'We live within a spectacle of empty clothes and unworn masks' In this series of remarkable pieces from across his career, John Berger celebrates and dissects the close links between art and society and the individual. Few writers give a more vivid and moving sense of how we make art and how art makes us. One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

The emergence of a greater awareness of the environment, the application of new technical knowledge, and the use of traditional construction methods such as orientation towards the sun, are motivating a growing number of owners to have ecological houses built on a small scale. These small eco-houses are a first step towards a culture of sustainable and responsible construction, based on the use of natural materials which save energy and contain environmental contamination, but also on the creation of small oases that offer a high quality of life. There are numerous examples of how pleasant ecological houses can be from an architectural viewpoint, and the variety of ecological materials now available allows architects to select their own approach. This books presents a selection of small eco-houses: considered architectural anomalies for some time, these houses have laid the foundation for tomorrow's construction. Издание на английском, французском и немецком языках.

These autobiographical stories about growing up in small-town Pennsylvania are among John Updike’s best, and were the closest to his heart. Selected by the author from his first eight years of work for The New Yorker, these tales set in the fictional town of Olinger were first gathered in one volume in 1964, in a paperback edition that has long been out of print. They are brought together again now - for the first time ever in hardcover - in a fiftieth-anniversary edition. The eleven stories include ‘Pigeon Feathers’ in which a farm boy’s innocent faith is tested by the seeming faithlessness of parents and clergy; ‘The Happiest I’ve Been’, a timeless tale of leaving home and taking the first steps towards adulthood; and ‘Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, A Dying Cat, A Traded Car’, a reverie on the everyday that is, magically, as detailed and eventful as any novel. Updike considered this his signature collection, one that communicated his freshest impressions of life in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in the 1930s and ‘40s. This new edition of Olinger Stories, including the author’s original preface, restores a significant work to the Updike canon.

SUMMER IS A MAGICAL TIME IN NEW YORK CITY. Carrie Bradshaw is in love with all of it - the crazy characters in her neighbourhood, the vintage-clothing boutiques, the wild parties and the glamorous man who has swept her off her feet. Best of all, she's finally in a real writing class, taking her first steps towards fulfilling her dream. But as it becomes increasingly difficult to reconcile her past with her future, Carrie realises that making it in New York is much more complicated than she ever imagined. The irresistible story of how Carrie met Samantha and Miranda, and what turned a small-town girl into one of New York City's most unforgettable icons.

John Berger's writings on photography are some of the most original of the twentieth century. This selection contains many groundbreaking essays and previously uncollected pieces written for exhibitions and catalogues in which Berger probes the work of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and W. Eugene Smith - and the lives of those photographed - with fierce engagement, intensity and tenderness. The selection is made and introduced by Geoff Dyer, author of the award-winning The Ongoing Moment. How do we see the world around us? This is one of a number of pivotal works by creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision for ever. John Berger was born in London in 1926. His acclaimed works of both fiction and non-fiction include the seminal Ways of Seeing and the novel G., which won the Booker Prize in 1972. In 1962 he left Britain permanently, and he now lives in a small village in the French Alps.

George Dyson's fascinating account of the early years of computers: Turing's Cathedral is the story behind how the PC, ipod, smartphone and almost every aspect of modern life came into being. In 1945 a small group of brilliant engineers and mathematicians gathered at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, determined to build a computer that would make Alan Turing's theory of a 'universal machine' reality. Led by the polymath emigre John von Neumann, they created the numerical framework that underpins almost all modern computing - and ensured that the world would never be the same again. George Dyson is a historian of technology whose interests include the development (and redevelopment) of the Aleut kayak. He is the author of Baidarka; Project Orion; and Darwin Among the Machines.

Whether you are learning to play a piano, blow a trumpet, conduct an orchestra or sing, the essentials of music notation are the same. This book is a complete approach to musical study, from the first note you read to the beginnings of harmony. It simplifies music theory into easy logical steps, clearly written for all including the non-musical. It is also a textbook which prepares you fully for the relevant parts of the GCSE Music, or for the theory parts of the exams of the various music boards. Each section includes extensive questions so that the reader can fully test their understanding.

