The Existentialist Café by Sarah Bakewell

At the Existentialist Café
142.78 B179at
Sarah Blakewell

Paris, near the turn of 1933. Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking. Pointing to his drink, he says, 'You can make philosophy out of this cocktail!'

From this moment of inspiration, Sartre will create his own extraordinary philosophy of real, experienced life – of love and desire, of freedom and being, of cafés and waiters, of friendships and revolutionary fervour. It is a philosophy that will enthral Paris and sweep through the world, leaving its mark on post-war liberation movements, from the student uprisings of 1968 to civil rights pioneers.

At the Existentialist Café tells the story of modern existentialism as one of passionate encounters between people, minds and ideas. From the ‘king and queen of existentialism' – Sartre and de Beauvoir – to their wider circle of friends and adversaries including Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Iris Murdoch, this book is an enjoyable and original journey through a captivating intellectual movement. Weaving biography and thought, Sarah Bakewell takes us to the heart of a philosophy about life that also changed lives, and that tackled the biggest questions of all: what we are and how we are to live.

(from publisher)

Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie by Martinetti, LeBeau, Franc

Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie
GN M3662a
Anne Martinetti, Guillaume LeBeau, Alexandre Franc

The life of Agatha Christie was as mysterious and eventful as her fiction. This beautifully illustrated graphic novel traces the life of the Queen of Whodunnit from her childhood in Torquay, England, through a career filled with success, mischief, and adventure, to her later years as Dame Agatha. 

Revealing a side to Christie that will surprise and delight many readers, Agatha introduces us to a free-spirited and thoroughly modern woman who, among other things, enjoyed flying, travel, and surfing. Centering around an episode in 1926 when Christie staged her own disappearance, Agatha is an intriguing, entertaining, and funny exploration of the 20th century’s best-loved crime novelist.

(from publisher)

This May Sound Crazy by Abigail Breslin

This May Sound Crazy
791.45028092 B754b
Abigail Breslin

Academy Award-nominated actress and musician Abigail Breslin is your best friend in her publishing debut, a collection of hilarious and heartfelt nonfiction essays on the subjects nearest and dearest to our hearts: love, loss, and Tumblr.

Growing up in film and the online era, Abigail knows better than anyone—it’s rough out there in love-land. And this generation is ill-prepared to handle it gracefully. Let’s be honest: if Cinderella had been on Twitter, she’d have ended up a crazy old cat lady like the rest of us. #realtalk

So when your “boyfriend” is liking different eligible young things’ selfies, what’s a modern ingenue to do? Put down the iPhone, step away from the hair dye, and ~chill~. Abbie is here with cautionary tales and solid advice on being a classy-ass lady in the digital age.

Because, girls, we’re more than what meets the newsfeed. And this may sound crazy…

But we’ve got this.

(from publisher)

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606
James Shapiro
822.33  Bsh222

Preeminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro shows how the tumultuous events in England in 1606 affected Shakespeare and shaped the three great tragedies he wrote that year—King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.

In the years leading up to 1606, since the death of Queen Elizabeth and the arrival in England of her successor, King James of Scotland, Shakespeare’s great productivity had ebbed, and it may have seemed to some that his prolific genius was a thing of the past. But that year, at age forty-two, he found his footing again, finishing a play he had begun the previous autumn—King Lear—then writing two other great tragedies, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.

It was a memorable year in England as well—and a grim one, in the aftermath of a terrorist plot conceived by a small group of Catholic gentry that had been uncovered at the last hour. The foiled Gunpowder Plot would have blown up the king and royal family along with the nation’s political and religious leadership. The aborted plot renewed anti-Catholic sentiment and laid bare divisions in the kingdom.

It was against this background that Shakespeare finished Lear, a play about a divided kingdom, then wrote a tragedy that turned on the murder of a Scottish king, Macbeth. He ended this astonishing year with a third masterpiece no less steeped in current events and concerns: Antony and Cleopatra.

The Year of Lear sheds light on these three great tragedies by placing them in the context of their times, while also allowing us greater insight into how Shakespeare was personally touched by such events as a terrible outbreak of plague and growing religious divisions. For anyone interested in Shakespeare, this is an indispensable book.

(from Publisher)