""Bewildering!"" I exclaimed to myself as I laid down the letter. It was from my publisher, telling me that a third edition of six thousand copies of the ""Amenities"" would go to press shortly (making fifteen thousand in all), and saying that, if there were ""no objections or corrections, it would stand approved as read."" I looked about my little office in which so many (to m...(展开全部)

The World, China, and A Short History of Collecting is a unique collection of essays that brings together theories of materiality and what collecting has meant to various peoples over time. Collecting China grew out of a simple question: how does a thing become Chinese? Fifteen essays explore this question from different angles, ranging from close examination of world-renowned ...(展开全部)

James Delbourgo is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University.

Winner of an English PEN Award 'He is not a good writer, thank goodness. He is a great one' Jonathan Safran Foer A gripping novel about an unusual family's breakdown, set in 1950s-60s South America Loosely based on real events, Affections tells the story of the eccentric, fascinating Ertl family, headed by the egocentric and extraordinary Hans, once Leni Riefenstahl's famous ca...(展开全部)

Kundera whirls through comedy and tragedy towards his central question: how does a person, any person, live today? In constructing his answer, he writes of politics, sex, literature, modern man's alienation - and of their antidotes: laughter and forgetting

Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reorder...(展开全部)

Kundera whirls through comedy and tragedy towards his central question: how does a person, any person, live today? In constructing his answer, he writes of politics, sex, literature, modern man's alienation - and of their antidotes: laughter and forgetting

"Essential reading for anyone interested in gaining insight into how the passion of collecting, that pursuit of beautiful and compelling objects, contributed to the formation of our present-day understanding and appreciation of Chinese art."--Kris Imants Ercums, Curator of Asian Art, Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas "Provides a wealth of information on the deal...(展开全部)

In 1759 the British Museum opened its doors to the general public―the first free national museum in the world. James Delbourgo’s biography of Hans Sloane recounts the story behind its creation, told through the life of a figure with an insatiable ambition to pit universal knowledge against superstition and the means to realize his dream. Born in northern Ireland in 1660, Sloane...(展开全部)