A brilliantly funny and sharply observant novel from one of the most acclaimed American writers of her generation. This novel follows the lives of two 11-year-olds intent on escaping childhood. As the strength of their friendship is tested repeatedly, they begin to take their first, exhilarating steps towards adulthood.

Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church - the only available shelter from the rain - and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life.

Often cited as one of the great novels of twentieth-century American fiction, Carson McCullers' prodigious first novel was published to instant acclaim when she was just twenty-three. Set in a small town in the middle of the deep South, it is the story of John Singer, a lonely deaf-mute, and a disparate group of people who are drawn towards his kind, sympathetic nature. The owner of the cafe where Singer eats every day, a young girl desperate to grow up, an angry socialist drunkard, a frustrated black doctor: each pours their heart out to Singer, their silent confidant, and he in turn changes their disenchanted lives in ways the could never imagine. Moving, sensitive and deeply humane, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter explores loneliness, the human need for understanding and the search for love.

A stunning, powerfully evocative new novel based on a true story - in 1726 in the small town of Godalming, England, a young woman confounds the medical community by giving birth to dead rabbits. Surgeon John Howard is a rational man. His apprentice Zachary knows John is reluctant to believe anything that purports to exist outside the realm of logic. But even John cannot explain how or why Mary Toft, the wife of a local farmer, manages to give birth to a dead rabbit. When this singular event becomes a regular occurrence, John realizes that nothing in his experience as a village physician has prepared him to deal with a situation as disturbing as this. He writes to several preeminent surgeons in London, three of whom quickly arrive in the small town of Godalming ready to observe and opine. When Mary's plight reaches the attention of King George, Mary and her doctors are summoned to London, where Zachary experiences for the first time a world apart from his small-town existence, and is exposed to some of the darkest corners of the human soul. All the while, Mary lies in bed, waiting for another birth, as doubts begin to blossom among the surgeons and a growing group of onlookers grow impatient for another miracle . . .

Written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers explain the complexities of a constitutional government - its political structure and principles based on the inherent rights of man. Scholars have long regarded this work as a milestone in political science and a classic of American political theory.

Written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers explain the complexities of a constitutional government - its political structure and principles based on the inherent rights of man. Scholars have long regarded this work as a milestone in political science and a classic of American political theory.

A controversial enquiry into the fundamental principles of evolutionary theory from an award-winning writer High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago. Called the Burgess Shale, it holds the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived - a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in incredible detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale might tell us about evolution and the nature of history. The Darwinian theory of evolution is a well-known, well-explored area. But there is one aspect of human life which this theory of evolution fails to account for: chance. Using the brilliantly preserved fossil fauna of the Burgess Shale as his case study, Gould argues that chance was in fact one of the decisive factors in the evolution of life on this planet, and that, with a flip of coin, everything could have been very different indeed.

In order to repay a small debt, the young student Mitya is persuaded by a friend to falsify a bank bond and cash it in. Little does he suspect that this small misdemeanour will have a profound impact on the lives of many other people around him - indirectly even leading to the gravest of crimes. This in turn sets off a long journey towards redemption and rehabilitation.Published only in 1911, after Tolstoy's death, The Forged Coupon examines the deep, unpredictable consequences of every human act, revealing the Russian master's moral preoccupations in the last years of his life, as well as his rejection of Christianity's simplistic division between good and evil.

Plexus is the second volume of the scandalous trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion, Henry Miller's major life work Exploring one man's desperate desire for freedom, Plexus is the central volume of Henry Miller's scandalous semi-autobiographical trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion. It finds him in the midst of his stormy marriage to the volatile, duplicitous Mona, and joyfully quitting his dreary job for a hand-to-mouth existence in Brooklyn, as he takes his first steps towards becoming a writer.