The English writer Christopher Isherwood settled in California in 1939 and spent the war years working in Hollywood film studios, teaching English to European refugees, and converting to Hinduism. By the time the war ended, he realized he was not cut out to be a monk. With his self-imposed wartime vigil behind him, he careened into a life of frantic socializing, increasing dissipation, anxiety, and, eventually, despair.For nearly a half decade he all but ceased to write fiction and even abandoned his lifelong habit of keeping a diary.
Added by: JustGoodNews | Karma: 4306.26 | Black Hole | 7 January 2011
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Sugar and Spice by Leda Swann
Even the primmest Victorian garb cannot mask Gwendolyn's delectable attributes—yet her handsome husband regards her with icy disdain. She has but one chance to save her marriage and avert a future of dashed hopes and despair . . . and it requires a visit to a house where sensuality reigns.
The dark, existential despair of Romanian philosopher Cioran's short meditations is paradoxically bracing and life-affirming. Written in 1934, when he was 22 and desperately insomniac, this feverishly lyrical, at times slyly humorous confessional outpouring reveals Cioran as an angry young man in morally decaying Europe--a far cry from the elegant, curt stylist of his later books. Here Cioran rails at life's irrationality and absurdities; embraces solitude, melancholy and the awareness of death...
Added by: ninasimeo | Karma: 4370.39 | Fiction literature | 17 April 2010
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The Gambler brilliantly captures the strangely powerful compulsion to bet that Dostoevsky, himself a compulsive gambler, knew so well. The hero rides an emotional roller coaster between exhilaration and despair, and secondary characters such as the Grandmother, who throws much of her fortune away at the gaming tables, are unforgettable.
