In these impressions of the Italian countryside, Lawrence transforms ordinary incidents into passages of intense beauty. Twilight in Italy is an account of Lawrence's stay among the people of Lake Garda, whose decaying lemon gardens bear witness to the twilight of a way of life centuries old. In Sea and Sardina, Lawrence explores the vigorous spontaneity of a society as yet untouched by the deadening effect of industrialisation. And Sketches of Etruscan Places is a delicate work of literary art, the record of 'a dying man drinking from the founts of a civilization dedicated to life.'

The global debate over who should take action to address climate change is extremely precarious, as diametrically opposed perceptions of climate justice threaten the prospects for any long-term agreement. Poor nations fear limits on their efforts to grow economically and meet the needs of their own people, while powerful industrial nations, including the United States, refuse to curtail their own excesses unless developing countries make similar sacrifices. Meanwhile, although industrialized countries are responsible for 60 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, developing countries suffer the 'worst and first' effects of climate-related disasters, including droughts, floods, and storms, because of their geographical locations. In A Climate of Injustice, J. Timmons Roberts and Bradley Parks analyze the role that inequality between rich and poor nations plays in the negotiation of global climate agreements.Roberts and Parks argue that global inequality dampens cooperative efforts by reinforcing the 'structuralist' worldviews and causal beliefs of many poor nations, eroding conditions of generalized trust, and promoting particularistic notions of 'fair' solutions. They develop new measures of climate-related inequality, analyzing fatality and homelessness rates from hydrometeorological disasters, patterns of 'emissions inequality,' and participation in international environmental regimes. Until we recognize that reaching a North-South global climate pact requires addressing larger issues of inequality and striking a global bargain on environment and development, Roberts and Parks argue, the current policy gridlock will remain unresolved.

Tells the fascinating, frequently bloody story of the Medici - the famous rulers of Florence at the high point of the Renaissance. This is a great business and finance story as well as a historical study of the first order.

Their name is a byword for immense wealth and power, but before their renown as art patrons and noblemen, the Medicis built their fortune on banking. Banking in the fifteenth century, even at the height of the Renaissance, meant running afoul of the Catholic Church's prohibition against usury. It required more than merely financial skills to make a profit, and the legendary Medicis--most famously Cosimo and Lorenzo ('the Magnificent')--were masterly at the political, diplomatic, military, and even metaphysical tools that were needed to maintain their family's position. Parks uncovers the intrigues, dodges, and moral qualities that gave the Medicis their edge. Evoking the richness of the Florentine Renaissance and the Medicis' glittering circle, replete with artists, popes, and kings, Medici Money is a look into the origins of modern banking and its troubled relationship with art and religion. --From publisher description.

Giorgio Bassani's acclaimed novel of unrequited love and the plight of the Italian Jews on the brink of World War II has become a classic of modern Italian literature.

Made into an Academy Award—winning film in 1970, The Garden of the Finzi—Continis is a richly evocative and nostalgic depiction of prewar Italy. The narrator, a young middle-class Jew in the Italian city of Ferrara, has long been fascinated from afar by the Finzi-Continis, a wealthy and aristocratic Jewish family, and especially by their daughter Micol. But it is not until 1938 that he is invited behind the walls of their lavish estate, as local Jews begin to gather there to avoid the racial laws of the Fascists, and the garden of the Finzi-Continis becomes an idyllic sanctuary in an increasingly brutal world. Years after the war, the narrator returns in memory to his doomed relationship with the lovely Micol, and to the predicament that faced all the Ferrarese Jews, in this unforgettably wrenching portrait of a community about to be destroyed by the world outside the garden walls.

Nominato giudice penale - promozione meritata, nonostante l'evidente convenienza politica di privilegiare un uomo di colore - Daniel Savage, oriundo brasiliano cresciuto nel milieu della migliore borghesia inglese, decide che è giunto il momento di mettere la testa a posto, di smetterla con i molti adulteri e di passare al sereno tran tran matrimoniale, di uomo quasi felicemente sposato, con figli ormai adolescenti. Ma più cerca una vita semplice e convenzionale, e più intorno a lui tutto si complica e i comportamenti appaiono caparbiamente incompresibili. 'La doppia vita del giudice Savage' è apparso per la prima volta nel 2003.

Contempt is a brilliant and unsettling work by one of the revolutionary masters of modern European literature. All the qualities for which Alberto Moravia is justly famous—his cool clarity of expression, his exacting attention to psychological complexity and social pretension, his still-striking openness about sex—are evident in this story of a failing marriage. Contempt (which was to inspire Jean-Luc Godard's no-less-celebrated film) is an unflinching examination of desperation and self-deception in the emotional vacuum of modern consumer society.

