|
|
|
Unpacking the Boxes: A Memoir of a Life in Poetry
Donald Hall's remarkable life in poetry — a career capped by his appointment as U.S. poet laureate in 2006 — comes alive in this richly detailed, self-revealing memoir. Hall's invaluable record of the making of a poet begins with his childhood in Depression-era suburban Connecticut, where he first realized poetry was "secret, dangerous, wicked, and delicious," and ends with what he calls "the planet of antiquity," a time of life dramatically punctuated by his appointment as poet laureate of the United States. Hall writes eloquently of the poetry and books that moved and formed him as a child and young man, and of adolescent efforts at poetry writing — an endeavor he wryly describes as more hormonal than artistic. His painful formative days at Exeter, where he was sent like a naive lamb to a high WASP academic slaughter, are followed by a poetic self-liberation of sorts at Harvard. Here he rubs elbows with Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, and Edward Gorey, and begins lifelong friendships with Robert Bly, Adrienne Rich, and George Plimpton. After Harvard, Hall is off to Oxford, where the high spirits and rampant poetry careerism of the postwar university scene are brilliantly captured. At eighty, Hall is as painstakingly honest about his failures and low points as a poet, writer, lover, and father as he is about his successes, making Unpacking the Boxes — his first book since being named poet laureate — both revelatory and tremendously poignant..
Price: $10.84
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
The Impossible Takes Longer: The 1,000 Wisest Things Ever Said by Nobel Prize Laureates
Witty, incisive observations on such universally meaningful topics as courage and compassion by many of the greatest minds of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been the hallmark of genius, but Nobel laureates tend to be more than merely brilliant—their idealism, courage, and concern for humanity have also made them sources of inspiration and wisdom. Contrary to the notion that geniuses are absentminded eccentrics who lead solitary lives, many Nobel laureates have been social activists and political leaders, and some have been polymaths whose interests and talents were diverse, such as Philip Noel-Baker, winner of the 1959 Peace prize, who ran in three Olympic Games. The quotations—drawn from biographies, published articles, and speeches—are grouped by such themes as achievement, truth and falsehood, war and conflict, technology, and more. “The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer,” said Fritjof Nansen, who personally repatriated more than 400,000 prisoners of war after World War I, and helped save millions of Russians from starvation. Albert Einstein prudently advised, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts,” and Czeslaw Milosz warned, “In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.” Most of the quotations have never been anthologized previously. There is a section of short biographical sketches of each of the roughly 250 laureates quoted in the book, a brief history of the Nobel Prize, and a complete list of every Nobel laureate through 2006. The Impossible Takes Longer is a remarkable assemblage of insightful, thought-provoking, sometimes humorous statements by some of the world’s wisest men and women. .
Price: $10.75
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash
In this dramatic and moving biography, Sylvia Nasar re-creates the life of a mathematical genius whose brilliant career was cut short by schizophrenia and who, after three decades of devastating mental illness, miraculously recovered and was honored with a Nobel Prize. A Beautiful Mind traces the meteoric rise of John Forbes Nash, Jr., from his lonely childhood in West Virginia to his student years at Princeton, where he encountered Albert Einstein, John von Neumann, and a host of other mathematical luminaries. At twenty-one, the handsome, ambitious, eccentric graduate student invented what would become the most influential theory of rational human behavior in modern social science. Nash's contribution to game theory would ultimately revolutionize the field of economics. As a young professor at MIT, still in his twenties, Nash dazzled the mathematical world by solving a series of deep problems deemed "impossible" by other mathematicians. As unconventional in his private life as in his mathematics, Nash fathered a child with a woman he did not marry. At the height of the McCarthy era, he was expelled as a security risk from the supersecret RAND Corporation -- the Cold War think tank where he was a consultant. At thirty, Nash was poised to take his dreamed-of place in the pantheon of history's greatest mathematicians. His associates included the most renowned mathematicians and economists of the era: Norbert Wiener, John Milnor, Alexandre Grothendieck, Kenneth Arrow, Robert Solow, and Paul Samuelson. He married an exotic and beautiful MIT physics student, Alicia Larde. They had a son. Then Nash suffered a catastrophic mental breakdown. Nasar details Nash's harrowing descent into insanity -- his bizarre delusions that he was the Prince of Peace; his resignation from MIT, flight to Europe, and attempt to renounce his American citizenship; his repeated hospitalizations, from the storied McLean, where he came to know the poet Robert Lowell, to the crowded wards of a state hospital; his "enforced interludes of rationality" during which he was able to return briefly to mathematical research. Nash and his wife were divorced in 1963, but Alicia Nash continued to care for him and for their mathematically gifted son, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager. Saved from homelessness by his loyal ex-wife and protected by a handful of mathematical friends, Nash lived quietly in Princeton for many years, a dreamy, ghostlike figure who scrawled numerological messages on blackboards, all but forgotten by the outside world. His early achievements, however, fired the imagination of a new generation of scholars. At age sixty-six, twin miracles -- a spontaneous remission of his illness and the sudden decision of the Nobel Prize committee to honor his contributions to game theory -- restored the world to him. Nasar recounts the bitter behind-the-scenes battle in Stockholm over whether to grant the ultimate honor in science to a man thought to be "mad." She describes Nash's current ambition to pursue new mathematical breakthroughs and his efforts to be a loving father to his adult sons. Based on hundreds of interviews with Nash's family, friends, and colleagues and scores of letters and documents, A Beautiful Mind is a heartbreaking but inspiring story about the most remarkable mathematician of our time and his triumph over a tragic illness..
