This is the work of a twentieth century genius.
349047
Excellent works by definition...held back from public view for so long, by short-sighted "literary cogs," in the strange wheel of the publishing industry by their very own "elite" society.  Not until a tireless mother of the Author, hammering away for years (long after his tragic suicide) does this masterpiece become available for all to enjoy. I discovered it only by means of hearing this very sad story behind the story.  It is hilarious and a great deal more!
3174949
I agree with the French survey naming this as the greatest literature work of the 20th century.
It is hard to qualify; but I would dare to say it is the most fabulous universal poetry work narrated as a short story.
I have reading it since I was a kid, in this opportunity I wanted to have the kindle edition.
804362
One of the great directors of the 20th Century with style, economy and suspense.  He was the Master of Suspense and for good reason.  He knew how to direct.  He even shot his movies with a minimal amount of film - so no fool executive in the back office could recut his film.  He knew how to play the game and reinvented himself with "Psycho" and more.  Study film.  Study Hitchcock.
198955
The man is a genius, so far ahead of the technology possible when this book was written. He helps us open our minds to the untapped possibilities.
1812152
There are hints of Proust and Blavatsky here, the aromas of Katmandu and ashrams, of Carnatic music and Tantric bachanals, of a Sixties now extant in memory alone (or almost), the possibility of discoveries that are both Delphic and OM-centric---but you need to be alert to Hathaway's fundamental genius in confecting them together and making of it all a singular life.  Destined to be a classic in every sense.

Richard Parker.
3531621
Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman have put an immense effort into writing an exhaustive review of Norbert Wiener, one of the great geniuses of the last century.  Wiener spoke an ungodly number of languages, got his PhD from Harvard at the age of 19, made immense contributions to mathematics, biology, computer sciences, medicine, political thought - even in McCarthy's heyday he had no qualms about speaking his mind -, etc, etc.

As generally is the case with biographies of Wunderkinder, the authors ultimately are not equal to their subjects, not for lack of effort, but for lack of having the intellect necessary to understand and do justice to an ber-prodigy.  And so it is with this book; rather than to analyze and judge Wiener's various accomplishments and beliefs, which range from phenomenal scientific accomplishments to believing that he had been reincarnated, the authors prefer to "tell it as it was" and let the reader draw his or her conclusions.

Despite these inevitable limitations, this book is well worth reading, albeit thoughtfully.
39478
With Rainforest, his breakthrough piece, he was experimenting with the idea of getting sounds from objects, not just speakers, by running electricity through them.
I feel like this amazing piece exists phenomenally between & outside the argument of complete control music & aleatory.  The music comes from a real physical space, completely locked within that large space the composer built, so it has that controlled structure, but once it's going the composer doesn't have any more to do with how it acts, how exactly the objects respond to the electricity.  If you ask me, this is one of the most pivotal electronic pieces of the 20th century.
4753955
It's a magnificent report on the life and works of a "first class genius", till the end of the '30s. An unforgettable classic in history of contemporary art. To be read together with Stein's "Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas".
1937706
This book is written and crafted by a genius. What came in the mail was much more than merely a biography, this is a work of precision cultural criticism and wit which can be both pointed and beautiful at the same time.

I love how Chesterton picks out his contemporaries or past thinkers and then tells us why they are wrong for thinking x. There is so much truth in this book-- I could go on and on about how relevant this work is to us in the 21st Century. When talking about Ancient Rome: "Thus the effect of treating sex as only one innocent natural thing was that every other innocent natural thing became soaked and sodden with sex" (21).

What makes Chesterton so good, though, is that he is not parading merely his own opinion throughout the book-- he is speaking with the fullness of truth backing him up. The reader will experience what happens when Jn 8:32 is applied to literature: "the truth will set you free" and you will then be free to take down that which is not true-- and do it with style.
3406729
One has to really get ready for Howard Bloom. His post-modern prose is Jazz: free-flowing, ad-libbed, pure inspirational creationism, of the good sound kind, that is.

He knows just enough about his subjects not to be intimidated by what he doesnt know. And he knows a lot  enough to know how to riff across several disparate disciplines in perfect pitch until his manuscript swings.

He dots all of the is and crosses all of the ts too. I learned this the hard way after finally reading his The Lucifer Principal, which I am ashamed to admit, sat on my book shelf for over a decade untouched. What a surprise when I finally cracked the pages and realized that it was not the conspiracy nonsense I thought it would be, but was a serious piece of work.

The same can be said here. As usual, Bloom comes out swinging, that is, riffing. Sizing up the problem from way out on the historical periphery, through mathematics, the computer and cognitive sciences, modern physics, psychology, the arts, until he has corralled it all into a large historical clearing  a stealth-like mathematical and logical cage, as it were.

While no one has been looking, like Sherlock Holmes, he goes in for the kill; he has built an air-tight case. The God Problem must yield to logic, science and to post-modern history. There is no exit except through the front door.

