Siamo alla fine del XVII secolo. Ebenezer Cooke, Poeta Laureato, dall'Inghilterra viene spedito nel Nuovo Mondo con un doppio incarico: amministrare la piantagione di tabacco del padre e scrivere un grande poema epico sulla vita nelle colonie del Maryland. Inizia così un'odissea in cui, tra doppi e tripli scambi di identità, si susseguono naufragi e rapimenti, pirati e indiani, trafficanti d'oppio, prostitute amate, gemelle perdute, re indigeni, una misteriosa ricetta afrodisiaca e continui attentati alla vita del Poeta. Come non bastasse, ci sono poi le continue insidie carnali da cui Ebenezer cerca di difendere quel che ha di più caro: la propria verginità. In questa imponente satira di tutti i vizi umani John Barth eleva a un livello quasi filosofico il suo talento nel mescolare il virtuosismo linguistico a una materia pulp, e il risultato è uno dei romanzi più esilaranti mai scritti. Tra echi di Rabelais, Voltaire, Boccaccio e Cervantes, Il coltivatore del Maryland è considerato una delle opere più importanti del secondo Novecento e una delle massime espressioni della letteratura postmoderna, il cui potere di ammaliare e strabiliare ne fanno un classico fuori dal tempo.

Una mattina di giugno del 1937 Todd Andrews - un'avviatissima carriera di avvocato, una sobria vita borghese in una cittadina del Maryland, un improbabile ménage à trois con l'amico Harrison, erede di un impero dei sottaceti, e la graziosissima moglie di lui - si sveglia, si alza dal letto e guardandosi allo specchio scopre che la risposta a ogni suo problema è il suicidio. Vent'anni dopo, ancora vivo, racconta al lettore gli sviluppi di quella fatale giornata. Pubblicato originariamente nel 1956 e rivisto dallo stesso autore nel 1967, 'L'opera galleggiante' è considerato da molti il suo capolavoro.

Una situazione quanto mai tipica - un triangolo amoroso sullo sfondo di un'università della East Coast - nelle mani di Barth diventa un formidabile romanzo filosofico che alterna comicità e disperato nichilismo, satira e tragedia; al centro, uno dei più irresistibili antieroi della letteratura postmoderna: Jacob Horner, il giovane professore adultero che fa della paralisi esistenziale un paradossale sistema di vita. Prefazione di Simone Barillari.

Una mattina di giugno del 1937 Todd Andrews - un'avviatissima carriera di avvocato, una sobria vita borghese in una cittadina del Maryland, un improbabile ménage à trois con l'amico Harrison, erede di un impero dei sottaceti, e la graziosissima moglie di lui - si sveglia, si alza dal letto e guardandosi allo specchio scopre che la risposta a ogni suo problema è il suicidio. Vent'anni dopo, ancora vivo, racconta al lettore gli sviluppi di quella fatale giornata. Pubblicato originariamente nel 1956 e rivisto dallo stesso autore nel 1967, 'L'opera galleggiante' è considerato da molti il suo capolavoro. Con un saggio dell'autore.

LOST IN THE FUNHOUSE - BARTH JOHN - Random USA

A National Book Award winner offers his most inventive novel to date. Journalist Simon Behler finds himself in the house of Sinbad the Sailor after being washed ashore during a sea-going adventure. Over the course of six evenings, the two take turns recounting their voyages in a brilliantly entertaining weave of stories within stories. "Filled with white nights and golden days . . . lyrical, fresh and sprightly."--Washington Post.

Tell me a story! Katherine Shorter Sherritt Sagamore orders her husband Peter Sagamore -- and so lets loose a flood of tales that floats them both past encounteres with their own lives and loves, entanglements with the CIA and toxic waste, and fantastically inventive brushes with some of the greatest characters of all time, including updated versions of Don Quixote, Odysseus, and Scheherazade.

