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Summary of the content of "The Shackles of Life": The protagonist Philip Carey's parents died when he was young. Unfortunately, he was born with a disability. He spent his childhood in an indifferent and unfamiliar environment, and his character is therefore withdrawn and sensitive. During the years he spent in boarding school, he suffered from the unreasonable school system, and when he entered society, he experienced pain in love. On the bumpy road of life, he had to struggle hard every step he took, but Kaili, who was independent in thought and personality, had been trying to break away from the two shackles that restricted his spirit, religion and petty citizen consciousness, and tried to find the true meaning of life in the chaotic and chaotic life.

I, Alan, am 29 years old, in my prime, tall, strong, and in good health. I was born and raised in Norway. I am living a good life. To say I have it all is an understatement. No external force threatens me. Interest rates go up and down, but I don't think it has anything to do with me. I don't have a loan. Nor did he have a family. The house I rented in the capital was cheap and good. But recently, I often feel empty. Everything I built has never contributed a cent to the gross national product. Nothing I built is meaningful to this society. There are people who work hard for the prosperity of this country. This is obvious. There are people working hard. I always have to do something for Norway. I want to put Norway on the world map. Norway must be put on the world map. In one fell swoop, the world will be brought to an end, and it will be done sooner rather than later. I had to create a theory. Then prove it. This is what is urgent. A serious theory. And a scorching validation. If I want to discover something, I have to discover something. Who else would I be!

The English Revolution that broke out in 1640 started the process of modern world history. Religious disputes, ethnic conflicts, and conflicts between the royal power and parliament tore Britain apart. Civil war and revolution raged for decades. National sovereignty changed hands many times, and a true and cruel "Game of Thrones" was staged. The political thinker Thomas Hobbes personally experienced this turbulent era, and in his later years wrote the political history work "Behemoth", which focused on the English Civil War. The book is based on the political turmoil in England from 1637 to 1660. It adopts the form of dialogue to discuss the causes of the British Civil War, the occurrence and development of the Civil War, and Hobbes's own views on the Civil War. The title of the book is named after the land monster "Behemoth" in the Bible, echoing the book "Leviathan" named after the sea monster "Leviathan". It can be said that "Behemoth" is Hobbes's analysis of the British Civil War using his mature political theory in his later years, and it is the application of the national theory he constructed in "Leviathan".

The story tells that Aoki, the son of a landowner, has a lot of money, a virtuous wife and a lovely son at home. But the experience of getting lost in the mountains as a child made him always confused and uneasy about life. In addition, he had no worries about food and clothing, and had nothing to do all day long, so he devoted his life to tennis and hunting for women. One day, he met the model Yoshino Aiko who was shooting an advertisement for his steak restaurant. The two soon fell in love and enjoyed a life as gorgeous as champagne. However, the good times did not last long. Yoshino Aiko eventually became tired of this unethical love and decided to leave him. When the tennis boy was in despair, he met another woman in Saipan and fell in love with her at first sight...

"Letter to the Persians" is the only literary work by Montesquieu, the famous French Enlightenment thinker in the 18th century. The novel criticizes the reality of France's politics, economy, military, religion, culture, customs and other aspects at that time.

Why did the Ming Dynasty collapse in the mid-17th century after lasting for 276 years? From the unique perspective of climate history, Sinologist Professor Bu Zhengmin demonstrated how the extreme environment of the Little Ice Age broke through the empire's survival threshold, providing a new perspective in addition to the traditional narrative of "Chongzhen's lack of ability and the Manchus' southward movement leading to the collapse of the Ming Dynasty". Around the 14th century, the climate in the northern hemisphere began to turn colder, reaching its peak in the 17th century. In these three centuries, intermittent dry and cold weather and the persistent dry and cold climate around the 1640s gradually destroyed the agricultural foundation of the Ming Dynasty, causing it to slide from local famine in the Yongle period to the collapse of the national food system in the Chongzhen period. Professor Bu Zhengmin used a large number of private account books, local chronicles, notes and other materials to quantitatively analyze the soaring food prices and the soaring cost of survival, fully presenting the Ming people's feelings about the living environment, commodity prices (especially food prices), etc., As well as the difficulties of people's lives under climate change. The book is logically rigorous and advances layer by layer, demonstrating the impact of climate change on the Ming Dynasty regime. The author believes that climate often sets the limits of people's lives. If there is not enough food to feed everyone, it will at least trigger an economic and social crisis, and probably a political crisis. This understanding has far-reaching implications for understanding the fragility of pre-modern countries and the impact of climate fluctuations on countries.

