shopping cart
Save up to 30% on our Staff Picks
Call us:  800-878-7323 HELP
McAfee SECURE helps keep you safe from identity theft, credit card fraud, spyware, spam, viruses and online scams.
Interviews | November 19, 2009

Dave: IMG Finding John Irving: The Powells.com Interview



[Editor's note: The following is a reprint of our 2005 interview with John Irving, whose new novel, Last Night in Twisted River, has just come out... Continue »

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$15.95
New Trade Paper
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
Qty Store Section
2 Airport Philosophy- General
2 Beaverton Philosophy- General
4 Burnside Philosophy- General
7 Hawthorne Philosophy- General
25 Local Warehouse Philosophy- General
25 Remote Warehouse Philosophy- Surveys

Other titles in the Vintage series:

  1. 13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time
  2. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
  3. A Case of Exploding Mangoes
  4. A Church in Search of Itself: Benedict XVI and the Battle for the Future
  5. A Fine Place to Daydream: Racehorses, Romance, and the Irish
  6. A Good Year
  7. A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine
  8. A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century
  9. A History of the Jews in the Modern World
  10. A Jury of Her Peers: Celebrating American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx
  11. A Memoir of Misfortune
  12. A Mirror Garden
  13. A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II
  14. A Scanner Darkly
  15. A Simple Plan
  16. A Spot of Bother
  17. A Tolerable Anarchy: Rebels, Reactionaries, and the Making of American Freedom
  18. A Venetian Affair: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in the 18th Century
  19. A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton
  20. A Woman's Education
  21. A Writer at War: A Soviet Journalist with the Red Army, 1941-1945
  22. Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War
  23. Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution
  24. Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865-1900
  25. Aladdin's Lamp
  26. All God's Children: The Bosket Family and the American Tradition of Violence
  27. All Souls' Rising
  28. All the Money in the World: How the Forbes 400 Make--And Spend--Their Fortunes
  29. Altared: Bridezillas, Bewilderment, Big Love, Breakups, and What Women Really Think about Contemporary Weddings
  30. America Reborn: A Twentieth-Century Narrative in Twenty-Six Lives
  31. America's Jubilee: A Generation Remembers the Revolution After 50 Years of Independence
  32. American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of the Republic
  33. An Italian Affair
  34. Angels and Ages: Lincoln, Darwin, and the Birth of the Modern Age
  35. Anna of All the Russias: A Life of Anna Akhmatova
  36. Antoine's Alphabet: Watteau and His World
  37. Armenian Golgotha
  38. Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race
  39. Attachment
  40. Auden
  41. Audition
  42. Augustus
  43. Away From Her (07 Edition)
  44. Babel-17/Empire Star
  45. Bad Faith: A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland and Vichy France
  46. Baghdad Diaries: A Woman's Chronicle of War and Exile
  47. Bambi Vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business
  48. Becoming Gay: The Journey to Self-Acceptance
  49. Before
  50. Being Homosexual: Gay Men and Their Development
  51. Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself
  52. Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America's Quest for Racial Purity
  53. Beyond Glory: Joe Louis Vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink
  54. Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in Africa and Beyond
  55. Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq
  56. Bloodlines: A Horse Racing Anthology
  57. Boeing Versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business
  58. Bonjour Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn't Pay
  59. Breaking Out: VMI and the Coming of Women
  60. Briefing for a Descent Into Hell
  61. Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show
  62. Captains Outrageous
  63. Centennial Crisis: The Disputed Election of 1876
  64. Changing Light
  65. Charisma: The Gift of Grace, and How It Has Been Taken Away from Us
  66. Charlemagne
  67. Cheever: A Life
  68. Child Care Today: Getting It Right for Everyone
  69. Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II
  70. Chronicler of the Winds
  71. Circle in the Sand: The Bush Dynasty in Iraq
  72. Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India
  73. Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
  74. Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation
  75. Compass Points: How I Lived
  76. Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us about Living in the West
  77. Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age at the American Film Institute
  78. Counter-Clock World
  79. Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category
  80. Crusader Nation: The United States in Peace and the Great War, 1898-1920
  81. Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, the Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, the New World Order,
  82. Cutting for Stone
  83. Dangerous Nation: America's Foreign Policy from Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century
  84. Dawn Dusk or Night: A Year with Nicolas Sarkozy
  85. Delivering Doctor Amelia: The Story of a Gifted Young Obstetrician's Error and the Psychologist Whohelped Her
  86. Depths
  87. Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason
  88. Devices and Desires
  89. Devil May Care
  90. Devil May Care
  91. Dhalgren
  92. Disarmed: The Story of the Venus de Milo
  93. Do You Believe?: Conversations on God and Religion
