Mijn Frankrijk is een alfabetische reis door een land waar parken grenzen aan woestijnen, waar sanitair extreme vormen kan aannemen, waar het brood de revolutionaire beginselen uitdraagt en waar het wegverkeer een ode brengt aan de beschaving.
Paris, 2018. Diégane Latyr Faye, a young Senegalese writer, discovers a legendary book titled The Maze of Inhumanity. It has an immediate hold over him. No one knows what happened to the author, T.C. Elimane, who was accused of plagiarism, his reputation destroyed by the critics. Obsessed with discovering the truth about Elimane's disappearance, Faye weaves past and present, countries and continents, following the author's labyrinthine trail from Senegal to Argentina and France and confronting the great tragedies of history. Will he get to the truth at the centre of the maze? A gripping literary quest novel and a masterpiece of perpetual reinvention, The Most Secret Memory of Men confronts the impact of colonialism and neo-colonialism, the holocaust in Europe, dictatorships in South America and the Caribbean, genocide in Africa, and collaboration and resistance everywhere. Above all, it is a love song to literature and its timeless power.
Een afgezette Noordafrikaanse dictator overdenkt voor het vuurpeloton zijn bloedige loopbaan.
Drawing from the fields of history, psychology, politics, and economics, a look at the anxieties associated with a pursuit of status explains how humans have sought to cope with their fears and offers suggestions on ways to deal with the problem
The updated edition of Julian Barnes' best-loved writing on art, with seven new exquisite illustrated essays'Flaubert believed that it was impossible to explain one art form in terms of another, and that great paintings required no words of explanation.
The Achitecture of Happiness is a dazzling and generously illustrated journey through the philosophy and psychology of architecture and the indelible connection between our identities and our locations.One of the great but often unmentioned causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kinds of walls, chairs, buildings, and streets that surround us. And yet a concern for architecture is too often described as frivolous, even self-indulgent. Alain de Botton starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be, and argues that it is architecture's task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential.
An exploration of the human desire to travel presents a series of essays on airports, museums, landscapes, holiday romances, and hotel mini-bars, offering suggestions on how to render travel more fulfilling. "Aside from love, few activities seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so. In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton, author of How Proust Can Change Your Life, explores what the point of travel might be and modestly suggests how we can learn to be a little happier in our travels."--BOOK JACKET.
The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States is a defining moment in American history. After years of failed policies and failed politics from Washington, this is our chance to reclaim the American dream. Barack Obama has proven to be a new kind of leader–one who can bring people together, be honest about the challenges we face, and move this nation forward. Change We Can Believe In outlines his vision for America. In these pages you will find bold and specific ideas about how to fix our ailing economy and strengthen the middle class, make health care affordable for all, achieve energy independence, and keep America safe in a dangerous world. Change We Can Believe In asks us not just to believe in Barack Obama’s ability to bring change to Washington, it asks us to believe in our ability to change the world.
This new translation is based on the second edition of 1868, and includes the important `Preface', in which Zola defended himself against charges of immorality.
We spend most of our waking lives at work - but surprisingly little gets written about what makes work both one of the most exciting and most painful of all our activities. The Pleasures and Sorrows of Workis an exploration of the joys and perils of the modern workplace, beautifully evoking what other people get up to all day - and all night - to make the frenzied contemporary world function. With a philosophical eye and his characteristic combination of wit and wisdom, Alain de Botton leads us on a journey around a deliberately eclectic range of occupations, from rocket science to biscuit manufacturing, accountancy to art - in the name of exploring what makes our jobs either fulfilling or soul-destroying Along the way de Botton skilfully raises the big questions we all tend to ask of our work- What should I do with my life? How can I combine earning money with attaining fulfilment? What will I have achieved by the end of my career? The book amounts to a celebration and investigation of something as central to a good life as love - but which we often find remarkably hard to reflect on properly. As de Botton points out, most of us are still working at jobs chosen for us by our sixteen-year-old selves. Here, then, is a perfect guide to some of the most vicious anxieties and enticing hopes thrown up by our progress through the working world.
All of us, whether religious, agnostic or atheist, are searching for meaning. And in this wise and life-affirming book, non-believer Alain de Botton suggests that religions, far from being nonsensical as atheists maintain, are instead full of good ideas on how to live. And that we should steal from them. Picking and choosing from the thousands of years of advice assembled by the world's great religions to get practical insights on art, community, love, friendship, work, life and death, Alain de Botton will show how each of us may find our place in the world.
Think more about sex by thinking about it in a different way.
Bespiegelingen van een historicus over de Franse cultuur.
Biografie van de Amerikaanse schrijfster (1903-1977).