"My life is his fraternal sibling, a parody of him." Nabokov's last complete novel before his death, a "dying man"'s self-mockery, reveals the mysteries of memory and creation. A wonderful work that Nabokov fans should not miss. It blends fantasy and reality to create another self. It is a joking review of his writing life at the age of seventy-five. "Look, Those Clowns" is the masterpiece of Nabokov's novels, recognized as the master of novels in the 20th century, and it is also the last complete novel he wrote during his lifetime. A dying man carefully uncovers the mysteries of memory and creation, like a satirical drama showing the relationship between real life and the imaginary world. There are inextricable connections between the Russian-American writer Vadim Vadimovich, the protagonist of the novel, and Nabokov himself: a Russian émigré, novelist, poet and critic. He tells a first-person account of his life, from young love to serious illness, his four wives, his works, and the sources of his inspiration. In his twilight years, Nabokov buried countless puzzles and codes in Vadim and incorporated many themes involved in previous novels. All of this transcended the boundaries of his works and life itself, as if he had reconstructed another life and another possibility of his own. It is a wonderful work that true Nabokov fans cannot miss.

Nabokov's first novel after immigrating to the United States, is known as the exquisite "Hamlet in the low voice". A plague of words, the product of fantasy and weird thoughts; the beating of a heart full of love, tortured after emotions are hijacked; a ridiculous police state, the ignorant and random national character. It is his "creation after six years of adapting to the United States." It is also a masterpiece with exquisite conception and rich language. In the novel, the author fictionalizes an absurd country where people believe in Ecclesianism and pursue a uniform Aite League (ordinary people) life. It is the common character of the people to be ignorant and misbehaved. The protagonist Kruger is an elite intellectual in the country, well-known overseas. The leader Bartuk tried in every possible way to get him to endorse the new regime, but he always failed. Finally, he kidnapped Kruger's young son David and used this small "lever of love" to leverage Kruger. The protagonist eventually went crazy as the tragedy happened. The theme of the novel is the beating of Kruger's loving heart. After his wife died of illness and his son was kidnapped, his strong and tender emotions were tortured - this is what Nabokov clearly stated in the preface that readers should care about and feel.

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"Against Interpretation" is one of Susan Sontag's most famous essay collections. It is the famous work that established her status as "the most discerning essayist in existence" in the United States. The commentary has spread across European and American avant-garde literature, drama, and film. It embodies the revolutionary posture and achievements of "new intellectuals" who "oppose interpretation" and re-evaluate the entire literature and art with "new sensibility."

This book is part of the "Collection of Famous Classics" series. It collects fifty-three novels by Bing Xin, who was famous for his "problem novels" in the May Fourth literary world. From "Two Families" written in September 1919 to the last piece "Intervention" in August 1988, the time span is a full seventy years. "There is blood, tears, insults and groans, oppression and shouting..."

The novel "Grass Harp" (1951) is one of the writer's representative short novels. It describes three strange protagonists - one is an orphan, and the other two are eccentric old ladies - who are troubled by the cruel real life in the American South. They tried all kinds of begging methods but were unable to survive. They had no choice but to leave the real world with fierce competition and endless places for people to live in seclusion in a tree house. This is a work in which the author creates early dreams and reality, fiction and truth, which embodies the tradition and color of early American southern literature.

This set includes: 3 books: "Angel Looks Hometown", "Time and River", and "Net and Stone". "Angel Looks Homeward" tells the story of Eugene who was born in a small town in Altmont. His mother, Eliza, drove him and his sisters to the streets to earn money when he was very young. When he was eight years old, Eliza made the South a boarding house, and Eugene stayed with her. Eugene's sister Helen has been staying at home with her father. Other children moved between the two homes. At the age of 16, Eugene entered state college. By the end of his senior year, Eugene had become a big figure on campus. Later, the sudden death of his brother Ben put him in extreme pain. His father was seriously ill, and there were quarrels between the brothers and sisters over the inheritance. Because Eugene had gone to college, they deducted his share of the inheritance and forced him to sign. His mother promised to provide him with one year's tuition, and he left his hometown to go to Harvard University...

