Hume in 90 Minutes

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 by Book Guy | No Comments »

Hume in 90 Minutes
“Well-written, clear, and informed, they have a breezy wit about them.
I find them hard to stop reading.”New York Times

“Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise.”Wall Street Journal

Hume reduced philosophy to ruins: he denied the existence of everythingexcept our
actual perceptions themselves. I alone exist, he argued, and the world is nothing more
than part of my consciousness. Yet we know that the world remains, and we go on as
before. What Hume expressed was the status of our knowledge about the world,
a world in which neither religion nor science is certain.

In Hume in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Hume’s
life and ideas and explains their influence on man’s struggle to understand his existence
in the world. The book also includes selections from Hume’s work, a brief list of suggested
readings for those who wish to delve deeper, and chronologies that place Hume within his
own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy.

Paul Strathern earned a degree in philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin, and has lectured in philosophy and mathematics. A Somerset Maugham prize winner, he has written books on history, philosophy, and travel as well as five novels. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Observer (London) and the Irish Times. He lives and writes in London.

Earphones Awards recipient Robert Whitfield was born in England and worked for the BBC for ten years as a radio news announcer and also worked as a narrator for the Royal National Institute for the Blind in London. In addition to narrating for Blackstone Audiobooks, he involves himself in numerous stage-acting projects in the United States and Europe.
Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Author: Paul Strathern
Narrator: Robert Whitfield
ISBN: 0-7861-3988-9
Normal Price: $19.95
Download Price: $9.95

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Tags: 3988, Author Paul, Bbc, Blackstone, Earphones, Five Novels, History Philosophy, Hume In 90 Minutes, Irish Times, Narrator, New York Times, Paul Strathern, Prize Winner, Radio News, Reading New York, Robert Whitfield, Royal National Institute For The Blind, Somerset Maugham, Trinity College Dublin, Wall Street Journal

Mussolini

Monday, June 16th, 2008 by Book Guy | No Comments »

“[A] well-written and balanced account of one of the more enigmatic figures of the twentieth
century.”Booklist

Historian Jasper Ridley brings us this comprehensive biography of the man who invented fascismBenito
Mussolini, widely regarded as one of the arch villains of the twentieth century. A complex and contradictory
figure, Mussolini won the fascination of many statesmen and writersand their wives. From his early years
raised in the traditions of revolutionary Italian Socialism, to his violent execution by Communist partisans at
the end of World War II, we watch Mussolini’s power ambitions erode his political ideals, as he evolves from
brilliant orator and journalist to empire-building dictator enforcing his authority by death squads. A man initially
praised and admired by such Western luminaries as Winston Churchill, or underestimated as a posturing
buffoon, he eventually showed his true colors as a racist and persecutor of the Jews. He sought equal stature
with Hitler, but his alliance with him would prove disastrous. Ridley’s account of this unforgettable twentieth-century
figure is even-handed and indispensable.

Jasper Ridley has written many successful biographies of forceful and vivid characters in the sixteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among them Lord Palmerston, Napoleon III and Eugénie, Henry VIII, and Garibaldi. His books have been acclaimed in the United States, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic and Latin America. His most recently published book is a biography of Marshal Tito.

Nadia May has been nominated as an AudioFile Golden Voice five years running and is a winner of thirteen AudioFile Earphones Awards. She is the co-founder of TheatreFirst, a theater company in the San Francisco Bay Area where she currently lives.
Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Author: Jasper Ridley
Narrator: Nadia May
ISBN: 0-7861-5128-5
Normal Price: $44.95
Download Price: $29.95 Get it now

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Tags: Brilliant Orator, Buffoon, Death Squads, Earphones, Empire Building, Golden Voice, Henry Viii, Jasper Ridley, Lord Palmerston, Marshal Tito, Mussolini, Napoleon Iii, Persecutor, Political Ideals, San Francisco Bay Area, True Colors, Twentieth Centuries, Vivid Characters, Winston Churchill, World War Ii

Echo of Greece, The

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 by Book Guy | No Comments »

Echo of Greece, The
Fourth-century Athens has a special claim on our attention, writes the author,
apart from the great men it produced, for it is the prelude to the end of Greece…. The kind of
events that took place in the great free government of the ancient world may, by reason of
unchanging human nature, be repeated in the modern world. The course that Athens followed
can be to us not only a record of old unhappy far-off things but a blueprint of what may happen
again.

With the clarity and grace for which she is admired, Edith Hamilton writes of Plato and Aristotle,
of Demosthenes and Alexander the Great, of the much-loved playwright Menander, of the Stoics,
and finally of Plutarch. She brings these figures vividly to life, not only placing them in relation to
their own times but also conveying very poignantly their meaning for our world today.

