, and the conflict between the artist and his inner self. Mann’s handling of these concerns in this story of a middle-aged German writer, torn by his passion for a Polish youth met on holiday in Venice, resulted in a work of great psychological intensity and tragic power.
Download or read book The Family That Couldn t Sleep written by D. T. Max and published by Random House. This book was released on 2006-09-05 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For two hundred years a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. In England, cows attack their owners in the milking parlors, while in the American West, thousands of deer starve to death in fields full of grass. What these strange conditions–including fatal familial insomnia, kuru, scrapie, and mad cow disease–share is their cause: prions. Prions are ordinary proteins that sometimes go wrong, resulting in neurological illnesses that are always fatal. Even more mysterious and frightening, prions are almost impossible to destroy because they are not alive and have no DNA–and the diseases they bring are now spreading around the world. In The Family That Couldn’t Sleep, essayist and journalist D. T. Max tells the spellbinding story of the prion’s hidden past and deadly future. Through exclusive interviews and original archival research, Max explains this story’s connection to human greed and ambition–from the Prussian chemist Justus von Liebig, who made cattle meatier by feeding them the flesh of other cows, to New Guinean natives whose custom of eating the brains of the dead nearly wiped them out. The biologists who have investigated these afflictions are just as extraordinary–for example, Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, a self-described “pedagogic pedophiliac pediatrician” who cracked kuru and won the Nobel Prize, and another Nobel winner, Stanley Prusiner, a driven, feared self-promoter who identified the key protein that revolutionized prion study. With remarkable precision, grace, and sympathy, Max–who himself suffers from an inherited neurological illness–explores maladies that have tormented humanity for centuries and gives reason to hope that someday cures will be found. And he eloquently demonstrates that in our relationship to nature and these ailments, we have been our own worst enemy.
Download or read book Death and Judgment written by Donna Leon and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Venice’s Commissario Brunetti takes on his “most difficult and politically sensitive case to date” in the gripping New York Times–bestselling series (Booklist). In Death and Judgment, a truck crashes and spills its dangerous cargo on a treacherous road in the Italian Dolomite mountains. Meanwhile, in Santa Lucia, a prominent international lawyer is found dead aboard an intercity train. Suspecting a connection between the two tragedies, Brunetti digs deep for an answer, stumbling upon a seedy Venetian bar that holds the key to a crime network that reaches far beyond the laguna. But it will take another violent death in Venice before Brunetti and his colleagues begin to understand what is really going on. “No one is more graceful and accomplished than Leon.” —The Washington Post “The sophisticated but still moral Brunetti, with his love of food and his loving family, proves a worthy custodian of timeless values and verities.” —The Wall Street Journal “[Brunetti’s] humane police work is disarming, and his ambles through the city are a delight.” —The New York Times Book Review “The heady atmosphere of Venice and a galaxy of fully realized characters enrich this intriguing and finally horrifying tale.” —Publishers Weekly “The first of Leon’s books to knit together all her strengths: endearing detective, jaundiced social pathology, and a paranoid eye for plotting on a grand scale.” —Kirkus Reviews
Download or read book Swamp Deaths written by Rod Giblett and published by Europa Edizioni. This book was released on 2022-12-31 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its rich blend of fiction and faction (‘non-fiction’) crossing between history and philosophy, and combining memoir and biography, Swamp Deaths is a unique series of detective stories written by a swamp ghost writer. It mixes different types of texts and creates new and intriguing ways of environmental storytelling that will fascinate and delight rusted-on readers of detective fiction and attract new ones. Rod Giblett is the author of 30 books of fiction and faction (‘non-fiction’). He lived by a swamp in Western Australia for 28 years and wrote several books about it. He now lives in Melbourne and wrote about it as a city of ghost swamps in several books. He is Honorary Associate Professor in the Writing and Literature Program at Deakin University. Cover Image: Eugene von Guérard, ‘Mount William and part of the Grampians in West Victoria,’ 1865 Oil on cardboard, 30.3 x 40.6 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Collier Bequest 1955 (1562–5).
