《青灯》是诗人北岛的散文集，收录了他新近完成的十一篇作品。第一部分是忆念，主角是熊秉明、蔡其矫、魏斐德、冯亦代等故人，青灯素帐，烛影惶惶；第二部分则是游历，足迹遍及世界各地，作者在漂泊中怀揣着家园。
《青灯》：“故国残月/沉入深潭中/重如那些石头你把词语垒进历史/让河道转弯//花开几度/ 催动朝代盛衰/乌鸦即鼓声/帝王们如蚕吐丝/为你织成长卷//美女如云/护送内心航程/靑灯掀开梦的一角/你顺手挽住火焰/化作漫天大雪//把酒临风/你和中国一起老去/长廊贯穿春秋/大门口的陌生人正砸响门环”这是北岛献给汉学家魏斐德（Fred Wakeman）的诗，为纪念其退休而作。

Nathan Glass has come to Brooklyn to die. Divorced, estranged from his only daughter, the retired life insurance salesman seeks only solitude and anonymity. Then Nathan finds his long-lost nephew, Tom Wood, working in a local bookstore - a far cry from the brilliant academic career he'd begun when Nathan saw him last. Tom's boss is the charismatic Harry Brightman, whom fate has also brought to the "ancient kingdom of Brooklyn, New York." Through Tom and Harry, Nathan's world gradually broadens to include a new set of acquaintances - not to mention a stray relative or two - and leads him to a reckoning with his past. Among the many twists in the delicious plot are a scam involving a forgery of the first page of The Scarlet Letter, a disturbing revelation that takes place in a sperm bank, and an impossible, utopian dream of a rural refuge. Meanwhile, the wry and acerbic Nathan has undertaken something he calls The Book of Human Folly, in which he proposes "to set down in the simplest, clearest language possible an account of every blunder, every pratfall, every embarrassment, every idiocy, every foible, and every inane act I had committed during my long and checkered career as a man." But life takes over instead, and Nathan's despair is swept away as he finds himself more and more implicated in the joys and sorrows of others. The Brooklyn Follies is Paul Auster's warmest, most exuberant novel, a moving and unforgettable hymn to the glories and mysteries of ordinary human life.

An utterly contemporary and deeply thought-provoking novel which addresses the profound unease of countless people in modern democracies around the world.
An eminent, seventy-two-year-old Australian writer is invited to contribute to a book entitled Strong Opinions. It is a chance to air some urgent concerns. He writes short essays on the origins of the state, on Machiavelli, on anarchism, on Al-Qaida, on intelligent design, on music. What, he asks, is the origin of the state and the nature of the relationship between citizen and state? How should the citizen of a modern democracy react to the state’s willingness to set aside moral considerations and civil liberties in its war on terror, a war that includes the use of torture? How does the state handle outsiders?
In the laundry-room of his apartment block he encounters an alluring young woman. When he discovers she is between jobs he claims failing eyesight and offers her work typing up his manuscript. Anya has no interest in politics but the job provides a distraction, as does the writer’s evident and not unwelcome attraction toward her.
Her boyfriend, Alan, an investment consultant who understands the world in harsh neo-liberal economic terms, has reservations about his trophy girlfriend spending time with this 1960s throwback. Taking a lively interest in his affairs, Alan begins to formulate a plan.
Diary of a Bad Year is an utterly contemporary work of fiction from one of our greatest writers and deepest thinkers. It addresses the profound unease of countless people in democracies across the world.

From the internationally bestselling, Pulitzer Prize—winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand.
In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories–a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate–we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.

A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured. In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and always keenly detailed, Jane Jacobs's monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities.

From the celebrated author of The English Patient and In the Skin of a Lion comes a remarkable new novel of intersecting lives that ranges across continents and time.
In the 1970s in Northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work their farm with the help of Coop, an enigmatic young man who makes his home with them. Theirs is a makeshift family, until it is riven by an incident of violence—of both hand and heart—that sets fire to the rest of their lives.

