A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay
Author: E. M. Cioran
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2012-11-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1628724943

E. M. Cioran confronts the place of today's world in the context of human history—focusing on such major issues of the twentieth century as human progress, fanaticism, and science—in this nihilistic and witty collection of aphoristic essays concerning the nature of civilization in mid-twentieth-century Europe. Touching upon Man's need to worship, the feebleness of God, the downfall of the Ancient Greeks and the melancholy baseness of all existence, Cioran's pieces are pessimistic in the extreme, but also display a beautiful certainty that renders them delicate, vivid, and memorable. Illuminating and brutally honest, A Short History of Decay dissects Man's decadence in a remarkable series of moving and beautiful pieces.

A Short History of Decay

A Short History of Decay
Author: E. M. Cioran
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2012-11-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 161145736X

In the fact of being born there is such an absence of necessity thatwhen you think about it a little more than usual you are left . . . with afoolish...

Drawn and Quartered

Drawn and Quartered
Author: E. M. Cioran
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2012-11-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1611456967

"A brilliant and original exponent of a rare genre, the philosophical essay. Once read, Cioran cannot fail to provoke reaction. New York Times Book...

Zombies

Zombies
Author: Olivier Peru
Publisher: Insight Comics
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-04-04
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 9781608878628

A vivid and richly illustrated graphic novel, Zombies offers an action-packed tour through an apocalyptic vision of America. Mankind is no longer at the top of the food chain. Zombies have taken their place, and nothing can stop them. Is this the end of humanity? Perhaps, but for some it is only the beginning. Six billion living corpses are all that remains of civilization. Among the few survivors is Sam Coleman, a man who owes his salvation to Smith & Wesson and a little luck. Fleeing Seattle at the onset of the zombie outbreak, he was forced to leave his daughter behind. Yet now that silence has fallen over the city, he believes that she may still be alive. And his conscience serves up a constant reminder that to be human in this grim world is to have hope—and to keep fighting.

On the Heights of Despair

On the Heights of Despair
Author: E. M. Cioran
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 154
Release: 1996-10
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9780226106717

"Born of a terrible insomnia wchich E. M. Cioran called "a dizzying lucidity which would turn even paradise into hell," this book presents the youthful Cioran, a self-described "Nietzsche still complete with his Zarathustra, his poses, his mystical clown's tricks, a whole circus of the heights." On the Heights of Despair shows Cioran's first grappling with themes he would return to in his mature works: despair and decay, absurdity and alienation, futility and the irrationality of existence. It also presents Cioran as a connoisseur of apocalypse, a theoretician of despair, for whom writing and philosophy both share the "lyrical virtues" that alone lead to metaphysical revelations. An exorcism of despair, this book offers insights into the ironic anguish of Cioran's philosophic mind while providing fascinating information on his early development as a writer and thinker."

A Little History of the World

A Little History of the World
Author: E. H. Gombrich
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2014-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300213972

E. H. Gombrich's Little History of the World, though written in 1935, has become one of the treasures of historical writing since its first publication in English in 2005. The Yale edition alone has now sold over half a million copies, and the book is available worldwide in almost thirty languages. Gombrich was of course the best-known art historian of his time, and his text suggests illustrations on every page. This illustrated edition of the Little History brings together the pellucid humanity of his narrative with the images that may well have been in his mind's eye as he wrote the book. The two hundred illustrations—most of them in full color—are not simple embellishments, though they are beautiful. They emerge from the text, enrich the author's intention, and deepen the pleasure of reading this remarkable work. For this edition the text is reset in a spacious format, flowing around illustrations that range from paintings to line drawings, emblems, motifs, and symbols. The book incorporates freshly drawn maps, a revised preface, and a new index. Blending high-grade design, fine paper, and classic binding, this is both a sumptuous gift book and an enhanced edition of a timeless account of human history.

The Temptation to Exist

The Temptation to Exist
Author: E. M. Cioran
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2013-02-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1628724951

This collection of eleven essays originally appeared in France thirty years ago and created a literary whirlwind on the Left Bank. Cioran writes incisively about Western civilizations, the writer, the novel, mystics, apostles, and philosophers. The Temptation to Exist first introduced this brilliant European thinker twenty years ago to American readers, in a superb translation by Richard Howard. This literary mystique around Cioran continues to grow, and The Temptation to Exist has become an underground classic. In this work Cioran writes about Western civilizations, the writer, the novel, about mystics, apostles, philosophers. For those to whom the very word philosophy brings visions of arduous reading, be assured: Cioran is crystal-clear, his style quotable and aphoristic. “A sort of final philosopher of the Western world. His statements have the compression of poetry and the audacity of cosmic clowning”—The Washington Post

The Trouble with Being Born

The Trouble with Being Born
Author: E. M. Cioran
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2013-02-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 162872496X

In this volume, which reaffirms the uncompromising brilliance of his mind, Cioran strips the human condition down to its most basic components, birth and death, suggesting that disaster lies not in the prospect of death but in the fact of birth, "that laughable accident." In the lucid, aphoristic style that characterizes his work, Cioran writes of time and death, God and religion, suicide and suffering, and the temptation to silence. Through sharp observation and patient contemplation, Cioran cuts to the heart of the human experience. “A love of Cioran creates an urge to press his writing into someone’s hand, and is followed by an equal urge to pull it away as poison.”—The New Yorker “In the company of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard."—Publishers Weekly "No modern writer twists the knife with Cioran's dexterity. . . . His writing . . . is informed with the bitterness of genuine compassion."—Boston Phoenix

All Gall is Divided

All Gall is Divided
Author: Emile M. Cioran
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Total Pages: 180
Release: 1999
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781559704717

Romanian-born E.M. Cioran moved to Paris at the age of 26, remaining there nearly six decades until his death in 1995. He was called "a sort of final philosopher of the Western world" and "the last worthy disciple of Nietzsche"; the bleak aphorisms of All Gall Is Divided make a strong case for either appellation. "With every idea born in us," he declares early on, "something in us rots." Throughout the book, he addresses the futile attempts of man to impose meaning on a meaningless existence--"That there should be a reality hidden by appearances is, after all, quite possible; that language might render such a thing would be an absurd hope"--and nurses an ongoing fascination with the possibilities death holds for release from life's madness. (When the Dead Kennedys sang, "I look forward to death / This world brings me down," they might as well have been taking notes from Cioran.) Grim stuff, but presented in brilliant, crystalline form--particularly in the translation by Richard Howard, which retains Cioran's cold, detached viewpoint.