Yuri Rasovsky
"Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be. That kind of reputation might be good business."—Samuel Spade, private investigator
"Spade...is what most of the private detectives I worked with would like to have been and in their cockier moments thought they approached."—Dashiell Hammett
The Maltese Falcon first appeared in the pages of Black Mask magazine in 1929. Almost immediately it was acknowledged as not
...Master Sun said: "Ultimate excellence lies not in winning every battle but in defeating the enemy without ever fighting."
For more than two thousand years, The Art of War has stood as a cornerstone of Chinese culture, a lucid text that reveals as much about psychology, politics, and economics as it does about battlefield strategy. For those seeking a deeper understanding of this seminal work, scholar John Minford brings the words of Sun-tzu
...14) The Oresteia
More democracy means more freedom. Or does it?
American democracy is, in many people's minds, the model for the rest of the world. Fareed Zakaria points out that the American form of democracy is one of the least democratic in use today. Members of the Supreme Court and the Federal Reserve, institutions that fundamentally shape our lives, are appointed, not elected. The Bill of Rights enumerates a set of privileges to which citizens are
...16) Beowulf
17) I Am Madame X
Madame X, John Singer Sargent's most famous and scandalous portrait, caused an immediate furor when Sargent unveiled it at the 1884 Paris Salon.
The subject's bold pose, provocative dress, and decadent pallor shocked the public, and the critics panned the picture, smashing Sargent's dream of a Paris career.
Even before Sargent painted her portrait, Virginie Gautreau's reputation for promiscuity and showy self-display made her the subject
...Mavis Gallant is a contemporary legend, a frequent contributor to the New Yorker for close to fifty years, and the undisputed master of the short story. Her peerless prose captures the range of human experience while evoking time and place with unequaled skill. This superb collection of fifteen of Gallant's stories, edited and with an introduction by bestselling author Michael Ondaatje, gathers the best of her many stories set all over Europe,
...Blackstone Audio is proud to present seven great plays in a collection that illustrates the development of European drama from ancient times to the threshold of the modern theater: Medea by Euripides, The Tempest by Shakespeare, The Imaginary Invalid by Molière, Camille by Dumas, An Enemy of the People by Ibsen, Arms and the Man by Shaw, and Uncle Vanya by Chekhov.
A superb repertory company with distinguished guest artists has been
...