Download or read book Dressed for Death written by Donna Leon and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2008-12-30 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling series and its Italian detective explore the seedy underworld of Venice: “Procedural writing at its best” (The Washington Post). Commissario Guido Brunetti’s hopes for a refreshing family holiday in the mountains are once again dashed when a gruesome discovery is made in Marghera—a body so badly beaten the face is completely unrecognizable. Brunetti searches Venice for someone who can identify the corpse but is met with a wall of silence. He then receives a telephone call from a contact who promises some tantalizing information. And before the night is out, Brunetti is confronting yet another appalling, and apparently senseless, death. “[One of] the real charms of this series [is] the endearing character of Brunetti and his compassionate insights into the heart of Venice and the soul of its people. . . . Truly, a refreshing hero.” —The New York Times Book Review “Despite the gruesome way in which this murder, and subsequent ones, take place, it’s really a cheery, breezy mystery, filled with good humor and adventure. The ending can only leave the reader waiting avidly for the next time we meet Brunetti and his lively friends and cohorts.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Leon delivers her plot in an unassuming, graceful and beautifully paced prose that hides its measured elegance.” —The Washington Post “One of the most appealing of recent detectives, Brunetti stars in a case that brings out his canniness and his compassion—and shows his creator spreading her wings more powerfully than ever.” —Kirkus Reviews “Richly evocative. . . . Venice takes on a deep noir tint in Leon’s latest well-crafted work.” —Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Death Is a Lonely Business written by Ray Bradbury and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ray Bradbury, the undisputed Dean of American storytelling, dips his accomplished pen into the cryptic inkwell of noir and creates a stylish and slightly fantastical tale of mayhem and murder set among the shadows and the murky canals of Venice, California, in the early 1950s. Toiling away amid the looming palm trees and decaying bungalows, a struggling young writer (who bears a resemblance to the author) spins fantastic stories from his fertile imagination upon his clacking typewriter. Trying not to miss his girlfriend (away studying in Mexico), the nameless writer steadily crafts his literary effort--until strange things begin happening around him. Starting with a series of peculiar phone calls, the writer then finds clumps of seaweed on his doorstep. But as the incidents escalate, his friends fall victim to a series of mysterious "accidents"--some of them fatal. Aided by Elmo Crumley, a savvy, street-smart detective, and a reclusive actress of yesteryear with an intense hunger for life, the wordsmith sets out to find the connection between the bizarre events, and in doing so, uncovers the truth about his own creative abilities.
Download or read book Death in Venice written by Will Aitken and published by arsenal pulp press. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Queer Film Classic on Luchino Visconti’s lyrical 1971 film adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel.
Download or read book Death in Rome written by Wolfgang Koeppen and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2001 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mirroring the social and political upheaval following the fall of Nazism, Koeppen offers the story of four members of a German family reunited by chance in the decaying beauty of postwar Rome.
Download or read book ArtCurious written by Jennifer Dasal and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wildly entertaining and surprisingly educational dive into art history as you've never seen it before, from the host of the beloved ArtCurious podcast We're all familiar with the works of Claude Monet, thanks in no small part to the ubiquitous reproductions of his water lilies on umbrellas, handbags, scarves, and dorm-room posters. But did you also know that Monet and his cohort were trailblazing rebels whose works were originally deemed unbelievably ugly and vulgar? And while you probably know the tale of Vincent van Gogh's suicide, you may not be aware that there's pretty compelling evidence that the artist didn't die by his own hand but was accidentally killed--or even murdered. Or how about the fact that one of Andy Warhol's most enduring legacies involves Caroline Kennedy's moldy birthday cake and a collection of toenail clippings? ArtCurious is a colorful look at the world of art history, revealing some of the strangest, funniest, and most fascinating stories behind the world's great artists and masterpieces. Through these and other incredible, weird, and wonderful tales, ArtCurious presents an engaging look at why art history is, and continues to be, a riveting and relevant world to explore.
Download or read book Quietly in Their Sleep written by Donna Leon and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2009-02-24 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A nun has left her convent after a series of suspicious deaths: “Leon’s novels are always a pleasure.” —The Washington Post In Venice, Italy, Commissario Guido Brunetti comes to the aid of a young Catholic sister, who has left her convent after five of her nursing home patients died unexpectedly. In the course of his inquiries, Brunetti encounters an unusual cast of characters, but discovers nothing that seems criminal. The police detective must determine whether the nun is simply creating a smoke screen to justify abandoning her vocation—or if she has stumbled onto something very real and very sinister that places her own life in imminent danger. “Leon’s books shimmer in the grace of their setting and are warmed by the charm of their characters.” —The New York Times Book Review Also published under the title The Death of Faith
Download or read book There Are No Accidents written by Jessie Singer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-02-28 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journalist recounts the surprising history of accidents and reveals how they’ve come to define all that’s wrong with America. We hear it all the time: “Sorry, it was just an accident.” And we’ve been deeply conditioned to just accept that explanation and move on. But as Jessie Singer argues convincingly: There are no such things as accidents. The vast majority of mishaps are not random but predictable and preventable. Singer uncovers just how the term “accident” itself protects those in power and leaves the most vulnerable in harm’s way, preventing investigations, pushing off debts, blaming the victims, diluting anger, and even sparking empathy for the perpetrators. As the rate of accidental death skyrockets in America, the poor and people of color end up bearing the brunt of the violence and blame, while the powerful use the excuse of the “accident” to avoid consequences for their actions. Born of the death of her best friend, and the killer who insisted it was an accident, this book is a moving investigation of the sort of tragedies that are all too common, and all too commonly ignored. In this revelatory book, Singer tracks accidental death in America from turn of the century factories and coal mines to today’s urban highways, rural hospitals, and Superfund sites. Drawing connections between traffic accidents, accidental opioid overdoses, and accidental oil spills, Singer proves that what we call accidents are hardly random. Rather, who lives and dies by an accident in America is defined by money and power. She also presents a variety of actions we can take as individuals and as a society to stem the tide of “accidents”—saving lives and holding the guilty to account.