When Lost in the Funhouse appeared in 1968, American fiction was turned on its head. Not only did the book reach a popular audience, but it also became a staple of what was being read in universities across America. Suddenly there was a "new kind of fiction" being written and read, and at least for some short while became the standard of what fiction is. Barth's fiction wasn't a response to the realistic fiction that characterized American fiction at the time, but was in fact beckoning back to the founders of fiction: Cervantes, The Thousand and One Nights, Rabelaise, and Sterne, echoing their playfulness and defining the freedom inherent in the writing of fiction. This collection of John Barth's short fiction is a landmark event, bringing together all of his previous collections, together with a few new stories. In brief, its occasion is a time for standing back to admire and assess a lifetime's work. Stunningly original in a way that Barth's work always is, the publication of this collection represents a very important chapter in the history of American literature. Dalkey Archive will also be reissuing a number of Barth's novels over the next few years and permanently preserving his work for generations to come.

Written when John Barth was 24 years old, The Floating Opera is his first novel, published in 1957. It is a first-person reminiscence of the day Todd Andrews decided to commit suicide. Having picked up some sense of the French Existentialist writers from the postwar Zeitgeist, this novel questions life's value through the eyes of 37-year-old man.

There have been many changes in the field of coagulation during the past decade. New concepts of epidemiology of risk factors for thrombosis now help clinicians predict who is more likely to form clots after surgery, or after being placed on oral contraceptives. New anticoagulants have the potential to redefine how patients with atrial fibrillation and venous thrombosis are managed. There are new forms of recombinant clotting factors which have changed our approach to hypofibrinogenemia and von Willebrand’s disease. Newer antiplatelet agents are available and their use in patients receiving cardiac stents has mushroomed. The management of thrombosis in the setting of pregnancy has changed over the past decade, as well as the way clinicians approach women with multiple miscarriages. An entire new class of compounds, the thrombopoietins, are available to treat individuals with immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP).

The Coagulation Consult covers major topics of interest to hematologists who are asked to consult on individuals with coagulation related diseases, and encompasses the field’s most recent developments. This “case-directed” book describes state-of-the-art approaches to patients with bleeding and clotting disorders, as well as laboratory tests for coagulation. Chapters include different vignettes, focus on typical clinical consult questions, and lay out specific types of treatment. Practicing clinicians being confronted with coagulation consult students, residents, fellows and attending physicians will find this unique text an invaluable resource for some of the newer areas of coagulation science, therapy and pharmacology.

I nove saggi contenuti in questa raccolta rappresentano un compendio delle sue riflessioni sulla letteratura e sul mestiere di scrivere, una delicata alchimia in cui all' 'algebra' della tecnica deve unirsi il 'fuoco' del sentimento e delle idee.

Adapted from Sir Richard F. Burton's classic translation, this collection of lush Arab fairy tales entertain universal themes while illuminating the foreign world of the Medieval Middle East, featuring 'The Porter and the Three Ladies,' 'The Caliph's Night Adventure,' 'The Woman Who Made Her Husband Sift Dirt,' and other favorites. Original.

John Barth è uno dei capostipiti della narrativa postmoderna: le sue opere mescolano con virtuosismo generi letterari e antecedenti illustri che vanno dalle 'Mille e una notte' ai romanzi del Settecento e - senza mai rinunciare allo humour e alla pura gioia della narrazione - superano il realismo per diventare talvolta geniali riflessioni sull'atto della scrittura stessa; sono da decenni oggetto di culto per i lettori, e parte integrante del canone della letteratura americana. Questa antologia raccoglie i migliori racconti di Barth dal 1968 a oggi: dodici short stories che partono dalle circostanze più comuni della vita borghese occidentale (una gita al luna park, un viaggio in aereo, le piccole occasioni mondane all'interno di un complesso residenziale, la quotidianità di un matrimonio felice) ma si nutrono di una varietà di suggestioni che vanno dalla mitologia greca agli ipertesti, arrivando a indagare in maniera originalissima sul senso dell'esistenza e della letteratura.

Within the past three decades China has undergone tremendous structural changes in its economy. The Editors discuss the recent and ongoing reforms in China's financial system and their role in the world economy. China's GDP has grown almost three times the world average; now only behind the United States, Japan and Germany. The focus of this book is to examine, in detail, China's changing financial system in order to assess whether it can catch up with, or even drive economic growth.

OpenGL^® Shading Language, Third Edition, extensively updated for OpenGL 3.1, is the experienced application programmer's guide to writing shaders. Part reference, part tutorial, this book thoroughly explains the shift from fixed-functionality graphics hardware to the new era of programmable graphics hardware and the additions to the OpenGL API that support this programmability. With OpenGL and shaders written in the OpenGL Shading Language, applications can perform better, achieving stunning graphics effects by using the capabilities of both the visual processing unit and the central processing unit.