Haruki Murakami's only collection of short stories created with a realistic approach, including 9 short stories: "Preface: The Battle on the Carousel", "Bib Shorts", "The Man in the Taxi", "Swimming Pool", "Dedicated to the Late Princess", "Vomiting 1979", "Shelter from the Rain", "Baseball Field" and "The Hunting Knife". The work describes a wife who traveled thousands of miles to buy suitable clothes for her husband, but decided to divorce when she returned home. The man did not dare to look up to the beautiful and proud girl, but she easily fell into his arms. The man who had unrequited love used a telescope to spy on the woman for three months, and felt nothing when they met again. It expresses the author's outlook on life: sometimes life is like a merry-go-round.

A masterpiece of magic and spirituality intertwined by the author of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Marquez! About memories of a lost world; about personal loneliness in different situations. Everyone who is surprised by the magic of time and everyone who has ever felt lonely should not miss it! The collection of Marquez's early short stories includes "The Third Endurance", "The Pain of Three Sleepwalkers", "The Eyes of the Blue Dog", "The Woman Arriving at Six O'Clock", "Someone Messed Up These Roses", "Navo, the Black Man Who Let the Angels Wait", "Someone Came from the Rain", "Isabel's Monologue While Watching the Rain in Macondo" and other 14 classics. These stories tell about characters and realities that have stopped along with stopped time. It includes the author's recollection of his hometown and the reproduction of his childhood experiences, as well as his exploration of themes such as loneliness, death, absurdity, and eternity.

This book is a work that was not published during the lifetime of the Russian literature master Andrei Platonov. "Chevincourt" describes the story of a group of lonely revolutionary visionaries trying to find and create a new world in the remote county town of Chevincourt. They eliminated and exiled the bourgeoisie, destroyed forests, demolished houses, stopped all production activities, slept in the wilderness, fed their hunger with grass, and relied on the power of the sun to survive. They actively explored and built a new life with their imagination and enthusiasm for the world, but due to the lack of theoretical support and practical experience, they ultimately paid a heavy price. The author is extremely sarcastic and full of warmth towards the "weirdos" he writes about. The novel embodies the author's calm examination and painful reflection on the social trends of the time, as well as his deep understanding and worries about reality.

This book is a collection of Zweig's novellas. "Letter from an Unknown Woman" tells the story of a man who received a thick unsigned letter on his forty-first birthday. The letter was written by a dying woman. Between the lines is her unforgettable love for him for eighteen years, but the man who received the letter had no idea about it. In addition, it also includes the famous works "The Burning Secret", "Tropical Madness", "Twenty-Four Hours in a Woman's Life", "The Story of Chess", etc.

This book is a collection of O. Henry's classic short stories. His story shows ironic pathos, unique humor, and an ending that is impossible to guess until the last second.

Yoshiko, a female disciple full of youthful vitality, breaks into Takenaka Tokio's stagnant life day after day, awakening his emotions and desires. However, due to his dignity as a teacher and family ethics, he could not speak out and could only endure it. At this time, Yoshiko fell into a passionate love, which made Takezaka jealous. He couldn't help but write to Yoshiko's father in his hometown, asking him to take Yoshiko back to the countryside and break up the young couple with his own hands. Yoshiko finally left. Sadness and despair, along with unreleased love, surged into Zhu Zhong's head. Zhu Zhong picked up the quilt that Yoshiko had covered and covered his face, and couldn't help crying. This book includes Tianshan Huadao's short story "Quilt" and novel "Country Teacher".

If you haven't been to hell in person, how can you describe the scene of hell? "Hell Transformation" tells the story of a highly skilled painter, Yoshihide, who cruelly sacrificed his daughter in order to pursue the highest realm of art and completed a "Hell Transformation" screen that shocked the world. Through the human tragedy of the painter Yoshihide, we gain insight into the deep ugliness and darkness of human nature, express the life tragedy of a lonely person who is "art for art's sake", and fully demonstrate the lonely core and death fantasy of Akutagawa's literature. The book includes 8 representative works of Akutagawa Ryunosuke, including "Hell Transformation", "Spider Thread" and "In the Bamboo Forest", from his talented early stage, the middle stage that juxtaposes ancient and modern times, and the late stage of his heartfelt confession, leading readers to experience the out-of-control human purgatory of greed, anger and ignorance, and to torture their own sincerity in the fire of ignorant karma. Everyone who steps into the gate of hell from the human world thinks that he is the embodiment of justice when he does evil. Attachment is hell, others are hell, and the world is hell.