  94. Don't the Moon Look Lonesome: A Novel in Blues and Swing
  95. Dr. Futurity
  96. Dreamland: Europeans and Jews in the Aftermath of the Great War
  97. Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum
  98. Early Birds: A Mother's Story for Our Times
  99. Eating Stone: Imagination and the Loss of the Wild
  100. Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conquest in the East, 1750-1850
  101. Edith Wharton
  102. Elements of Style
  103. Elsewhere, U.S.A: How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, Blackberry Moms, and Eco
  104. Elvis Is Titanic: Classroom Tales from Iraqi Kurdistan
  105. Ethical Realism: A Vision for America's Role in the World
  106. Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?
  107. Falling Palace: A Romance of Naples
  108. Fan-Tan
  109. Fast Boat to China: High-Tech Outsourcing and the Consequences of Free Trade: Lessons from Shanghai
  110. Fellow Travelers
  111. Field Notes: The Grace Note of the Canyon Wren
  112. Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality
  113. Finding Beauty in a Broken World
  114. Fire from Heaven
  115. Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction
  116. Freedom's Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention
  117. French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure
  118. French Women for All Seasons: A Year of Secrets, Recipes, & Pleasure
  119. Funeral Games
  120. George Sand: A Woman's Life Writ Large
  121. God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World
  122. Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health
  123. Grand Avenues: The Story of Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, D.C.
  124. Groucho
  125. Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion
  126. Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
  127. Helen of Troy: The Story Behind the Most Beautiful Woman in the World
  128. Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life
  129. Hollywood Nocturnes
  130. Hour of Our Death
  131. How Barack Obama Won: A State-By-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election
  132. Hurry Down Sunshine: A Father's Story of Love and Madness
  133. I Am a Soldier, Too : Jessica Lynch Story (03 Edition)
  134. I Feel Bad about My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
  135. I Wish I'd Been There: Twenty Historians Bring to Life the Dramatic Events That Changed America
  136. Imagining Atlantis
  137. Imperial America: The Bush Assault on World Order
  138. Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone
  139. Isms and Ologies: All the Movements, Ideologies and Doctrines That Have Shaped Our World
  140. Jewelry Talks: A Novel Thesis
  141. John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights
  142. John Osborne: The Many Lives of the Angry Young Man
  143. Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years
  144. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
  145. Kazan on Directing
  146. Kicking a Dead Horse
  147. Lake Effect
  148. Leave It to Psmith
  149. Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books
  150. Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl
  151. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe
  152. Letter to a Christian Nation
  153. Lewis and Clark through Indian Eyes: Nine Indian Writers on the Legacy of the Expedition
  154. Light Action in the Caribbean: Stories
  155. Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words
  156. Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power
  157. Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace
  158. Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America
  159. Lost in Space: The Fall of NASA and the Dream of a New Space Age
  160. Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation
  161. Lucia: A Venetian Life in the Age of Napleon
  162. Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940
  163. Marcel Proust's Search for Lost Time: A Reader's Guide to the Remembrance of Things Past
  164. Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu
  165. Masquerade: The Life and Times of Deborah Sampson, Continental Soldier
  166. McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
  167. Me and Kaminski
  168. Measuring the World
  169. Mellon: An American Life
  170. Melville: His World and Work
  171. Memory and the Mediterranean
  172. Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life
  173. Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation
  174. Mom's Marijuana: Life, Love, and Beating the Odds
  175. Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America
  176. More Than a Champion: The Style of Muhammad Ali
  177. Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War
  178. Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists
  179. Movies and Money
  180. Mr. Jefferson's Women
  181. Mrs. Sartoris
  182. Mulliner Nights
  183. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
  184. My Ears Are Bent
  185. My Einstein
  186. My Face Is Black Is True : Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-slave Reparations (05 Edition)
  187. My Father's Country: The Story of a German Family
  188. Natural Elements
  189. New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century
  190. Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing
  191. Nicole Kidman
  192. Nightlight: A Parody
  193. Nova
  194. November
  195. Nureyev: The Life
  196. Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play
  197. Of Two Minds: An Anthroplogist Looks at American Psychiatry
  198. Off Camera: Private Thoughts Made Public
  199. On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain
  200. On Michael Jackson
  201. One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War
  202. Original Sin
  203. Our Friends from Frolix 8