 

In this book, you will find a detailed introduction to the OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) and the new OpenGL function calls that support it. The text begins by describing the syntax and semantics of this high-level programming language. Once this foundation has been established, the book explores the creation and manipulation of shaders using new OpenGL function calls.

 

OpenGL^® Shading Language, Third Edition, includes updated descriptions for the language and all the GLSL entry points added though OpenGL 3.1, as well as updated chapters that discuss transformations, lighting, shadows, and surface characteristics. The third edition also features shaders that have been updated to OpenGL Shading Language Version 1.40 and their underlying algorithms, including

 

• Traditional OpenGL fixed functionality
• Stored textures and procedural textures
• Image-based lighting
• Lighting with spherical harmonics
• Ambient occlusion and shadow mapping
• Volume shadows using deferred lighting
• Ward's BRDF model

 

The color plate section illustrates the power and sophistication of the OpenGL Shading Language. The API Function Reference at the end of the book is an excellent guide to the

API entry points that support the OpenGL Shading Language.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew speaks to a contemporary world about, human rights, religious tolerance, international peace, environmental protection, and more.In the World, Yet Not of the World represents a selection of major addresses and significant messages as well as public statements by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, first among equalsand spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians. The Patriarch is as comfortable preaching about the spiritual legacy of the Orthodox Church as he is promoting sociopolitical issues of his immediate cultural environment and praying for respect toward Islam or for global peace.As the documents reveal, the tenure of the Ecumenical Patriarch has been characterized by inter-Orthodox cooperation, inter-Christian dialogue and interreligious understanding. He has traveled more extensively than any other Orthodox Patriarch in history, exchanging official visitations with numerous ecclesiastical and state dignitaries.In particular, because he is a citizen of Turkey and the leader of a Christian minority in a predominantly Muslim nation, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's personal experience endows him with a unique perspective on religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue. These documents are drawn from his prominent leadership roles as primary spiritual leader of the Orthodox Christian world and transnational figure of global significance - influential roles that become more vital each day. Published together here for the first time, the writings reveal the Ecumenical Patriarch as a bridge builder and peacemaker. One of his catchphrases is War in the name of religion is war against religion.Over the past eighteen years, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew's inclination and intention have been to address the most difficult issues facing the world-the deep and increasing mistrust between East and West, the decay and widening destruction of the natural environment, as well as the sharp divisions among the various Christian confessions and diverse faith communities-whether on religious, racial, or cultural levels. He regards being a servant of reconciliation as a primary obligation of his spiritual ministry to. This book reveals the powerful influence of a spiritual institution from the unique perspective of a Christian leader in the world, and yet not of the world.Some of the topics covered:o Faith and freedomo Racism and fundamentalismo Mutual respect and toleranceo Ecology and povertyo Human rights and freedomo Racial and religious discriminationo Church and stateo Terrorism and corruptiono Freedom of conscienceo Europe, Turkey and the worldo Religion and politicso Christians and Muslimso Christians and Jews

As Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I is the symbol of unity for the self-governing national and ethnic Orthodox Christian churches throughout the world. He is well known for his commitment to protecting the environment, and for opening communications with other Christians (especially the Roman Catholic Church) as well as with Muslims and other religious groups.

Written with personal warmth and great erudition, ENCOUNTERING THE MYSTERY illuminates the rich culture and soul of Orthodox Christianity. Bartholomew I traces the roots of Orthodox Christianity to its founding 2000 years ago, explores its spirituality and doctrine, and explains its liturgy and art. More especially, in a unique and unprecedented way, he relates Orthodox Christianity to contemporary issues, such as freedom and human rights, social justice and globalization, as well as nationalism and war.

With a recent rebirth of Orthodox Christian churches (particularly in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe), there has been great interest in understanding this important branch of Christianity with its close ties to the traditions of the early Church. As USA TODAY recently reported, Orthodox Christian churches throughout the country are drawing converts attracted by the beauty of its liturgy and inspired by its enduring theology and teachings. But for the general seeker, whatever their background, ENCOUNTERING THE MYSTERY is a rich spiritual source that draws upon the wisdom of millennia.