Mathilde, the wife of an ordinary civil servant, borrowed a diamond necklace from a friend to attend a party, but accidentally lost it on the way home. She had to borrow money to buy a new necklace and return it to her friend. In order to repay the debt, she scrimped on food and clothing and worked part-time for others, working hard for ten years. Finally, I learned that the necklace I borrowed was originally a fake diamond necklace. This article takes the necklace itself as a clue and leads readers into the life and inner world of the heroine Mathilde through the plot of borrowing, losing, and returning the necklace, and deeply appreciates the tragic reality that small people in the capitalist society of the 19th century cannot decide their own destiny.

To be disqualified in the human world is to lose the qualifications to be a human being. This is the last work of Dazai Osamu's life, and it is also his important work. The book consists of the author's preface, postscript, and three letters written by the protagonist Oba Yezang. The protagonist Ye Zang has been timid and cowardly from adolescence to middle age. He is afraid of worldly emotions and does not understand the complex thoughts of human beings. He then entertains others through comedy and hides his true self. In order to escape reality, he kept sinking, experienced self-exile, alcoholism, suicide, and numbing himself with drugs, and finally walked towards the tragedy of self-destruction step by step. In the process of self-denial, he expressed his inner depression. This book contains famous works such as "The Setting Sun", "Run, Mellors", "Villon's Wife", "The Beautiful Man and the Cigarette", and "Cherry".

This book is a collection of short stories by Japanese writer Atsushi Nakajima. Each chapter in the book is based on Chinese classics, such as "The Analects of Confucius", "Lieh Tzu", "Historical Records", "Journey to the West" and Tang Dynasty Legends. Atsushi Nakajima borrows the shell of Chinese classics and injects modern ideology. He opens up his imagination in the blank spaces and gaps of Chinese classics to create strange worlds that are both true and illusory, presenting the human nature and modernity in classical stories. Atsushi Nakajima focuses on expressing the loneliness and nihilism of modern people. The protagonists in his works usually fall into self-pulling situations. However, while expressing the plight of the human spirit, they also provide a way out, gradually establishing the order of their own inner world, defeating nihility in action, and re-establishing their complete self. "Mountain Moon", with its sincerity, thoroughness, profoundness and sharpness, has become a book of warning, a book of answers and a book of life for countless literary and artistic young people.

"Bottom Official" describes the story of Liu Keke, a "left-handed man" from a county in the south who was seconded to the county government from a middle school physics teacher but always cared about the people. He worked hard at all levels of the county, township, and village, solving problems for the people, adhering to justice, and confronting various "hidden rules" of officialdom. He walked step by step with difficulty in the cracks of officialdom, went through hardships, and even lost his beloved wife, and finally became the secretary of the county party committee. At the same time, along with the twists and turns of county magistrate Ying Yuan, county party committee secretary Fang Wenwen, office director Lin Qu, office deputy director Su Xinhui and other officials. The story is interspersed with the personal emotional experiences of Liu Kekesong and several other officials, including the complex emotional entanglement between the county magistrate Ying Yuan and the deputy director of the county government Su Xinhui, Liu Kekesong's later wife, which adds more excitement to the novel.

A controversial work by Nobel Prize winner William Golding, a "dark version" of desert island literature, was selected into the "Western Canon" by the famous 20th century literary critic Harold Bloom. A profound novel that explores the evil of human nature and whether the soul can ultimately be redeemed. "Pincher Martin" is an important masterpiece by William Golding. It is a masterpiece that deeply explores the evil of human nature and whether the soul can ultimately be redeemed. The book tells the story of a low-ranking officer named Christopher Hadley Martin on a British naval escort fleet during the Second World War. His warship was hit by a torpedo, and he was washed up on a rock in the ocean by the waves. He fought desperately for survival alone in the harsh environment, and eventually died. However, it is not until the end of the story that the author reveals to the readers in an unexpected way: Martin's torture on the rocks is actually just the suffering of a sinful soul in purgatory. The author wants to use this to warn mankind that if you persist in your own greed and sin, you will eventually fall into hell and never recover; and only by destroying the human nature of greed can your soul be expected to undergo the baptism of purgatory and be finally saved.

