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The Tao Te Ching is a classic Chinese text written around the 6th century BC by Laozi, a Zhou-dynasty courtier. While its authorship is debated, the text remains a fundamental building block of Taoism and one of the most influential works of its time. Today it’s one of the most-translated works in the world.

The work itself is a series of 81 short poetic sections, each one written in a fluid, ambiguous style, leaving them open to wide interpretation. Subjects range from advice to those in power to advice to regular people and adages for daily living. Because of its ambiguous nature the Tao Te Ching is famously difficult to translate, and many, if not all, translations are significantly influenced by the translator’s state of mind. This translation is by James Legge, a famous Scottish sinologist and the first professor of Chinese at Oxford University.

Description

Candide is the picaresque tale of the titular character’s fantastical journey from an insular, idealized life in a picturesque castle through the difficulties and evils of the real world. Satirical, comical, witty, and cutting, Candide was widely banned in its day for containing blasphemous and seditious concepts. Despite that, it survived controversy to become an important book in the Western literary heritage. Today Candide remains a breezy and darkly funny read.

Description

The Prince is a book that was controversial before it had even been sent to the printer. Written in vernacular Italian instead of Latin, dedicated to a member of one of the most powerful Italian families of the day, and only printed after Machiavelli’s death, this treatise on how to tyrannize effectively was considered shocking even by his contemporaries. The discussion of its morality that continues to this day gives us the modern-day word Machiavellian.

The book is organized into several sections, each one giving direction on the ruthless rule of principalities that Machiavelli based on both reading and personal experience. Despite its controversial nature, The Prince is often cited as one of the first examples of modern philosophical thought, and the “advice” contained within is still quoted as relevant today.

Description

Dracula is one of the most famous public-domain horror novels in existence, responsible not just for introducing the eponymous Count Dracula, but for introducing many of the common tropes we see in modern horror fiction.

Count Dracula isn’t the first vampire to have graced the pages of literature—that honor is thought to belong to Lord Ruthven in The Vampyr, by John William Polidori—but Dracula is the vampire on which modern vampires are based.

Dracula wasn’t as famous in its day as it is today; readers of the time seemed to enjoy it as nothing more than a good story, and Stoker died nearly penniless. But its long-lasting influence is undeniable, and for all its age Dracula remains a gripping, fast-paced, and enjoyable read.

Description

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus was the model of what we call a philosopher-king. Though his rule was troubled by war and conflict, he remained a thoughtful and even-handed ruler.

Meditations isn’t a complete book, but rather a collection of his personal diary entries written over a ten-year campaign in Greece. The entries were never meant to be published; instead, they were a reminder to himself of how to remain calm, tranquil, and kind, even in the worst of situations. In them we see the emperor working out how to deal with the everyday problems all of us face: annoying coworkers, difficult family members, the expectations of others, unrealized goals and achievements, and, ultimately, happiness.

The episodic nature of Meditations makes it hard to follow at times, but in exchange we get a deeply personal window into the life of one of Rome’s most unique emperors, and more importantly, a handbook of thoughtful advice on how to live a tranquil, satisfied, and productive life.

Description

In 1910 famous explorer Robert Falcon Scott led the Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole. The expedition was part scientific and part adventure: Scott wanted to be the first to reach the pole.

The expedition was beset by hardship from the beginning, and after realizing that they had been beaten to the pole by Roald Amundsen’s Norwegian Expedition, the party suffered a final tragedy: the loss of Scott and his companions to the Antarctic cold on their return journey to base camp.

The Worst Journey in the World is an autobiographical account of one of the survivors of the expedition, Apsley Cherry-Garrard. It’s a unique combination of fascinating scientific documentary, adventure novel, and with the inclusion of Scott’s final journal entries, horror story. Journey is peppered throughout with journal entries, illustrations, and pictures from Cherry-Garrard’s companions, making it a fascinating window into the majesty and danger of the Antarctic.

Для сестер Саманты и Эллы Митчелл Рождество – самое драгоценное время в году, время единения, любви и торжества. В этот день они стремятся восполнить все, чего им так не хватало на рождественских праздниках в детстве. Но в этом году они будут покупать подарки неожиданному гостю – своей отчужденной матери, с которой не виделись пять лет. Когда она неожиданно звонит и обещает, что это Рождество будет другим, Саманта и Элла осторожно соглашаются провести его вместе среди прекрасных пейзажей шотландского нагорья.

На русском языке публикуется впервые.

Description

Beyond Good and Evil, one of Nietzsche’s four “late period” works, is a philosophical treatise organized into nine parts and 296 short individual sections. In it he explores the concept of morality as taken for granted by contemporary philosophers, and whether “good” and “evil” should be considered just two sides of the same coin.

Description

W. W. Jacobs was a prolific writer of short stories. His topics were typically humorous and nautical in nature, but they weren’t exclusively so. This anthology includes some of his most famous short stories, including “The Monkey’s Paw,” a story of the supernatural in which a monkey’s hand grants three wishes to its owner, but at huge cost.

Description

The Importance of Being Earnest is Oscar Wilde’s most popular play today, enduring thanks to its easy humor, witty dialog, and clever satire. It was also one of his more successful plays, despite its first run being prematurely ended after only 86 performances. The main characters pretend to be other people in order to escape social obligations, with the resulting confusion of identities driving the plot and the humor behind it.

Earnest also holds the sad distinction of being Wilde’s last published play. A feud with an aristocrat whose son was Wilde’s lover led to a court case revealing Wilde as a homosexual—a crime in those days, and punishable by imprisonment with hard labor.