Barnes Noble: 2826 books

Editor Harrison Gray Otis Blake was a disciple of Emerson and Thoreau. In 1888 he approached Thoreau’s writings in a unique way, assembling journal entries from different years, but all about the same season. The resulting composite portrait gives us Thoreau’s thoughts on nature, plain living, and everyday life, including his perambulations by skate and snowshoe.

Published in 1900, this engaging guidebook was written for anyone interested in going to sea or simply curious about the work of sailors. Drawing on his own experience and extensive research, the author outlines the duties, qualifications, and responsibilities of various members of the ship’s company, creating an evocative portrait of a sailor’s life.

This 1909 collection by the author of Confessions of an English Opium-Eater includes his famous essay “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth,” plus writings on rhetoric, style and language, literary theory, Pope, Milton, Wordsworth, Lamb, and others.

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. South Wind depicts a group of eccentric and even scandalous characters wiling away their time in a sunny Mediterranean resort. The novel takes place on Nepenthe, Douglas's thinly veiled version of Capri, an island retreat...

Plays features “There are Crimes and Crimes,” a play about intoxication and failure, which the author said was his triumph after a crisis at age fifty, and “Miss Julia,” a complex work about power in all its forms—including love. Also included are “The Stronger,” “Creditors,” and “Pariah.”

Volume five of Casanova’s six-volume Memoirs, “In London and Moscow,” recounts more of his many exciting love affairs (which lead to disease), and his time in England among the “eccentric”—attempting to sell his lottery idea once again, without success.  Casanova goes on to Russia with his plan, but is expelled after dueling.

In the third volume of Casanova’s Memoirs, “The Eternal Quest,” he gains popularity with prominent people by acting as an alchemist. However, all his success is once again lost through the follies of falling in lust with women and allowing his debts to rise—forcing him as always to travel and try to make money.

Casanova’s life story is one of the most reliable sources of how Europeans lived in the eighteenth century. This is the fourth of his six-volume Memoirs, subtitled “Adventures in the South.”  Presented in this book are Casanova’s travels around Europe—and the love affairs, parties, passions, dangers, and disappointments that he finds.

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. Throughout the ages Epicurus has been both idealized and anathematized. As an atheist materialist philosopher he was an offense to religious thinkers. Many of his influential admirers, like Thomas Hobbes and Thomas...

An engrossing history of Charles I (1600-1649), also known as the White King, and the age he lived in. His reign was punctuated by religious conflicts; he was later tried, convicted, and executed for high treason. The author examines Charles the First’s life, but also the culture of England at the time—including the era’s customs, manners, art, and literature.

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. In Florentine History Machiavelli wrote about his native city, which he loved with a passion -- more than his soul, he said -- and by which he was exasperated. He was not just the famously cold, ironic analyst of ruthless...

Published in 1908, this history of early Buddhism traces the evolution of the religion from its origins in the myths of the Vedic gods to the advent of the Buddha and the incorporation of such doctrines as the transmigration of souls and karma.

The author wrote this book as a brief manual for the three main religions of the Chinese: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Temples, morality, notions of God, social behavior, and many other aspects are introduced here. Edkins also looks upon these religions in comparison to Christianity—with a missionary’s eye to possibilities of conversion.

In this infamous work, Sorel fiercely advocates for violent revolution as the only means of effecting lasting social change. He details such factors as the role of violence and force in revolutionary movements; the use of insurrection and general strikes; and mythmaking as a key in spurring on and sustaining...