A chemist by training, Primo Levi became one of the supreme witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In these haunting reflections inspired by the elements of the periodic table, he ranges from young love to political savagery; from the inert gas argon - and 'inert' relatives like the uncle who stayed in bed for twenty-two years - to life-giving carbon. 'Iron' honours the mountain-climbing resistance hero who put iron in Levi's student soul, 'Cerium' recalls the improvised cigarette lighters which saved his life in Auschwitz, while 'Vanadium' describes an eerie post-war correspondence with the man who had been his 'boss' there. All are written with characteristically understated eloquence and shot through with deep humanity.

An extraordinary work in which each of the 21 chapters takes its title and starting point from one of the elements in the periodic table. Mingling fact and fiction, history and anecdote, Levi uses his training as a chemist and his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz to illuminate the human condition.


From the Hardcover edition.

Antonio Gramsci (1891--1937) was one of the most original political thinkers in Western Marxism and an exceptional intellectual. Arrested and imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime in 1926, Gramsci died before fully regaining his freedom, yet he wrote extensive letters while incarcerated, rich with insight into the physical and psychological tortures of prison. In meticulous detail, Gramsci records how political prisoners, himself included, contend with the fear of illness and death and the rules and regulations that threaten to efface their individuality. Forming an incomparable link between Gramsci's intellectual passion and his emotional vulnerability, "Letters from Prison" shows a man reconstructing his life while being separated from it, struggling to recapture the primary relationships that once defined his identity. Frank Rosengarten divides more than four hundred Gramsci letters into two companion volumes, complete with a chronology of the thinker's crucial life experiences, an introduction that sheds light on the main experiences and themes in the letters, biographical notes on his correspondents, and a bibliography of works cited in his letters.

Antonio Gramsci (1891--1937) was one of the most original political thinkers in Western Marxism and an exceptional intellectual. Arrested and imprisoned by the Italian Fascist regime in 1926, Gramsci died before fully regaining his freedom, yet he wrote extensive letters while incarcerated, rich with insight into the physical and psychological tortures of prison. In meticulous detail, Gramsci records how political prisoners, himself included, contend with the fear of illness and death and the rules and regulations that threaten to efface their individuality. Forming an incomparable link between Gramsci's intellectual passion and his emotional vulnerability, "Letters from Prison" shows a man reconstructing his life while being separated from it, struggling to recapture the primary relationships that once defined his identity. Frank Rosengarten divides more than four hundred Gramsci letters into two companion volumes, complete with a chronology of the thinker's crucial life experiences, an introduction that sheds light on the main experiences and themes in the letters, biographical notes on his correspondents, and a bibliography of works cited in his letters.

This is a new release of the original 1948 edition.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Giovanni Verga (1840-1922) is the most important of the Italian Realist School of novelists. This new edition of "The House by the Medlar Tree (I Malavoglia)" makes the complete English version of his masterpiece available once more. The story of the Malavoglia, a family of poor Sicilian fisherman, is Verga's moving rendering of the theme of mankind's struggle for self-betterment, the dignity of the struggle in the face of poverty and hardship, and the tragedy that the struggle inevitably incurs.
D. H. Lawrence described Vega's work as "Homeric." Rayond Rosenthal's translation of "I Malavoglia" is the only complete version of this novel in English and conveys Vega's lyrical realism and the flavor of Sicialian village life superbly.
The book is introduced by Giovanni Ceccheti, whose own translations of Verga, "Mastro-don Gesualdo" and "The She-Wolf and Other Stories, " are also available from California.

Weaving early accounts of witchcraft--trial records, ecclesiastical tracts, folklore, and popular iconography--into new and startling patterns, Carlo Ginzburg presents in" Ecstasies" compelling evidence of a hidden shamanistic culture that flourished across Europe and in England for thousands of years.

At the center of Franco Ferrucci's inspired novel is a tender, troubled God. In the beginning is God's solitude, and because God is lonely he creates the world. He falls in love with earth, plunges into the oceans, lives as plant and reptile and bird. His every thought and mood serve to populate the planet, with consequences that run away from him--sometimes delightfully, sometimes unfortunately. When a new arrival emerges from the apes, God believes he has finally found the companion he needs to help him make sense of his unruly creation. Yet, as the centuries pass, God feels more and more out of place in the world he has created; by the close of his memoir, he is packing his bags. Highly praised and widely reviewed, The Life of God is a playful, wondrous, and irresistible book, recounting thousands of years of religious and philosophical thought. "A supreme but imperfect entity, the protagonist of this religiously enlightened and orthodoxically heretical novel is possessed by a raving love for his skewed, unbalanced world...Blessed are the readers, for this tale of God's long insomnia will keep them happily awake...Extraordinary." --Umberto Eco "The Life of God is, in truth, the synthesis of a charming writer's ...expression of his boundless hopes for, and poignant disappointments in, his own human kind." --Jack Miles, New York Times Book Review "Rather endearing...This exceedingly amusing novel ...is a continuous provocation and delight; there isn't a dull page in it." --Kirkus Reviews "A smart and charming knitting of secular and ecclesiastic views of the world...The character of God is likable--sweet, utterly human...The prose is delightful ...the writing is consistently witty and intelligent and periodically hilarious." --Allison Stark Draper, Boston Review "'God's only excuse is that he does not exist,' wrote Stendhal, but now Franco Ferrucci has provided the Supreme Being with another sort of alibi." --James Morrow, Washington Post Book World