"Marcovaldo" is an enchanting collection of twenty stories that are both melancholy and funny, farce and fantasy. Calvino charts the struggles of an Italian peasant to reconcile country habits with urban life, combining comical disasters with a surrealistic view of city life through the eyes of an outsider. As always with Calvino, nothing is quite as it seems.

Calvino's masterpiece opens with a scene that's reassuringly commonplace: apparently. Indeed, it's taking place now. A reader goes into a bookshop to buy a book: not any book, but the latest Calvino, the book you are holding in your hands. Or is it? Are you the reader? Is this the book? Beware. All assumptions are dangerous on this most bewitching switch-back ride to the heart of storytelling.

Italo Calvino once said that he preferred to give false details about his biography since he felt that even the genuine data of a writer's life shed no light on the creative work. But this volume of posthumously collected personal writings is the closest we will ever come to the autobiography of this most private of writers. The pieces collected here from the early 1950s to his last interview, completed just before his sudden death in 1985. Apart from shedding light on his own formative experiences and evolution as an author, Calvino's autobiographical writings also examine the major events of twentieth century history from a very personal viewpoint. This volume is, as ever, full of ideas on literature and other writers, all conveyed with the author's distinctive lightness and intelligence.

Viscount Medardo is bisected by a Turkish cannonball on the plains of Bohemia; Baron Cosimo, at the age of twelve, retires to the trees for the rest of his days; Charlemagne's knight, Agiluf, is an empty suit of armour. These three vivid images are the points of departure for Calvino's classic triptych of moral tales, now published in one volume and all displaying the exuberant talent of a master storyteller.

Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) lived ca. 99–ca. 55 BCE, but the details of his career are unknown. He is the author of the great didactic poem in hexameters, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). In six books compounded of solid reasoning, brilliant imagination, and noble poetry, he expounds the scientific theories of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, with the aim of dispelling fear of the gods and fear of death and so enabling man to attain peace of mind and happiness.

In Book 1 he establishes the general principles of the atomic system, refutes the views of rival physicists, and proves the infinity of the universe and of its two ultimate constituents, matter and void. In Book 2 he explains atomic movement, the variety of atomic shapes, and argues that the atoms lack colour, sensation, and other secondary qualities. In Book 3 he expounds the nature and composition of mind and spirit, proves their mortality, and argues that there is nothing to fear in death. Book 4 explains the nature of sensation and thought, and ends with an impressive account of sexual love. Book 5 describes the nature and formation of our world, astronomical phenomena, the beginnings of life on earth, and the development of civilization. In Book 6 the poet explains various atmospheric and terrestrial phenomena, including thunder, lightning, earthquakes, volcanoes, the magnet, and plagues.

The work is distinguished by the fervour and poetry of the author.

Representing a decade's work from one of the world's most distinguished physicists, this major publication is, as far as is known, the first comprehensive analysis of Newton's Principia without recourse to secondary sources. Chandrasekhar analyses some 150 propositions which form a direct chain leading to Newton's formulation of his universal law of gravitation. In each case, Newton's proofs are arranged in a linear sequence of equations and arguments, avoiding the need to unravel the necessarily convoluted style of Newton's connected prose. In almost every case, a modern version of the proofs is given to bring into sharp focus the beauty, clarity, and breathtaking economy of Newton's methods. This book will stimulate great interest and debate among the scientific community, illuminating the brilliance of Newton's work under the steady gaze of Chandrasekhar's rare perception.

"The Canterbury Tales", compiled in the late fourteenth century, is an incisive portrait, infused with Chaucer's wry wit and vibrant, poetical language. He evokes a spectrum of colourful characters, from the bawdy Wife of Bath to the gallant Knight, the fastidious Prioress and the burly, drunken Miller. As they wend their way from Southwark to Canterbury, tales are told to pass the time, and the stories are as diverse as the narrators, encompassing themes such as adultery, revenge, courtly love, lechery, avarice and penitence. As humorous today as when it was written over six centuries ago, "The Canterbury Tales" remains one of the most popular and enjoyable of the classic works of literature.

During the last ten years of his life, Anton Chekhov penned his great plays, spent time treating the sick, and wrote a small number of stories that are considered his masterpieces. The eleven stories collected here-"The Lady with the Little Dog," "The House with the Mezzanine," "My Life," "Peasants," "A Visit to Friends," "Ionych," "About Love," "In the Ravine," "The Bishop," "The Bride," and "Disturbing the Balance"-hail from this fertile period. They reveal a writer who, in response to the techniques of Symbolism and Impressionism, moved beyond nineteenth-century realism to become an innovator of the modern short story, influencing such key twentieth-century literary figures as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.

The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Vol. 1, contains three of Chesterton s most influential works. In Heretics Chesterton sets forth one of the most telling critiques of contemporary religious notions ever. The Blatchford Controversies are the spirited public debate which led to the writing of Heretics. Then, in Orthodoxy, Chesterton accepts the challenge of his opponents and sets forth his own reasons for accepting the Christian Faith. Author: G. K. Chesteron Contents: Heretics, The Blatchford Controversies, Orthodoxy Format: 397 pages, paperback Publisher: Ignatius Press ISBN: 9780898700794

The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Volume 2, contains three of Chesterton s greatest classics on Catholic philosophy and spirituality. It includes The Everlasting Man, which gives an Incarnational view of world history, and biographies of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi. Author: G. K. Chesterton Contents: The Everlasting Man, St. Francis of Assisi, St Thomas Aquinas Format: 550 pages, paperback Publisher: Ignatius Press ISBN: 9780898701173

The first of two volumes of G.K. Chesterton's novels is graced with many of the novelist's own drawings and photos, as well as maps. Since Chesterton drew from his own experiences in his writings, his drawings and photographs are very helpful in aiding the reader to get a better sense of the places and things he was writing about.

Armed with a donkey cart filled with rum, cheese and a tavern signpost, pub owner Humphrey Hump and a companion take to the road in this rollicking, madcap adventure, extending good cheer to a cast of memorable characters. A hilarious, satirical romp in which Chesterton inveighs against Prohibition, vegetarianism, theosophy, and other oppressive forms of modernity.

Published here with his essay "A Defence of Detective Stories," this witty and hugely enjoyable work was Chesterton’s first foray into detective fiction. Set in late Victorian London, The Club of Queer Trades introduces us to would-be private detective Rupert Grant and his brother, the outlandish and seemingly insane retired judge, Basil, who is in fact by far the more astute of the two. They undertake a series of bizarre and improbable cases that see them dealing with various eccentric characters, including a Major receiving a very odd death threat and a trapped woman who refuses to be rescued. As their cases mount up, it becomes clear that all the investigations are linked to the enigmatic Club of Queer Trades.

Immortalized in these famous stories, G. K. Chesterton's endearing amateur sleuth has entertained countless generations of readers. For, as his admirers know, Father Brown's cherubic face and unworldly simplicity, his glasses and his huge umbrella, disguise a quite uncanny understanding of the criminal mind at work. This edition includes seven tales from a number of G. K. Chesterton's "Father Brown" books.