  204. Our Nig: Or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black
  205. Panama Fever: The Epic Story of the Building of the Panama Canal
  206. Paradise of Cities: Venice in the Nineteenth Century
  207. Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal
  208. Patriot Pirates: The Privateer War for Freedom and Fortune in the American Revolution
  209. Patriotic Fire: Andrew Jackson and Jean Laffite at the Battle of New Orleans
  210. Peace Be Upon You: Fourteen Centuries of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Conflict and Cooperation
  211. Pictures at an Exhibition
  212. Pike's Folly
  213. Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir 1964 to 2006
  214. Political Fictions
  215. Power to Save the World: The Truth about Nuclear Energy
  216. Power, Politics, and Culture
  217. Practical Wisdom for Parents: Raising Self-Confident Children in the Preschool Years
  218. Practicing: A Musician's Return to Music
  219. Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George
  220. Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror
  221. Quarrel & Quandary
  222. Raising America : Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children (03 Edition)
  223. Ralph Ellison: A Biography
  224. Reporting: Writings from the New Yorker
  225. Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45
  226. Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations
  227. Room for Doubt
  228. Rumble Tumble
  229. Salvation : Scenes From Life ST. Francis (01 Edition)
  230. Scott of the Antarctic: A Life of Courage and Tragedy
  231. Secrets of the Soul (05 Edition)
  232. Seizing Destiny: How America Grew from Sea to Shining Sea
  233. Shadows: Unlocking Their Secrets, from Plato to Our Time
  234. Shakespeare & Co.: Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher and the Other Players in His Story
  235. Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer
  236. Simple Gifts: Lessons in Living from a Shaker Village
  237. Skylark Farm
  238. Slam Dunks and No-Brainers: Pop Language in Your Life, the Media, and Like . . . Whatever
  239. So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government
  240. Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell
  241. Somebody Told Me: The Newspaper Stories of Rick Bragg
  242. Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando
  243. Soon I Will Be Invincible
  244. Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece
  245. Stardust Lost: The Triumph, Tragedy, and Mishugas of the Yiddish Theater in America
  246. Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov
  247. Stepin Fetchit: The Life and Times of Lincoln Perry
  248. Strangers Among Us: Latino Lives in a Changing America
  249. Stuffed: Adventures of a Restaurant Family
  250. Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
  251. Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family
  252. Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life
  253. Surveillance
  254. Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector
  255. That Sweet Enemy: Britain and France: The History of a Love-Hate Relationship
  256. The Abominable Man
  257. The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker
  258. The Age of American Unreason
  259. The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn
  260. The American
  261. The Architecture of Happiness
  262. The Atlantic Sound
  263. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
  264. The Boat
  265. The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky: A True Story
  266. The Brother Gardeners: A Generation of Gentlemen Naturalists and the Birth of an Obsession
  267. The Buffalo Creek Disaster: How the Survivors of One of the Worst Disasters in Coal-Mining History Brought Suit Against the Coal Company -- And Wo
  268. The Bull from the Sea
  269. The Camera My Mother Gave Me
  270. The Children of Men
  271. The Code of the Woosters
  272. The Complete Game: Reflections on Baseball and the Art of Pitching
  273. The Crack in Space
  274. The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love and Madness in an American Family
  275. The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s
  276. The Day We Found the Universe
  277. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997
  278. The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th-Century Science, Including the Original Papers
  279. The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences
  280. The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution
  281. The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport
  282. The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
  283. The Echoing Green: The Untold Story of Bobby Thomson, Ralph Branca and the Shot Heard Round the World
  284. The Edict: A Novel from the Beginnings of Golf
  285. The End of Manners
  286. The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After
  287. The Eye of the Leopard
  288. The Female Thing: Dirt, Envy, Sex, Vulnerability
  289. The Fire Engine That Disappeared
  290. The Forever War
  291. The Future of Liberalism
  292. The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld
  293. The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World
  294. The Girl Who Played Go
  295. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
  296. The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East
  297. The Immense Journey
  298. The Language of Cells: A Doctor and His Patients
  299. The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn
  300. The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857
  301. The Last of the Wine
  302. The Letters of Noel Coward
  303. The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved
  304. The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic
  305. The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing
  306. The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
  307. The Loss of El Dorado: A Colonial History
  308. The Man Who Japed
  309. The Mapmakers: Revised Edition
  310. The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes
  311. The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean
  312. The Missing
  313. The Missionary and the Libertine: Love and War in East and West
  314. The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth
  315. The Nation Guide to the Nation
  316. The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee: Observations on Not Fitting in
  317. The Northern Lights: The True Story of the Man Who Unlocked the Secrets of the Aurora Boralis
  318. The Ongoing Moment
  319. The Origin of Financial Crises: Central Banks, Credit Bubbles and the Efficient Market Fallacy
  320. The Paranoid Style in American Politics: And Other Essays
  321. The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations
  322. The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century
  323. The Pesthouse
  324. The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre
  325. The Pirates!: An Adventure with Scientists & An Adventure with Ahab
  326. The Pirates!: In an Adventure with Communists
  327. The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company
  328. The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact
  329. The Praise Singer
  330. The Prince of Frogtown
  331. The Private Patient
  332. The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
  333. The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film
  334. The Return of History and the End of Dreams
  335. The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe
  336. The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments
  337. The Ruins
  338. The Ruins
  339. The Ruins
  340. The Seduction of Place: The History and Future of Cities
  341. The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity
  342. The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West
  343. The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments
  344. The Thing about Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead
  345. The Three of Us: A Family Story
  346. The Toothpick: Technology and Culture
  347. The Toughest Show on Earth: My Rise and Reign at the Metropolitan Opera
  348. The Traveler: A Novel (Fourth Realm Trilogy #01)
  349. The Tulip and the Pope: A Nun's Story
  350. The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America
  351. The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World
  352. The War Against Cliche: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000
  353. The Wild Things
  354. The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul
  355. The Yellow Cross: The Story of the Last Cathars' Rebellion Against the Inquisition, 1290-1329
  356. The Zap Gun
  357. There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975
  358. There Goes the Neighborhood: Racial, Ethnic, and Class Tensions in Four Chicago Neighborhoods and Their Meaning for America
  359. Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World
  360. Things I Didn't Know
  361. This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland
  362. Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York
  363. Thunder From the East
  364. Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile
  365. To the Castle and Back
  366. Toussaint Louverture: A Biography
  367. Trading Twelves: the Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray
  368. Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says about Us)
  369. Train to Trieste
  370. Travelling Heroes: In the Epic Age of Homer
  371. Triksta : Life and Death and New Orleans Rap (05 Edition)
  372. Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution
  373. Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow
  374. Try to Tell the Story
  375. Tuna: Love, Death, and Mercury
  376. Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
  377. Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays
  378. Unbowed: A Memoir
  379. Unknown Soldiers: The Story of the Missing of the First World War
  380. Vie Francaise
  381. Vintage Baker
  382. Vintage Byatt
  383. Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture
  384. Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War
  385. Vulcan's Hammer
  386. Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination
  387. Warriors: Portraits from the Battlefield
  388. Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-Experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks
  389. Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History
  390. What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng
  391. What You Call Winter
  392. What You Can Change... and What You Can't: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement
  393. What's Next: Dispatches on the Future of Science
  394. What's Not To Love?
  395. When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America and the Fears They Have Unleashed
  396. Where Is the Mango Princess?: A Journey Back from Brain Injury
  397. White Jazz
  398. Whitethorn Woods
  399. Who Will Write Our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto
  400. Winston Churchill's War Leadership
  401. Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission
  402. Witnesses of War: Children's Lives Under the Nazis
  403. World at Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism
  404. World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism
  405. Yiddish Civilisation: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation
  406. Young Che: Memories of Che Guevara by His Father
  407. Young Stalin
  408. Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