• This comprehensive tutorial and reference covers all the basics of PHP 5, a popular open source Web scripting language, and MySQL 4.012, the most popular open source database engine
• Explores why users need PHP and MySQL, how to get started, how to add PHP to HTML, and how to connect HTML Web pages to MySQL
• Offers an extensive tutorial for developing applications with PHP and MySQL
• Includes coverage of how to install, administer, and design MySQL databases independently of PHP; exception and error handling; debugging techniques; PostgreSQL database system; and PEAR database functions
• The authors provide unique case studies of how and where to use PHP drawn from their own extensive Web experience

Constructed between 1956 and 1966 by the United States Bureau of Reclamation, Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River was a project of immense proportions. Even before the non-stop pouring of 5 million yards of concrete began, much work had to be accomplished. The town of Page, Arizona was established on a windswept mesa to house workers and their families, and the 1,028-foot Glen Canyon Bridge was built to carry men, materials, and equipment to the dam site. Though the dam has proven a controversial structure throughout its history, the massive undertaking of its construction was an undeniable triumph of ingenuity and determination.

Tim Parks goes on the road to follow the fortunes of Hellas Verona football club, to pay a different kind of visit to some of the world's most beautiful cities and to get a fresh take on the conundrum that is national character.

Brilliant, inspired, and gloriously erudite, Literature and the Gods is the culmination of Roberto Calasso's lifelong study of the gods in the human imagination. By uncovering the divine whisper that lies behind the best poetry and prose from across the centuries, Calasso gives us a renewed sense of the mystery and enchantment of great literature.

From the banishment of the classical divinities during the Age of Reason to their emancipation by the Romantics and their place in the literature of our own time, the history of the gods can also be read as a ciphered and splendid history of literary inspiration. Rewriting that story, Calasso carves out a sacred space for literature where the presence of the gods is discernible. His inquiry into the nature of “absolute literature” transports us to the realms of Dionysus and Orpheus, Baudelaire and Mallarmé, and prompts a lucid and impassioned defense of poetic form, even when apparently severed from any social function. Lyrical and assured, Literature and the Gods is an intensely engaging work of literary affirmation that deserves to be read alongside the masterpieces it celebrates.

The author of Europa and Hell and Back offers a personal account of his relationship with Italy, its people, and its national sport from the perspective of his beloved Verona soccer club--as well as its fans--as it travels around Italy competing with other teams. 35,000 first printing.

€ 21,50

A new edition of the sequel to }Italian Neighbours{ which is also reissued this month.

Da Udine a Reggio Calabria, da San Siro all'Olimpico, in viaggio con gli ultras e i giocatori, il racconto avvincente di una stagione calcistica che si trascina fino ai play-off, ma anche uno sguardo completamente nuovo sull'eterno enigma del carattere italiano. Il club, come sempre, lotta per evitare la retrocessione. Fino all'ultimo, quando a un certo punto sembra perfino che nel 2001, in serie A, ci sarà solo l'odiato Chievo... I tifosi sono accusati di volgarità, razzismo e violenza. Le elezioni sono imminenti e la politica è dappertutto. La polizia è ambigua, i viaggi estenuanti, gli arbitri imperdonabili, gli aneddoti spassosi.

I protagonisti di questo libro sono una frase e 72 ore. La frase, ipnotica quanto spietata, è quella che annuncia a Chris Burton, giornalista inglese da anni trapiantato in Italia, il suicidio del figlio schizofrenico. Le 72 ore sono quelle immediatamente successive, spese da Burton nel tentativo di ricomporre le schegge di una mente sconvolta dal lutto e i brandelli di un'Italia non meno frantumata. Dopo aver passato anni a riflettere sulla prevedibilità, Burton si trova urtato da qualcosa di imprevisto e orribile. E di conseguenza dalla rocciosa parola - destino - che d'ora innanzi racchiuderà la sua vicenda.

Parks ci guida attraverso una bizzarra galleria con titoli come 'Adulterio', 'Fedeltà', 'Destino', ciascuno dei quali è già un romanzo e un trattatello sul tema designato. Temi eterni, come eterni sono i casi della vita. Così dal calcio ai fantasmi, dagli dei ai premi letterari, dai tormenti del cuore e del sesso alla gita aziendale, attraverso ogni episodio in sé compiuto ma sempre con un occhio rivolto al tutto, questi strani ibridi finiscono per disegnare un complesso autoritratto dello stesso scrittore, qui presente, oltre che nei panni del narratore, come ironica spalla dei protagonisti.

