Added by: westlife | Karma: 733.12 | Fiction literature | 18 February 2009
12
The Prince
When Lorenzo de' Medici seized control of the Florentine Republic in 1512, he summarily fired the Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Signoria and set in motion a fundamental change in the way we think about politics. The person who held the aforementioned office with the tongue-twisting title was none other than Niccolo Machiavelli, who, suddenly finding himself out of a job after 14 years of patriotic service, followed the career trajectory of many modern politicians into punditry. Unable to become an on-air political analyst for a television network, he only wrote a book. But what a book The Prince is. Its essential contribution to modern political thought lies in Machiavelli's assertion of the then revolutionary idea that theological and moral imperatives have no place in the political arena. "It must be understood," Machiavelli avers, "that a prince ... cannot observe all of those virtues for which men are reputed good, because it is often necessary to act against mercy, against faith, against humanity, against frankness, against religion, in order to preserve the state." With just a little imagination, readers can discern parallels between a 16th-century principality and a 20th-century presidency. --Tim Hoga
Added by: otherwordly | Karma: 222.42 | Fiction literature | 16 February 2009
46
Love and loss are the two prevailing themes in this gripping short story collection, featuring 19 of the author's tales-five of which are original to this collection: "When Fat Men Love Thin Women," "The Death Artist," "The Uncertainty Principle," "Monster," and "The Love Clinic." The rest of the stories appeared in such publications as On Spec, TransVersions, Prairie Fire, Northern Frights, Dark Planet, Descant, ChiZine, and the Tesseracts and Queer Fear anthology series.
'Calling all cars, calling all cars. Here's the story on the Smoke Rise kidnapping. The missing boy is eight years old, fair hair, wearing a red sweater. His name is Jeffry Reynolds, son of Charles Reynolds, chauffeur to Douglas King.'
The police at the 87th Precinct hate kidnappers. And these kidnappers are stupid, too. They took the wrong boy - the chauffeur's son instead of the son of the rich tycoon, Douglas King. And they want a ransom of $500,000.
A lot of money. But it's not too much to pay for a little boy's life ... is it?
Colin Dexter. Inspector Morse. Service of All the Dead
Added by: oksana_ukma | Karma: 13.56 | Fiction literature | 16 February 2009
23
Chief Inspector Morse, a middle-aged bachelor with a fondness for crossword puzzles, Mozart, and attractive women, investigates a series of suspicious and sinister events at Oxfords Church of St. Frideswide.