"The Black Sailor of the Narcissus" is one of the masterpieces of Conrad's famous "sea novels". Whit, the new black sailor, fell ill in bed as soon as he boarded the ship. He made no contribution to the entire voyage, but showed "irritability and cowardice" everywhere. In the end, Whit died on the ship. The sailors held a water burial for him. As soon as Whit's body fell into the sea, a strange wind blew on the sea. After that, everything was normal. The "Narcissus" arrived in England, and the sailors scattered after landing. This unique image of Whit has aroused great interest among critics. Commenting on "Narcissus" became an explanation of Whit's meaning. As a result, there were as many Whits as Conrad critics. In fact, Whitt is just the focus of the shadows cast by thousands of concrete social phenomena on land to the sea. Conrad "objectified" universal human suffering into Whit, thereby creating a unique character.

"Walden" is a collection of essays written by American writer Henry David Thoreau. In the book, the author describes in detail the two years and two months he spent in a regenerated forest on the shores of Walden Pond and his many thoughts during this period. The book begins with spring, goes through summer, autumn and winter, and ends with spring. Just like a cycle of life, the end is also the starting point, and life begins to recover. The whole book is full of tranquility, tranquility and wisdom. In analyzing life and criticizing customs, the sentences are astonishing, the words are shining, the insights are unique and thought-provoking. After reading it, readers will naturally feel the purity of the soul and the sublimation of the spirit.

The most mature work of Junichiro Tanizaki in his later years, a humorous and absurd work by the master of devilish aesthetics. I can do whatever I want at the end of my life, no matter how crazy the world laughs at me. The old man in his seventies has lost his health and ability to be romantic. While lingering on his sick bed, he projects his twisted desires on his young and beautiful daughter-in-law Sa Zi. Sa Zi is romantic and willful, and never refuses the old man's advances. The relationship between the two gradually became distorted. Sa Zi took advantage of the old man, was extravagant, and even brought his lover into his home; the old man enjoyed being trampled by Sa Zi and licking her toes, and regarded this as the craziest adventure at the end of his life. "Diary of a Mad Old Man" is a classic work depicting the psychology of the elderly. We can see the strong contrast between groups of images: the physical representation of weakness and the strong inner desires, the sense of doomsday incompetence and the drive of primitive power, sensual enjoyment and spiritual emptiness. Only through the diary can the old man reveal his desires and fears; only by reading the diary can readers understand the essence of Tanizaki Junichiro's demonic aesthetics.

"Berlin Childhood" is a collection of essays by Benjamin, a famous German scholar and thinker, who re-examines his childhood life. Around 1900, the author experienced the urban life in Berlin, fragments of memory that flowed freely on that day, and pictures as beautiful as illustrations, like pearls scattered on the ground, shining with moving light in the dark night. Western critics hailed it as "one of the beautiful prose creations of our time."

Abbas was the founder of Iran's new wave of cinema and a master of poetic cinema. He made 22 films in his life and was unanimously praised by film giants such as Akira Kurosawa and Godard. In 1997, Abbas won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for "Taste of Cherry". Later, his works such as "Where is My Friend's House", "Lover Under the Olive Tree" and "Gone with the Wind" won international awards. Abbas's movies use the lens to gaze at the ordinary world, and the pure and simple stories give people the simplest touch. The image style is concise and poetic, full of humanistic feelings and philosophical thinking. "The Taste of Cherry" is a precious summary of Abbas's life as a director. It presents Abbas's artistic and life views in detail and profoundly. It is a film meditation with both practical and aesthetic values.

Montaigne is world-famous for his rich ideological connotation and is known as the "treasure house of ideas". "Being a Spectator of Life (Essays of Montaigne) (Essence)" collects Montaigne's essays, mainly philosophical essays. "Being a Bystander of Life (Essays of Montaigne) (Essence)" contains all aspects of life, is full of the author's wise thinking, and fully demonstrates the essence of Montaigne's thoughts.

Once upon a time, this luxurious house had a majestic father, a beautiful mother, a lovely younger brother, and a family of uncles and aunts. It was very lively... However, after a dinner, there were only three people left in the family... Who is the murderer? And the murderer's motive for killing is even more shocking... The sister Constance, who suffers from phobia of strange places, out of nostalgia for her lost family, cooks and cleans with the implication of unchanging religious rituals; and the sister Mary Kate is also surrounded by adventures when she goes to the village center for shopping, where she has to struggle to deal with the lame teasing of the village children, full of hostility and hatred in her heart. Uncle Julian, dependent on Constance's care, is immersed in his little world, playing with his manuscripts chronicling the family's history. How do these three people face their uninvited cousin Charles? People outside the castle went from snooping, sarcasm, and satire at the beginning. They made the tragedy of the family poisoning into a school song and spread it widely, to the terrible rumors about the castle, and finally people showed kindness to the sisters after the fire. What made people change their attitudes?