The Book of Dead Philosophers

by Simon Critchley

The Book of Dead Philosophers Cover

Review-a-Day   (What is Review-a-Day?)

"Critchley may not put forth a viable antidote to Suzanne Somers and Rick Warren, but then again, the sophistries hawked by New Age gurus, life-extension enthusiasts and televangelists have been around since, well, the Sophists, and are likely to endure for as long as we do." Alexander Provan, the Nation (read the entire Nation review)

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

"To philosophize is to learn how to die." — Cicero; assassinated by order of Mark Antony

"One who no longer is cannot suffer." — Lucretius; suicide, allegedly driven mad by a love potion

"Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." — Hobbes; died in bed, age 91

In this collection of brief lives (and deaths) of nearly two hundred of the world's greatest thinkers, noted philosopher Simon Critchley creates a register of mortality that is tragic, amusing, absurd, and exemplary. From the self-mocking haikus of Zen masters on their deathbeds to the last words of Christian saints and modern-day sages, this irresistible book contains much to inspire both amusement and reflection.

Informed by Critchley's acute insight, scholarly intelligence, and sprightly wit, each entry tells its own tale, but collected together they add up to a profound and moving investigation of meaning and the possibility of happiness for us all.

Review:

"According to Cicero, 'to philosophize is to learn how to die.' Critchley (Infinitely Demanding) illustrates this claim in his portraits of the deaths of more than 190 philosophers from the ancients to the analytics of the mid — 20th century. A primer on just about every notable philosophical figure in history, this book challenges readers to learn from the philosophers' conduct in life and the circumstances of their deaths. Confucius believed that mourning underscored the value of life; accordingly, his followers grieved his death for at least three years. Thoreau, Emerson and John Stuart Mill died of ordinary ailments while relishing the natural world. Aquinas found serenity contemplating the bough of a tree, fitting consolation for the philosopher who preached the interconnectedness of nature and the soul. Dionysius spent the second half of his life rejecting Stoicism and embracing hedonism yet committed a protracted suicide by voluntary starvation. David Hume proved that atheists could die happy. The book offers an interpretation of death's potential as a final artistic and intellectual endeavor; it is a witty and generous gift that will leave readers perhaps a little less afraid of death and more appreciative of life." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Synopsis:

In this rigorous, profound and frequently hilarious (The Sunday Telegraph, UK) work, philosopher Critchley recounts the deaths of more than 190 philosophers and shows how their variously tragic, amusing, bizarre, and absurd ends can help readers lead richer lives.

What Our Readers Are Saying

Add a comment for a chance to win!
Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
MarcusHorne, August 1, 2009 (view all comments by MarcusHorne)
A wonderful concept for a book. It spends a page and half or so on the deaths of 170 different philosophers. For some, it nicely juxtaposes their beliefs with their practical applications. For others, it illustrates a hypocrisy. Mostly though, I think it does a good job bringing the lot of them back down to earth. The introductions (there are three) are themselves a decent discussion on death and dying. It's one of those books you wish was a Wikipedia page so you could follow all the strands it begins to tug at.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(4 of 5 readers found this comment helpful)

Product Details

ISBN:
9780307390431
Author:
Critchley, Simon
Publisher:
Vintage Books USA
Subject:
General
Subject:
Philosophers
Subject:
Death
Subject:
Philosophers - Death
Series:
Vintage
Publication Date:
February 2009
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
265
Dimensions:
9.02x4.98x.91 in. .79 lbs.

Other books you might like

  1. $4.50 Used Trade Paper add to wish list

    Skellig

    David Almond
  2. $3.95 Used Trade Paper add to wish list
  3. $8.25 New Trade Paper add to wish list
  4. $10.50 Used Trade Paper add to wish list
  5. $12.00 New Trade Paper add to wish list
  6. $26.95 New Hardcover add to wish list

Related Aisles

  • back to top

Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.