Nadia May has been nominated as an AudioFile Golden Voice five years running and is a winner of thirteen AudioFile Earphones Awards. She is the co-founder of TheatreFirst, a theater company in the San Francisco Bay Area where she currently lives.
Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Author: Edith Hamilton
Narrator: Nadia May
ISBN: 0-7861-5283-4
Normal Price: $29.95
Download Price: $14.95

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Tags: Blackstone, Demosthenes, Earphones, Echo Of Greece, Edith Hamilton, Free Government, Golden Voice, Great Men, Greece Athens, Human Nature, Menander, Nadia, Narrator, Plato And Aristotle, Plato Aristotle, Playwright, Plutarch, San Francisco Bay, San Francisco Bay Area, Stoics

Lives of The Artists Vol. 1

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 by Book Guy | No Comments »

Georgio Vasari’s original vision of the arts was to see the artist as divinely inspired.
He describes the lives of forty-five artists, including Giotto, Brunelleschi, Fra Angelico, Botticelli,
da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Titian, with striking immediacy conveyed through character
sketches, anecdotes, and detailed recording of conversations.

Although Vasari was at times inaccurate, prompting some dry remarks from Michelangelo, Michelangelo
did praise the work for endowing artists with immortality.

Vasari’s shrewd judgments and his precise pinpointing of the emotions aroused by individual works of art
bear out his predictions that he would have a worldwide influence on the history of art.

Volume One includes the lives of Brunelleschi, Botticelli, da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, and
fourteen more.

Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) , born in Tuscany, studied in Florence with Michelangelo while he was still a boy. When his patron, Duke Alessandro, was assassinated, Vasari wandered round Italy filling his notebooks with sketches; during this period, he conceived the idea of the Lives. By his thirties, Vasari was a highly successful painter; when his Lives were published they were received enthusiastically. He returned to Florence in 1555, where he was appointed architect of the Palazzo Vecchio. After a grand tour of Italian towns he published the revised and enlarged edition of his Lives in 1568. Vasari was knighted by Pope Pius V in 1571.

Nadia May has been nominated as an AudioFile Golden Voice five years running and is a winner of thirteen AudioFile Earphones Awards. She is the co-founder of TheatreFirst, a theater company in the San Francisco Bay Area where she currently lives.
Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Author: Giorgio Vasari, translated by George Bull
Narrator: Nadia May
ISBN: 0-7861-5122-6
Normal Price: $49.95
Download Price: $36.95 Discover this audio book

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Tags: Art Volume, Botticelli, Character Sketches, Duke Alessandro, Earphones, Fra Angelico, Georgio Vasari, Giorgio Vasari, Golden Voice, History Of Art, Individual Works, Italian Towns, Lives Of The Artists, Michelangelo, Original Vision, Palazzo Vecchio, Pope Pius V, San Francisco Bay Area, Titian, Worldwide Influence

Stuffed: Adventures Of A Restaurant Family

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 by Book Guy | No Comments »

Stuffed: Adventures Of A Restaurant Family
In this wildly funny and charming memoir, Patricia Volk entertains with a unique perspective of New York in the mid to late twentieth century and of a bigger-than-life family that owned fourteen restaurants, including Morgens in the garment district. She credits her family with opening the first Jewish deli in the Big Apple. Sharing life and good food for three generations, the family exhibited a voracious appetite for life.

Patricia Volk is the author of the novel White Light and two collections of short stories, All It Takes and The Yellow Banana. She has published stories, book reviews, and essays in numerous publications, including Atlantic Monthly, New York Times Magazine, New York Times Book Review, New York, New Yorker, Playboy, Redbook, GQ ,and O, the Oprah Magazine. She was a weekly columnist for New York Newsday, and she lives in New York City.

Barbara Rosenblat, one of the most awarded and popular narrators in the country, was selected by AudioFile magazine as one of the “Golden Voices of the Twentieth Century.” She is a three-time recipient of the coveted Audie Award and has earned twenty-six Earphones Awards. She has appeared in film, television, and theater, both in London’s West End and on Broadway.
Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc
Author: Patricia Volk
Narrator: Barbara Rosenblat
ISBN: 0-7861-3222-1
Normal Price: $44.95
Download Price: $16.95

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Tags: Atlantic Monthly, Audie Award, Barbara Rosenblat, Earphones, Film Television, Garment District, Golden Voices, Jewish Deli, Late Twentieth Century, Narrators, New York Newsday, New York Times, New York Times Book Review, Newsday, Oprah Magazine, Patricia Volk, Three Generations, Voracious Appetite, Yellow Banana, York Times Magazine