The flight of a bird is casual and spontaneous, like the curling of a stem or the lightening of a star. "Pilgrimage to Tinker Creek" records a year of life in the Dillard Mountains. Each page is a beautiful mystery, as if watching a whole year of secrets about creation: the birds in the sky, the plants on the ground, the stars in the universe, all written casually, but full of exquisite beauty everywhere. She writes about what she sees in her eyes, but often makes more profound and profound associations in her mind, starting from the big-eyed silkworm moth, writing about a cell in its wet heart, there will be a forest swaying inside; about the vitality of trees: a big elm tree can produce six million leaves in one season alone, all of which are very complicated, but also effortless. And she laughed at herself: "I can't even make one piece." She watched the cruelty of creation, the parasite eating the host out of the stomach, and the inheritance of life based on this life-and-death struggle. Or wasteful, those ephemeral bugs lay thousands of eggs, and countless of them die, and a species survives just by relying on the few that survive. In the author's writing, nature is both terrifying and full of infinite mercy. If you can have a pair of observant eyes, you have saved yourself a "good life". "Pilgrimage to Tinker Creek" can be regarded as a model of contemporary nature literature and has been widely selected as textbooks for American universities and middle schools. Critics believe that this book is better than Thoreau's "Walden", while others say it is comparable to Fabre's "Insects". For Dillard, it was a free and bold confrontation with the world's greatest themes of life and death with her young and unrestrained mind of twenty-six years old.

This book is a collection of personal letters of the famous Russian poet Lermontov. These dozens of letters were sent to the author's grandmother, lover, relatives, friends, etc. From them, one can intimately feel the appearance of Lermontov in life, a real and living literary giant. In his letters, he would talk about literature, drama and art, as well as the military activities in the Caucasus in which he was about to participate... This collection of letters completely and vividly presents Lermontov's life, a short but touching life; it is a very precious material for literature lovers and researchers.

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This is a non-fiction prose book full of novel reading quality. 20 Concise chapters outline Hemingway's life experience in his most beautiful years. At that time, he had not yet written masterpieces such as "The Old Man and the Sea" and "The Sun Also Rises" that allowed him to escape from the worldly triviality. However, Paris during this period and the artists he interacted with deeply influenced his subsequent literary creation.

Haruki Murakami's travel essays. If you really had a time machine and could use it once at will, what would you want to achieve? From the Charles River to the banks of the Mekong River, from Reykjavik to Tuscany, we followed Haruki Murakami through seven countries and eleven places, as if we were on a time machine traveling through reality, discovering a warm and interesting world. In the moss-covered Iceland, you encounter tailless sheep and cute lost birds; revisit the Greek island where "Norwegian Wood" started, and trace your distant memories on the increasingly complicated streets. Go to Kumamoto during the rainy season and visit the former residence of Natsume Soseki... No matter what kind of trip you take, it is full of surprises and surprises. In an era of anxiety, if you read more about Haruki Murakami and enjoy life like Haruki Murakami, you will discover a warm and interesting world.

"Fire" is the posthumous work of writer, poet, and singer Leonard Cohen. This book is prefaced by Leonard Cohen's son Adam Cohen and translated by writer Ouyang Yu. It includes the lyrics of Cohen's three studio albums at the end of his music career, "Old Ideas", "Popular Questions" and "You Want It Darker", the lyrics written for Anjani's album "Blue Alert", as well as selected prose, paintings and many unpublished poems from Cohen's "Notebook" for creation. ------ "I'm here, I'm here. I'm ready." - "You Want It Darker" Legendary singer Leonard Cohen passed away in November 2016. In an interview with The New Yorker in his later years, Cohen said: "I'm ready to die, I just hope it won't be too uncomfortable. That's it." At the end of Cohen's life, he was only doing one thing: compiling a book of unpublished poems from the "notebook" where he recorded daily inspiration. Fire was an idea and image with which Cohen was intensely preoccupied in the closing years of his life. Cohen's poems are warm, candid and eclectic, and present the strong image of "flame" to the world. We are fortunate to witness the brilliance of Cohen's fire of life. "Leonard didn't mind talking about death at all. ...'Death' has appeared in Leonard's poems and songs from the beginning. As early as decades ago, Leonard had reached some kind of friendly agreement with 'death'." - Sylvie Simmons (author of Leonard Cohen's biography "I'm Your Man")