A selection of essays reflect upon adultery, fidelity, Europe, ghosts, magic, destiny, and conformity

Statistics in Ecotoxicology Edited by Tim Sparks Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Cambridgeshire, UK A basic understanding of statistical concepts and methodology is essential for every research scientist. Statistics in Ecotoxicology is a comprehensive, well-illustrated text, tailored to meet the needs of all ecotoxicologists from undergraduates to professionals. Avoiding mathematical jargon, the book uses worked examples to enable the reader to understand the potential of, and limitations of, statistical analysis in both the planning and operation of laboratory and field ecotoxicological experiments. This informative and highly practical guide:
* provides an invaluable introduction to the quantitative methods for the analysis of ecotoxicological data;
* covers field experimentation, laboratory experimentation, regression methodology, multivariate methods and monitoring:
* incorporates essential tips to prevent many of the common design and analytical failings in ecotoxicology; and,
* includes case studies comprising of terrestrial, freshwater and marine examples.
Written by an international team of scientists, Statistics in Ecotoxicology will be essential reading for all ecotoxicologists.

'A giddy invasion of stories--brilliant, enigmatic, troubling, outrageous, erotic, beautiful.' --The New York Times Book Review

'So brilliant that you can't look at it anymore--and you can't look at anything else. . . . No one will read it without reward.'
--The Boston Globe

With the same narrative fecundity and imaginative sympathy he brought to his acclaimed retelling of the Greek myths, Roberto Calasso plunges Western readers into the mind of ancient India. He begins with a mystery: Why is the most important god in the Rg Veda, the oldest of India's sacred texts, known by a secret name--'Ka,' or Who?
    What ensues is not an explanation, but an unveiling. Here are the stories of the creation of mind and matter; of the origin of Death, of the first sexual union and the first parricide. We learn why Siva must carry his father's skull, why snakes have forked tongues, and why, as part of a certain sacrifice, the king's wife must copulate with a dead horse. A tour de force of scholarship and seduction, Ka is irresistible.

'Passage[s] of such ecstatic insight and cross-cultural synthesis--simply, of such beauty.'  --The New York Review of Books

'All is spectacle and delight, and tiny mirrors reflecting human foibles are set into the weave,turning this retelling into the stuff of literature.' --The New Yorker

'Reading time is approximately four hours. Remembering time, as for its author, the rest of one's life,' said Joseph Brodsky of Fleur Jaeggy's novel, Sweet Days of Displine. Now Jaeggy has come up with seven stories, each at some deep level in dark complicity with the others, all as terse and spare as if etched with a steel tip. A brooding atmosphere of horror, a disturbing and subversive propensity for delirium haunts the violent gestures and chilly irony of these tales. Full of menace, the air they breathe is stirred only by the FÜhn, the warm west wind of the Alps that inclines otherwise respectable citizens to vent the spleen and angst of life's last vanities.

For the first time in paperback--a volume of thirty-seven diabolically inventive stories, fables, and 'impossible interviews' from one of the great fantasists of the 20th century, displaying the full breadth of his vision and wit.  Written between 1943 and 1984 and masterfully translated by Tim Parks, the fictions in Numbers in the Dark display all of Calvino's dazzling gifts: whimsy and horror, exuberance of style, and a cheerful grasp of the absurdities of the human condition.

Peter Nicholson, a geologist sent to a Mediterranean island, is pulled by the demands of his wife, his mistress, his employers, and unpredictable strangers when he stumbles into a web of blackmail, deception, and murder. 15,000 first printing.

Presenting the stories of Zeus and Europa, Theseus and Ariadne, the birth of Athens and the fall of Troy, in all their variants, Calasso also uncovers the distant origins of secrets and tragedy, virginity, and rape. "A perfect work like no other. (Calasso) has re-created . . . the morning of our world."--Gore Vidal. 15 engravings.

Set in postwar Switzerland, Fleur Jaeggy's eerily beautiful novel begins simply and innocently enough: 'At fourteen I was a boarder in a school in the Appenzell.' But there is nothing truly simple or innocent here. With the off-handed knowingness of a remorseless young Eve, the narrator describes life as a captive of the school and her designs to win the affections of the apparently perfect new girl, Frederique. As she broods over her schemes as well as on the nature of control and madness, the novel gathers a suspended, unsettling energy.
Now translated into six languages, I beati anni del castigo in its Italian original won the 1990 Premio Bagutta and the 1990 Premio Speciale Rapallo. In Tim Parks' consummate translation (with its 'spare, haunting quality of a prose poem'), Sweet Days of Discipline was selected as one of the London Times Literary Supplement's Notable Books of 1992: 'In a period when novels are generally over-blown and scarcely portable, it is good to be able to recommend [one that is] miraculously short and beautifully written.'