Divisadero takes us from the city of San Francisco to the raucous backrooms of Nevada’s casinos and eventually to the landscape of south-central France. It is here, outside a small rural village, that Anna becomes immersed in the life and the world of a writer from an earlier time—Lucien Segura. His compelling story, which has its beginnings at the turn of the century, circles around “the raw truth” of Anna’s own life, the one she’s left behind but can never truly leave. And as the narrative moves back and forth in time and place, we discover each of the characters managing to find some foothold in a present rough hewn from the past.
Breathtakingly evoked and with unforgettable characters, Divisadero is a multilayered novel about passion, loss, and the unshakable past, about the often discordant demands of family, love, and memory. It is Michael Ondaatje’s most intimate and beautiful novel to date.

From the acclaimed author of River Town comes a rare portrait, both intimate and epic, of twenty-first-century China as it opens its doors to the outside world. A century ago, outsiders saw Chinaas a place where nothing ever changes. Today the coun-try has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. That sense of time—the contrast between past and present, and the rhythms that emerge in a vast, ever-evolving country—is brilliantly illuminated by Peter Hessler in Oracle Bones , a book that explores the human side of China's transformation. Hessler tells the story of modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world as seen through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In addition to the author, an American writer living in Beijing, the narrative follows Polat, a member of a forgotten ethnic minority, who moves to the United States in searchof freedom; William Jefferson Foster, who grew up in an illiterate family and becomes a teacher; Emily,a migrant factory worker in a city without a past; and Chen Mengjia, a scholar of oracle-bone inscriptions, the earliest known writing in East Asia, and a man whosetragic story has been lost since the Cultural Revolution. All are migrants, emigrants, or wanderers who find themselves far from home, their lives dramatically changed by historical forces they are struggling to understand. Peter Hessler excavates the past and puts a remarkable human face on the history he uncovers. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes.

作者对自然的感受与表达，不是面面俱到地铺陈与状物，而是印象化或情感式地去捕捉，去开掘司空见惯的自然景致的内在韵致，和最打动观景者的一种记忆、一个姿态或一个瞬间。一方面，这种内在韵致来自自然的客观特质，萤虫翩然飞舞是夏夜独有的景致；冬日清早满地的清霜、凛冽的岚气，以及火盆带给人的温暖，则又是一种独有的记忆；而樱花的繁茂灿烂、橘花的质朴莹洁和在碧叶金果衬托下显露出的“动人姿影”，也是别种花卉不可取代的。另一方面，作者又是带着意绪、情感去记忆和描摹这些自然物象，表现自然物象带给人的主观感受，物象在主体的审美活动中被高度心灵化、情感化了。萤火虫的翩然飞舞，让人联想到黑夜中的微光、静谧中的萌动，以及白天暑气消尽后清凉如水的怡然；而寒冬里捧着火盆徐行的情景，也带给人一种温暖美好的感受。
从内容来看，这本书大致可以分成下面三类： 一是根据当时流行的列举文写成的类纂性的东西，如“山”“节日”“树木”“高雅的东西”“稀有的事”等等。这有点类似唐朝李义山“杂纂”的写法，列举“不快意”“煞风景”等各事，以类相从，只是更为扩大，并涉及山川草木各项，有美的也有丑的，颇为细微。其二是日记的各段。在皇后定子逝世以后，作者离开宫廷后的几年中，回忆旧事，不胜感念，因加以记述。其三是感想的各段。在她的晚年，出家为尼，过着孤独冷清的生活，这时候对于自然和人生发生一些感想，随时加以辑录。这三种随笔，后来经译者编辑整理，各选若干，就是现在的《枕草子》。