In April 1849, Dostoevsky was arrested and sentenced to death in December of the same year. Before execution, his sentence was changed to four years of hard labor and then exiled to the army. The letters he wrote to his elder brother and younger brother in prison describe his life in prison, especially the last letter, which describes his psychological state when he was on the verge of death. These letters record his initial exploration of the limits of the human mind. Even in the most severe desperate situation, he did not lose his strong will to write, and almost relied on writing to support his entire existence. Dostoevsky also published many articles in newspapers. In his prose, as in his novels, Dostoevsky appears as an irreplaceable spiritual phenomenon. They are not only must-read texts for us to understand this literary giant, but also profoundly reveal many fundamental characteristics of modern people's lives and consciousness.

This book is Tony Judt's oral memoir after he suffered from ALS. It is also the only work in which Judt talks about himself. In the silent nights where he could not move, Judt used space as a clue to search and organize past memories, and built a "memory house". He admitted that his writing during his illness basically came from his night visits to the memory cabin. He sometimes focuses on small things, describing his grandmother's Jewish cuisine, London's Green Line buses, and Swiss trains. Sometimes he looks at the wider world and talks about the farcical movements of the post-war generation in Western Europe, the ideological constraints of the era, and his own observations and participation in society. These words shuttle between the moving and the sharp, the private and the public, the specific history and the individual feelings of being involved in it. They trace not only the life course of a historian, but also the complex history of the 20th century. The "Works of Tony Judt" series also includes "Postwar European History", "Sickness Everywhere", "On Europe", "Thinking about the 20th Century: The Thoughtful Autobiography of Tony Judt", "The Burden of Responsibility: Bloom, Camus, Aron and France in the 20th Century", "The Unfinished Past: French Intellectuals, 1944-1956", "After Facts Changed", "Revaluing Values" (new edition to be released), etc.

"As It Comes" is a collection of essays with diverse styles and wonderful twists. It is also Maugham's highly regarded masterpiece of literary criticism. The characters and themes in his writing range from the master of philosophy Kant to the tough-guy detective novelist Chandler, from the legend of Spanish Baroque painter Zurbarán to the Western The art of detective fiction has been explored by writers ranging from the statesman Burke to the travel writer and memoirist Augustus Hale, and among "pure literary" writers there are eccentric yet wonderful descriptions of Henry James, H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, and Edith Wharton. With his insight into character creation and superb storytelling skills, Maugham vividly, interestingly and penetratingly portrays the personalities, temperaments, quirks and even souls of these famous characters. This is a rare and wonderful article that bridges the two different fields of chronicling essays and literary criticism.

"The Old Man and the Sea" tells the story of an old Cuban fisherman's desperate struggle with a formidable marlin in the sea. "The Old Man and the Sea" is fluently written, concise and capable, vividly expressing the fighting spirit of human beings in the face of danger, and the strong character image created is a classic. The author won the "Pulitzer Prize" and the most important "Nobel Prize for Literature" in one fell swoop.

As the author Canetti said, if you want to describe a person truthfully, you can write an entire book. Even so, the person is still not described in detail. But if people explore how they remember a person, they will find that what makes a person unique is a few characteristics. In this book, "Ear Witness", Canetti describes, or "invents" fifty kinds of personalities, which are extremely reflected in individual people and become their respective personality labels, such as "Celebrity Licker", "Tear Stoker", "Blatant Eyes", "Disaster Observer", "Intoxicated Man", "Nothing Virgin", etc. These seemingly exaggerated labels are actually extremely real in nature. They are all components of human nature. Perhaps every reader can identify themselves and see themselves in several or even more labels that may be cute, absurd, despicable, or ugly. This collection of character sketches was written in 1974. Its greatest feature is the combination of humorous writing and pungent satire.

"Travel Notes on China" is a record of what the Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa wrote after his visit to China. In 1921, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, then 29 years old, visited China as a reporter. After returning to China, he recorded the social customs and sentiments of China at that time. In addition, he also left records of his conversations with historical celebrities such as Zhang Binglin and Li Renjie, which are precious materials that show the style of modern China and understand the history of Sino-Japanese exchanges.

