If you can find a better bang for the buck than Wicked, please let me know. I picked up Wicked, knowing nothing except that its subject matter was the Wicked Witch of the West, to be drawn immediately into Maguire's splendidly imagined world of sentient animals, multiple societies, and unique physical laws. Wicked is an enthralling, great read, hugely entertaining. On top of al...(展开全部)

在线阅读本书 When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil? Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the sam...(展开全部)

Since its first publication more than eighty years ago, The Decline of the West has ranked as one of the most widely read and talked about books of our time. A sweeping account of Western culture by a historian of legendary intellect, it is an astonishingly informed, forcefully eloquent, thrillingly controversial work that advances a world view based on the cyclical rise and ...(展开全部)

How do we find the courage to always be true to ourselves—even if we are unsure of whom we are? </p> That is the central question of international bestselling author Paulo Coelho's profound new work, The Witch of Portobello. It is the story of a mysterious woman named Athena, told by the many who knew her well—or hardly at all. Among them: </p> <blockquote> "People cre...(展开全部)

Oswald Spengler was born in 1880 at Blankenburg, Germany. He studied mathematics, philosophy, and history at Munich and Berlin. Except for his doctor's thesis on Heraclitus, he published nothing before the first volume of The Decline of the West, which appeared when he was thirty-eight. The Agadir crisis of 1911 provided the immediate incentive for his exhaustive investigations...(展开全部)

儒勒·米什莱（Jules Michelet，1798—1874）:法国19世纪著名历史学家，在近代历史研究领域中成绩卓越，被学术界称为“法国最早和最伟大的民族主义和浪漫主义历史学家”。曾陆续任职巴黎高等师范学院哲学与历史学教授、历史档案部主任、法兰西学院历史与伦理学教授。他主张“完整地复活过去”，其写作历史的目的，是以重建过去来显示公义，并期待改造社会，被视为年鉴派史学的鼻祖。米什莱著作等身，除了《法国简史》、《罗马共和国史》、《法国史》、《法国革命史》、《女巫》等史学巨著外，还创作了包括《鸟》、《虫》、《海》、《山》、《爱》、《人民》等一系列的散文作品。

Orphaned Kit Tyler knows, as she gazes for the first time at the cold, bleak shores of Connecticut Colony, that her new home will never be like the shimmering Caribbean island she left behind. In her relatives' stern Puritan community, she feels like a tropical bird that has flown to the wrong part of the world, a bird that is now caged and lonely. The only place where Kit feel...(展开全部)

The history of the Late Roman Empire in the West has been divided into two parallel worlds, analysed either as a political and economic transformation or as a religious and cultural one. But how do these relate one to another? In this concise and effective synthesis, Ian Wood considers some ways in which religion and the Church can be reintegrated into what has become a largely...(展开全部)

在线阅读本书 Iris Murdoch once observed: 'philosophy is often a matter of finding occasions on which to say the obvious'. What was obvious to Murdoch, and to all those who read her work, is that Good transcends everything - even God. Throughout her distinguished and prolific writing career, she explored questions of good and bad, myth and morality. The framework for Murdoch's quest...(展开全部)

Growing up in the suburbs in post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collection. But when his family moved away, the two lost touch. Now Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting he has found happiness...(展开全部)