Some Great Nonfiction
Explore transformative nonfiction with our curated list, featuring Harold Bloom's Shakespeare and Simone de Beauvoir's essential works.
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Sexual Personae
by Camille Paglia
The fiery, provocative, and unparalleled work of feminist art criticism that launched the exceptional career of one of our most important public intellectuals—"a remarkable book, at once outrageous and compelling, fanatical and brilliant.... One must be awed by [Paglia's] vast energy, erudition and wit" (The Washington Post). Is Emily Dickinson “the female Sade”? Is Donatello’s David a bit of pedophile pornography? What is the secret kinship between Byron and Elvis Presley, between Medusa and Madonna? How do liberals and feminists—as well as conservatives—fatally misread human nature? This audacious and omnivorously learned work of guerrilla scholarship offers nothing less than a unified-field theory of Western culture, high and low, since Egyptians invented beauty—making a persuasive case for all art as a pagan battleground between male and female, form and chaos, civilization and daemonic nature. With 47 photographs.
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The Gnostic Gospels
by Elaine Pagels
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER • SELECTED BY THE MODERN LIBRARY AS ONE OF THE 100 BEST NONFICTION BOOKS • The landmark study exploring alternative perspectives of early Christianity as revealed through the Nag Hammadi texts that could have shaped the religion differently if included in the Christian canon • "[Pagels] is always readable, always deeply informed, always richly suggestive of pathways her readers may wish to follow out for themselves."—Harold Bloom, The Washington Post “[Pagels] writes with the instincts of a novelist, the skill of a scholar, and the ability to sort out significances that many writers lack.”—Chicago Tribune • “An intellectually elegant, concise study . . . The economy with which [Pagels] evokes the world of early Christianity is a marvel.”—The New Yorker The Gnostic Gospels is a work of luminous scholarship and wide popular appeal. First published in 1979 to critical acclaim, winning the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Gnostic Gospels has continued to grow in reputation and influence. It is now widely recognized as one of the most brilliant and accessible histories of early Christian spirituality published in our time. In 1945 an Egyptian peasant unearthed what proved to be the Gnostic Gospels, thirteen papyrus volumes that expounded a radically different view of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ from that of the New Testament. In this spellbinding book, renowned religious scholar Elaine Pagels elucidates the mysteries and meanings of these sacred texts both in the world of the first Christians and in the context of Christianity today. With insight and passion, Pagels explores a remarkable range of recently discovered gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, to show how a variety of “Christianities” emerged at a time of extraordinary spiritual upheaval. Some Christians questioned the need for clergy and church doctrine, and taught that the divine could be discovered through spiritual search. Many others, like Buddhists and Hindus, sought enlightenment—and access to God—within. Such explorations raised questions: Was the resurrection to be understood symbolically and not literally? Was God to be envisioned only in masculine form, or feminine as well? Was martyrdom a necessary—or worthy—expression of faith? These early Christians dared to ask questions that orthodox Christians later suppressed—and their explorations led to profoundly different visions of Jesus and his message. Brilliant and stunning in its implications, The Gnostic Gospels is a radical, eloquent reconsideration of the origins of the Christian faith.
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The Golden Bough
by James George Frazer
A world classic. The Golden Bough describes our ancestors' primitive methods of worship, sex practices, strange rituals and festivals. Disproving the popular thought that primitive life was simple, this monumental survey shows that savage man was enmeshed in a tangle of magic, taboos, and superstitions. Revealed here is the evolution of man from savagery to civilization, from the modification of his weird and often bloodthirsty customs to the entry of lasting moral, ethical, and spiritual values.
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Shakespeare: Invention of the Human
by Harold Bloom
"The indispensable critic on the indispensable writer." -Geoffrey O'Brien, New York Review of Books A landmark achievement as expansive, erudite, and passionate as its renowned author, this book is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, writing about, and teaching Shakespeare. Preeminent literary critic-and ultimate authority on the western literary tradition, Harold Bloom leads us through a comprehensive reading of every one of the dramatist's plays, brilliantly illuminating each work with unrivaled warmth, wit and insight. At the same time, Bloom presents one of the boldest theses of Shakespearean scholarships: that Shakespeare not only invented the English language, but also created human nature as we know it today.
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Man and His Symbols
by Carl G. Jung
Man and His Symbols owes its existence to one of Jung's own dreams. The great psychologist dreamed that his work was understood by a wide public, rather than just by psychiatrists, and therefore he agreed to write and edit this fascinating book. Here, Jung examines the full world of the unconscious, whose language he believed to be the symbols constantly revealed in dreams. Convinced that dreams offer practical advice, sent from the unconscious to the conscious self, Jung felt that self-understanding would lead to a full and productive life. Thus, the reader will gain new insights into himself from this thoughtful volume, which also illustrates symbols throughout history. Completed just before his death by Jung and his associates, it is clearly addressed to the general reader. Praise for Man and His Symbols "This book, which was the last piece of work undertaken by Jung before his death in 1961, provides a unique opportunity to assess his contribution to the life and thought of our time, for it was also his firsat attempt to present his life-work in psychology to a non-technical public. . . . What emerges with great clarity from the book is that Jung has done immense service both to psychology as a science and to our general understanding of man in society, by insisting that imaginative life must be taken seriously in its own right, as the most distinctive characteristic of human beings."--Guardian "Straighforward to read and rich in suggestion."--John Barkham, Saturday Review Syndicate "This book will be a resounding success for those who read it."--Galveston News-Tribune "A magnificent achievement."--Main Currents "Factual and revealing."--Atlanta Times
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Le Deuxième Sexe
by Simone de Beauvoir
The classic manifesto of the liberated woman, this book explores every facet of a woman's life.