On the hot plains of central Spain, a priest who had just been accidentally promoted to a high priest and a former mayor who believed in communism drove a rusty Seat 600 car, heading towards Madrid... General Franco, the Inquisition, Marx and "Das Kapital", pornographic movies, Malaga wine, the Holy Trinity... In Green's modern parody of "Don Quixote", Father Quixote and Mayor "Sancho" debate various issues. With their beliefs being questioned and doubts secretly growing, where will their troubled journey ultimately go?

Jack London eulogized the bravery and tenacity of life through "harsh truth" and fierce confrontations between unyielding people - there are stories of exhausted gold diggers and stalking wolves in "For the Love of Life"; there are stories in "Kulu the Leper" and "Unrepentant Jane" in which the protagonists fight fiercely against enemies at the critical juncture of life and death; and there are also stories in "What Life Means to Me" about small people from the bottom of society who are not afraid of all difficulties and pursue a happy life. If you taste it carefully, you have to be conquered by the characters created by London. Not only humans, but other creatures are also as agile and tenacious as humans. "The Dalmatian" tells the story of a Dalmatian with extremely strong vitality, who can return home safely no matter how many times he is abandoned, and survives every misfortune. You have to sigh: How tenacious life is!

The precious and precise advice greatly promotes the ideological reform of Asian women. "Feminine Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Essays of Yuriko Miyamoto" belongs to the "Yuriko Miyamoto Works Series" produced by Houlang. The progressive Japanese female writer Yuriko Miyamoto had a profound female awakening after the baptism of marriage. On the one hand, she wrote her life experiences in "The Escaped Nobuko" and "The Courtyard of Forked Paths". On the other hand, she advocated equal rights for men and women and equality for everyone. In articles such as "The Fall of History - A Brief Discussion on Ogai, Soseki and Kafu's Views on Women", "Women's History - Based on Literature", "Human Marriage - The Morality of Marriage", "Clothes and Women's Life - For Whom", through the analysis of ancient and modern literary and artistic works and social development backgrounds, we deeply examine the changes in women's status, and urge women to step out of the family, join society and create their own future. Even now in the twenty-first century, these ideas ring true. Yuriko Miyamoto's passionate life of rejecting decadence is a history of modern Japanese women's struggle. She promoted women's liberation, encouraged rural women to participate in literary creation and social movements, and truly spent her whole life practicing what kind of person they wanted to be, not just what kind of woman they were.

"Sand Country Almanack" is the crystallization of Leopold's lifelong observations, experiences and thinking, the founder of the new environmental theory in the United States and the father of ecological ethics. It is a book describing the relationship between land and people, and is known as the pioneering work of land ethics. The book covers knowledge from many subjects, the language is fresh and beautiful, and the content is serious and profound. The lines reflect the author's meticulous observations, and are filled with the author's deep love for birds, beasts, exotic flowers and plants. It is a classic that is worthy of repeated reading. It is also an introductory book for children to go into the wild and cultivate environmental protection and ecological awareness. It was once rated as "one of the top ten best books in the field of nature writing in the 20th century" by the New York Public Library in the United States.

"The Sanatorium with an Hourglass Sign" was published in 1937 and consists of thirteen short stories: an indescribable and unwritten book, the spring of reading with the help of a stamp album, the human-faced dog in the sanatorium, many outsiders, the old man who re-read elementary school, the father who resurrected as a crab after death and was eaten by his family... It is based on the author's childhood and family, and adds a lot of strange imagination, magnificent images and obscure metaphors, making it difficult to distinguish between reality and dreams. The text is exquisite and poetic, full of pictures and music. The translation of this book is mainly based on the English translation by John Curran Davis.

"Madame Bovary" is a novel by the famous French writer Flaubert. The work tells the story of Emma, ​​a peasant girl who received an aristocratic education. She looked down on her husband Bovary, a rural doctor, and dreamed of a legendary love. However, the two affairs not only failed to bring her happiness, but also made her the target of exploitation by loan sharks. In the end, he accumulated huge debts and had no choice but to commit suicide by taking poison. The author describes the process of the protagonist's emotional decline with delicate brushstrokes, and strives to find the social roots of this tragedy. Emma's death is not only a tragedy for herself, but also a tragedy for that era.