He speaks infectious post-modernism  meaning there is no longer a need to explain his theoretical framework of givens, like deconstruction, post-Freudianism, Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. These things ooze out of his skin.

This literary work of abstract art, is heavily historical and scientific but without a detailed road map. So, hold on, things do get better  that is to say, clearer.

This man is no roper-doper, but a serious thinker and researcher. His unconventional style is part of the allure. It isn't for the faint of heart, but brave souls will be richly rewarded. They are in for an exhilarating ride.

My take is this. The God Problem has already been solved. The solution is precisely this: To the extent we can still say that there is a god at all, He, at best, is surely just The God of the gaps, perpetually playing catch-up to his own greatest creation, a hairy, fat-storing ape with an over sized brain, and something called free will, who somehow, by hook or crook, has invented the scientific method.

Lets allow this God of the gaps to continue standing on the sidelines above the fray, taking credit for his creation, but staying completely out of the line of fire. Its okay for him to sit pompously on his throne in the sky and marvel at His own creation, so long as he does not try to interfere, or does not allow lesser beings to rule like tyrants in his name. Amen

The main pageant of religion, and of our humanity, is not the book, but the sparks from the scientific show going on in Geneva  still the greatest show on either earth, or in the heavens. QED and five stars!
156411
Janet Asimov brings us into the life and thinking of one of the greats of the 20th Century as only a clear-sighted partner can.
1670406
EARTH ASCENDING illustrates the mathematical correlations of the binary computer code, the I Ching hexagrams, Ben Franklin's magic square, the DNA code,  the Mayan Sacred Calendar, the fluxuations of the Van Allen  radiation belt, historical epocs, pristine civilizations, the terrestial  seasons, and the governing geomagnetic features of the planet, among  others.  The author's noetic vision has a density like Mahler's music and  Finnegans Wake. This reviewer dares venture that it will prove to be the  single most seminal book published in the 20th century. Do yourself a  favor: buy it, read it, let yourself be enlightened by it. Not to know it  is a sign of intellectual backwardness. Not to ponder it is to walk in  spiritual darkness. Not to own it is a mark of cultural poverty.
2408542
Beckett is one of the greatest writers in the twentieth century especially his plays such as Waiting for Godot an novels such as the Unnamable
3465613
How did i get so far along  in early 20th twentieth century european writers before finding this arch and mature man.
2587911
This may be the most important work of this century.  Arguing as a capitalist, Piketty makes complex economics accessible to a very wide audience as he explains why allowing extreme inequality not merely to continue unabated, but to accelerate,  threatens the stability of our society.  Not just for the masses but for all.  His work is already being taken  seriously by members of if not the one percent, the ten percent.  Most important, he offers a concrete, specific solution: heavy taxation of wealth, whether the wealthy like it or not.  Not so much because they greedily accumulate wealth and spend it on themselves, but because they tend to horde it and not spend it at all.  As their share of wealth increases, its ability to produce even more wealth through interest or investment diminishes.  Thus does their incentive to keep accumulated wealth in circulation, to serve as productive capital diminish.  In parallel, their efforts to maintain status quo as they view it, without awareness of how this status quo is creating a degenerative, decaying society, results in the expansion of oligarchy.  Without demonizing anyone as evil, or even Machiavellian, as Marxists and Anarchists have done, Piketty agrees that in the final analysis, capitalism as it operates at present digs its own grave and drags everyone into it if publics cannot respond appropriately. Heavy taxation of wealth defines appropriately for him, and happens to be a goal achievable within our constitutional framework given the existence of a public strong enough to make it so.  Implicitly, creating such a public must be the goal of an enlightened activism.  Through education, and appeal to all social class levels of society.  His prescription is certainly debatable, but his analysis is probably incontrovertible.  This is a must read for anyone concerned about current trends.
4217021
W.H. Auden was, of course, one of the 20th Century's greatest poets. This collection of essays, forewards and reviews illuminates his carefully thought out positions on poetry, literature, art, artists and religion. The book covers a period of over thirty years and the organization of the book is not chronological. Though this obscures the development of Auden's thoughts over time, it does serve as a useful almost biographical device. Beginning with the most esoteric discussions of Christian mysticism, the editor proceeds to go deeper and deeper into Auden himself, until he ends with a semi-autobiograhical account.  Read in conjunction with the poetry, one feels sometimes that the poems do illustrate the philosophy more clearly than the prose, but notwithstanding, these essays are well worth reading. The essays on Goethe and Wagner are arresting insights about the relationship between the artist and his life that might startle those used to the conventional view of art derives from life. The format leads inevitably to repetition but the repetition is welcome as the concepts are often difficult and benefit from being brought forth in different contexts.
194201
Wriiten in the style of literature from the turn of the 20th century, it is a completely new look from him.