Showing results by publisher "Simply Media" in Classics

The legendary ironic insightful classic by Voltaire, considered the greatest artistic genius of his era. Introducing the legendary, best-of-all-possible-worlds Pangloss. A whirlwind trip around the globe with irony, wit, insight, genius, and more at each stop.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave is what many believe to be the foundation of Western Philosophy. It addresses what is visible and invisible, seen and observed versus intuited and imagined, and what is public versus private and just versus unjust. It also concerns the meaning and importance of education, the state of the soul, the conflict between truth and beauty, animal urges versus higher aspirations, knowledge versus ignorance, and on and on.

> Walking is not as well known as Thoreau's other works Walden, The Maine Woods, and Civil Disobedience. But it is a good place to start exploring his writing because it was his last book, in 1862, published by the Atlantic Monthly shortly after his death. It is less well known because it is general, as opposed to singular, in focus. It is his summing up of his thoughts on life: One should saunter through life and take notice; one need not go far.

A story of an animal burrowing underground to build its own house for protection, survival, and comfort while still focused on enemies that may attack while scooping up smaller critters for his own benefit and survival in an interesting parallel with the remarkable insights of Kafka.

Rare insights into Kafka stories, thoughts, philosophy, aging, friendship, love, sex & marriage with his rare insights and thoughts.

The brilliance of this story is in how a normal bureaucrat, a judge in this case, has a small accident that winds up gradually taking his life. As he deals with this incident, with hope at first and then despair, he comes to terms with his family, his life, and the mediocrities that we all suffer with, except for the exceptional few. This story rings a particularly poignant note for those in early middle age facing the next part of their lives. This story is considered Tolstoy's best.

A story about privacy and its importance for happiness and personal fulfillment.

The classic transformation story by Kafka. A man is transformed into a bug and how everyone deals with the situation from his mother and father, to his employer and paying boarders, and himself.

Freud's landmark work about the pleasure principle covering ancient times to his own: psychology, arts, literature, science, biology, and social science.

"White Nights" is the third major Dostoyevsky short story that everyone should read or listen to, along with "A Faint Heart" and "The Christmas Tree and Wedding". The story contains a series of Winesburg, Ohio-like moments: a woman and man meet on the First Night; proceed to meet again on the Second and Third, almost fall in love, and at the last minute the former lover of the woman returns to take her away. But the point is that the man had a glorious moment....

An historical romance set in London and the English countryside with remarkable nuance and descriptions about dress, parties, houses, men and women and their dealings with each other, with special insights into marriage. A wonderful ode to our better selves and what we can be if we move beyond the bumps and bruises in life.

A historical romance set in London, a small English town, and Paris. Remarkably well-crafted, with nuanced male and female characters, this book launched Georgette's 53-book best-selling career.

A breathtaking story of a woman marrying, growing up, bravely persevering, and seeing what traditionally was a man's point of view with the insights of a woman growing up in the same way. An insightful novel in so many ways.

A Kafka story with remarkable insight into the relationship, competition, fear, envy, and more between father and son.

The story centers on an impoverished clerk who is dedicated to his job as a routine copyist but not recognized for his hard work. Younger clerks mock him for his dedication. His threadbare overcoat is mocked as well. He saves up to buy a new one and wears it for one glorious evening, only to have it stolen that night. He dies soon after from his great loss. Thereafter, his ghost is reported to haunt that part of St. Petersburg where the coat was stolen.

The Prince is considered the all-time best book on political strategy. It has of late become a much-referred-to book for all competitive situations. Machiavelli's name is associated closely with his philosophy, as he well deserves. His other works are worth reading or hearing, as well, especially his Art of War and Belfagor: The Devil Who Took a Wife.

Some consider The Great Gatsby the greatest American novel ever written about love, dreams, business, bootlegging, Wall Street, the Midwest, and the East, as well as Yale, prep schools, the rich, and more. F. Scott Fitzgerald followed up with Tender Is the Night, also considered equally compelling.

The Pulitzer Prize novel describes the tradeoffs between medical research & money making & much more.

The last great 19th-century Russian novelist brings his symbolism together with realism, to blend real and fictional people together in the Russian revolutionary period of 1905 that laid the seeds for the 1917 dark Soviet period that Bely anticipates, set in the Paris of Russia, St Petersburg. An intriguing fantasy mixed with reality, dark and bright colors, with a dose of romanticism.

An early 20th Century tale about a booster & businessman who followed the standard program, deviated, and wished his son well in going his own way.