Download or read book Venice written by Margaret Plant and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Margaret Plant presents a wide-ranging cultural history of the city from the fall of the Republic in 1797, until 1997, showing how it has changed and adapted and how perceptions of it have shaped its reality.
Download or read book Nefarious Crimes Contested Justice written by Joanne M. Ferraro and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2008-12 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nefarious Crimes, Contested Justice also traces shifting attitudes toward illegitimacy and paternity from the late sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Both the Catholic Church and the Republic of Venice tried to enforce moral discipline and regulate sex and reproduction. Unmarried pregnant women were increasingly stigmatized for engaging in sex. Their claims for damages because of seduction or rape were largely unproven, and the priests and laymen that they were involved with were often acquitted of any wrongdoing. The lack of institutional support for single motherhood and the exculpation of fathers frequently led to abortion, infant abandonment, or even infant death.
Download or read book Life and Death in a Venetian Convent written by Sister Bartolomea Riccoboni and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These works by Sister Bartolomea Riccoboni offer an intimate portrait of the women who inhabited the Venetian convent of Corpus Domini, where they shared a religious life bounded physically by the convent wall and organized temporally by the rhythms of work and worship. At the same time, they show how this cloistered community vibrated with news of the great ecclesiastical events of the day, such as the Great Western Schism and the Council of Constance. While the chronicle recounts the history of the nuns' collective life, the necrology provides highly individualized biographies of nearly fifty women who died in the convent between 1395 and 1436. We follow the fascinating stories that led these women, from adolescent girls to elderly widows, to join the convent; and we learn of their cultural backgrounds and intellectual accomplishments, their ascetic practices and mystical visions, their charity and devotion to each other and their fortitude in the face of illness and death. The personal and social meaning of religious devotion comes alive in these texts, the first of their kind to be translated into English.
Download or read book Hidden Hitchcock written by D. A. Miller and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-08 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hidden Hitchcock is two things: a book about the hidden poetics of the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, and a confession by Miller as he finds himself lured into Hitchcock s ineffable web. Technology has helped Miller pinpoint a secretand bafflingfilm recessed alongside the easily identifiable habits of Hitchcock s trademark suspense. These are the Hidden Pictures that Miller has unearthed. In exploring Hitch s latent vision, Miller has many discoveries to sharenon-narrative microstructures that he points out for the first time: the second Hitchcock cameo (not the one we are trained to spot), the verbal-to-visual charade, the faux continuity error, to name a few. Their general purpose seems to insinuate a game of hide-and-seek that, until the viewer finds one of these Hidden Pictures, s/he may never know is in play. Through Hitchcock s hidden style, we confront a resistance to meaning so deep-seated that it seems less a project than a compulsion (a psychic drive); and so anti-social that to redeem it by assigning it a point risks missing the point."
Download or read book Trekking Munich to Venice written by John Hayes and published by Cicerone Press Limited. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guidebook to trekking the Traumpfad or 'Dream Way' from Munich's Mariënplatz to the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Covering 570km (354 miles), this long-distance trek through Germany, Austria and Italy takes around 1 month to hike and is suitable for most able walkers with a head for heights. The route is described from north to south in 30 stages, each between 10 and 34km (6–21 miles) in length. Five alternate stages and a day spent traversing via ferrata in the Dolomites are also described. 1:100,000 mapping plus larger-scale urban maps for key locations GPX files available to download Handy route planner helps you plan your itinerary Refreshment, transport and accommodation information given for each trek stage Highlights include the Karwendel, Tux and Zillertal Alps and the Dolomites