Price: $3.78
[Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
On the Beauty of Science: A Nobel Laureate Reflects on the Universe, God, and the Nature of Discovery
'Does the scientist's world conform to the real one? Nature usually answers this question with an emphatic 'No!' It has in fact been said that Nature delights in saying 'No' and only with the greatest reluctance condescends to reveal her secrets. For this reason the scientist's life is not an easy one. However, on those rare occasions when his world does conform to the real one, and for this reason does throw light on the world around us, the rewards and the satisfactions are great and more than compensate for the many disappointments' - Herbert A. Hauptman. In this memoir of a long, distinguished career devoted to scientific research, world-renowned mathematician Herbert A. Hauptman recounts both the joys and the disappointments of his lifelong quest to induce nature to 'reveal her secrets'.In 1985, Dr. Hauptman received the greatest honour that any scientist can receive, when the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded him and his colleague, Jerome Karle, the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Drs Hauptman and Karle were recognised 'for their outstanding achievements in the development of direct methods for the determination of crystal structures'. This work has proved to be of the greatest importance because it relates molecular structure to biological activity, thus permitting a better understanding of life processes and making possible the development of many new disease-fighting drugs. Dr. Hauptman vividly describes the difficulties of the mathematical work that led up to his discovery as well as his joy when he finally hit upon a method of unravelling the structure of crystals.In addition, he provides a personal account of his background, family, his formative studies in high school and college, and the experiences that motivated him to pursue a life devoted to scientific research. A strong advocate of the naturalistic worldview and a critic of supernaturalism in any form, he reflects on the alleged compatibility of science and religion and emphasises the importance of scientific understanding for contemporary civilisation. Complete with an appendix containing the original monograph (co-authored with Jerome Karle), which became the basis for their Nobel Prize-winning work, this fascinating and moving memoir offers important insights into the nature of scientific research and the value of the scientific outlook on life..
Price: $17.47
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Investment Titans: Investment Insights from the Minds that Move Wall Street
Let the legends of finance be your money managers! Imagine having the opportunity to ask Babe Ruth how to hit, or Charles Lindbergh how to fly. Investment Titans assembles an unprecedented panel of Nobel laureates and great financial thinkers--including Harry Markowitz, Paul Samuelson, John Bogle, and others--to ask: "How can investors make smart decisions that minimize risk and uncertainty and maximize return?" Their answers are thought-provoking, innovative, and certain to provide profitable insights for readers to use in their own investing. Each contributor's field of knowledge--hedging risk, defeating psychological negatives, picking stocks, choosing strategies--is featured in its own concise, hands-on chapter. The result is a rare, fascinating look inside the minds and techniques of some of today's greatest financial thinkers. .
Price: $11.00
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Nobel Lectures: From the Literature Laureates, 1986 to 2006
Twenty-one of the world's greatest writers contemplate art and politics in a collection of both lyrical beauty and ethical depth."A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity....You find no shelter, no protection—unless you lie—in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician."—Harold Pinter, from his Nobel lecture "Art, Truth And Politics" For over one hundred years writers from around the world have traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death, to be awarded the prize bearing his name. From the political to the aesthetic, Nobel Lectures collects the words of a quarter century of these literature laureates, representing the inspirations, motivations, and passionately held beliefs of some of the greatest minds in the world of literature. From Harold Pinter's passionate and timely lecture on the nature of truth in art and politics to J.M. Coetzee's allegorical journey through the mysteries of the creative process; from Toni Morrison's essay on the link between language and oppression to Nadine Gordimer's meditation on the ways in which literature can shape the worlds of individual and collective being, this is a volume in which meditations on imagination and the process of writing mingle with keen discussions of global affairs, cultural change, and the ongoing influence of the past. Whatever genre the laureates write in, be it poetry, drama, or prose, and whatever their cultural or social background, Nobel Lectures is a testament to the power of literature to shape the world..
Price: $14.00
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
Nobel Lectures: From the Literature Laureates, 1986 to 2006
Twenty-one of the world's greatest writers offer a "liberating message about the power of language" (Bloomsbury Review)From the political to the aesthetic, Nobel Lectures collects the words of a quarter-century of literature laureates, offering a glimpse into the inspirations, motivations, and passionately held beliefs of some of the greatest minds in the world of literature. Literature laureates from England, China, France, Austria, South Africa, Egypt, Hungary, Trinidad, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Poland, Ireland, Japan, Saint Lucia, Mexico, Spain, Russia, Nigeria, Turkey, and the former Soviet Union offer their meditations on imagination and the process of writing along with keen discussions of global affairs, geography and colonialism, and cultural change in a collection where "the force of their political opinions is what truly distinguishes them" ( New York). From Harold Pinter's passionate lecture on the nature of truth in art and politics to J.M. Coetzee's allegorical journey through the mysteries of the creative process, from Toni Morrison's essay on the link between language and oppression to Orhan Pamuk's tender memories of the influence of his father, each of the pieces—whether the laureate writes poetry, drama, or prose—is a testament to the power of literature to touch us and, every so often, to change the world. Includes the following laureates: • Orhan Pamuk • Harold Pinter • Elfriede Jelinek • J.M. Coetzee • Imre Kertész • V.S. Naipaul • Gao Xingjian • Günter Grass • José Saramago • Dario Fo • Wislawa Szymborska • Seamus Heaney • Kenzaburo Oe • Toni Morrison • Derek Walcott • Nadine Gordimer • Octavio Paz • Camilo José Cela • Naguib Mahfouz • Joseph Brodsky • Wole Soyinka.
Price: $11.56
[ Notify me when price goes down.]
|
|
|
|
|
