古希臘人開創許多門藝術，其中包括了「記憶術」。詩人兼哲學家賽莫尼底斯，是公認發明這門技藝的人──在一次宴會廳突然坍塌後，罹難的家屬無從認屍，就是他按記憶說出死亡賓客的座位與名字的排序。「記憶術」建立起主宰西方十數個世紀的心像記憶法傳統。在古希臘，記憶女神妮摩姬尼乃眾繆斯之母，可見在印刷術尚未發明之前，擁有記憶本領的重要性。記憶術可說是西方文明最不可或缺的一環──整理記憶方法的歷史，觸及宗教、藝術、文學、哲學、心理學、倫理學，以及科學方法的歷史。我們一旦細查這些深遠的相關性，更覺得這一趟探索不僅開啟了觀察西方文化的視野，也界定了幽遠文明的一些最重要的發展。這門技術仰賴的深層視覺記憶官能，其實是現代人早已不懂得運用的。想像在印刷術發明之前，人們如何學習把龐大的知識庫記在腦裡？如果真具備那種鍛鍊過的記憶能力，對現今的你我顯然也將啟發良多，甚至是莫大的優勢。...(展开全部)

One of Modern Library's 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Twentieth Century In this classic study of how people learned to retain vast stores of knowledge before the invention of the printed page, Frances A. Yates traces the art of memory from its treatment by Greek orators, through its Gothic transformations in the Middle Ages, to the occult forms it took in the Renaissance, a...(展开全部)

The ancient Greeks, to whom a trained memory was of vital importance - as it was to everyone before the invention of printing - created an elaborate memory system, based on a technique of impressing 'places' and 'images' on the mind. Inherited and recorded by the Romans, this art of memory passed into the European tradition, to be revived, in occult form, at the Renaissance, an...(展开全部)

Published in 1996, Richard Jones's Garbage Collection was a milestone in the area of automatic memory management. The field has grown considerably since then, sparking a need for an updated look at the latest state-of-the-art developments. The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management brings together a wealth of knowledge gathered by automatic memory m...(展开全部)

Published in 1996, Richard Jones's Garbage Collection was a milestone in the area of automatic memory management. The field has grown considerably since then, sparking a need for an updated look at the latest state-of-the-art developments. The Garbage Collection Handbook: The Art of Automatic Memory Management brings together a wealth of knowledge gathered by automatic memory m...(展开全部)

High above the planet Harmony. the Oversoul watches Its task. programmed so many millennia ago. is to guard the human settlement on this planet-. -to protect this fragile remnant of Earth from all threats. To protect them. most of all. from themselves. The Oversoul has done its job well. There is no war on Harmony. There are no weapons of mass destruction. There is no technolog...(展开全部)

Freetown, Sierra Leone, 1969. On a hot January evening that he will remember for decades, Elias Cole first catches sight of Saffia Kamara, the wife of a charismatic colleague. He is transfixed. Thirty years later, lying in the capital's hospital, he recalls the desire that drove him to acts of betrayal he has tried to justify ever since. Elsewhere in the hospital, Kai, a gift...(展开全部)

Freetown, Sierra Leone, 1969. On a hot January evening that he will remember for decades, Elias Cole first catches sight of Saffia Kamara, the wife of a charismatic colleague. He is transfixed. Thirty years later, lying in the capital's hospital, he recalls the desire that drove him to acts of betrayal he has tried to justify ever since. Elsewhere in the hospital, Kai, a gift...(展开全部)

阿敏娜妲·芙娜（Aminatta Forna），生于苏格兰，长于西非，现居伦敦。2007年，被《名利场》评为非洲最重要的新作家之一。 其处女作《在水面跳舞的恶魔》（The Devil That Danced on the Water）获得2003年萨缪尔·约翰逊奖决选，《祖先石》（Ancestor Stones）获得2008年项豪斯顿·莱特遗产奖、都柏林文学奖的提名，及被《华盛顿时报》列为2006年最有影响力的文学作品。 阿敏娜妲也为杂志、报纸、广播和电视写稿，撰写了一部关于非洲历史与艺术的电视纪录片。

Every novelist's work contains an implicit vision of the history of the novel, an idea of what the novel is. I have tried to express here the idea of the novel that is inherent in my own novels. -- Milan Kundera Kundera brilliantly examines the work of such important and diverse figures as Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Diderot, Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Musil. He is especially pe...(展开全部)