这是一本博杂又有分量的书，内容包括作者的阅读笔记、对专业（神学与文学）的理论思考、对作者喜爱的艺术作品———电影与音乐———的文本解读，以及对自我的散文式但又充满形而上思考的生命记忆。读这本书，你会与一串串东西方文学、艺术和理论的大师与非大师、经典与非经典的文本相遇，但这绝不是说这是炫知性的掉书袋，更不是一本引介性的普及读本。　　在我看来，关于人性、关于自我的思考和体验角度，构成倪湛舸的写作出发点，也成为解读本书的路径。这当然与她的治学相关———芝加哥大学宗教与文学系的博士生，但我更愿意把之看成是一种生命感受，乃至生活方式的结果、结晶———在今天，做一名知识分子，既是一种职业选择，更是一种生活方式的选择。　　作者的思考、质疑、追问或解答并非仅仅出于专业性的工作，或是从知识到知识的自我离场式的“理论旅行”（萨伊德），而是被作者虽然年轻，却因天性的敏感、敏锐和后天的博读、善思充分扩张了的心灵涵纳了，融通了。它是一个从知识之泉到生命之酒的酿制过程，既是关于书本或他者的写作，又是关于生存和自我的写作。因此，我们才会明瞭作者何以立场鲜明地喜爱和选择那些讲述日常生活和小人物的悲苦而又轻贱命运的文本，解剖形象及其创造者痛苦挣扎的灵魂；才会明瞭为什么在通篇的读解、讲述中，作者每每会“引火烧身”地进行自我反观，使行文充满了质感、“体感”，洋溢着生命的疑惑、焦灼、痛楚和悲怆，当然也不乏体与悟的灵性与喜悦；才会明瞭作者一边在勇敢而强力地感悟、叙说、阐释和批判，一边又真切地表达关于自我的稚拙、脆弱和卑微的人生感喟。
于是写作之于作者，便成为一种摆脱和反叛，一种独白式的呐喊和不可为而为之的拯救。“黑暗”是对人生的荒谬与宿命的形象揭示，而“相逢”则是希望，是机遇，因为它会擦出火花，照亮黑暗。它能给那些同路人一些温暖，他们也许不知道路在哪里，但由此会知道一位也在泥泞中艰行的陌生同伴，看到她跋涉的脚印。

在线阅读本书
Every marketer tells a story. And if they do it right, we believe them. We believe that wine tastes better in a $20 glass than a $1 glass. We believe that an $80,000 Porsche Cayenne is vastly superior to a $36,000 VW Touareg, which is virtually the same car. We believe that $225 Pumas will make our feet feel better-and look cooler-than $20 no-names . . . and believing it makes it true. Successful marketers don't talk about features or even benefits. Instead, they tell a story. A story we want to believe. This is a book about doing what consumers demand-painting vivid pictures that they choose to believe. Every organization-from nonprofits to car companies, from political campaigns to wineglass blowers-must understand that the rules have changed (again). In an economy where the richest have an infinite number of choices (and no time to make them), every organization is a marketer and all marketing is about telling stories. Marketers succeed when they tell us a story that fits our worldview, a story that we intuitively embrace and then share with our friends. Think of the Dyson vacuum cleaner or the iPod. But beware: If your stories are inauthentic, you cross the line from fib to fraud. Marketers fail when they are selfish and scurrilous, when they abuse the tools of their trade and make the world worse. That's a lesson learned the hard way by telemarketers and Marlboro. This is a powerful book for anyone who wants to create things people truly want as opposed to commodities that people merely need.

抓住本选文的两端来阅读沈从文，一端是写实到把湘西人生活的原本状态一一展示，一端是浪漫到将湘西人的精神提升到天上人间，运用“抒情”把湘西人的生活样式和生命形式高度统一起来，即沈从文的精髓。　　沈从文的湘西故事繁复多样，摇曳生姿。《边城》，就是这样一个关于湘西苗族的“民族寓言”的经典文本。 　　小说用人物象征和心理分析的方法，透视《边城》的深层文化隐喻，可以发现沈从文先生对湘西苗族文化的形象思维图腾和他对苗／汉、中／西文化冲突的思考与隐忧。

《北京法源寺》是作者作为政治犯被关押期间所写的几部小说之一。
本书以大人物为主角，举凡重要的主题：生死、鬼神、僧俗、出入、仕隐、朝野、家国、君臣、忠奸、夷夏、中外、强弱、人我、群已、公私、情理、常变、去留、因果经世济民等，都是论述之列。强烈地表达思想，内容丰富自是罕见。
《北京法源寺》在小说理论上，有些地方是有意“破格”的。有些地方，它不重视过去的小说理论，也不重视现代的，因这它根本就不要成为“清宫秘史”式的无聊小说，也不愿成为新潮派的技巧小说，所以详人所略，略人所详，该赶快“过桥”的，也就不多费笔墨，该大力发挥的，也不避萧伯纳一《一人演说》之谶。

史记是我国第一部通史。在史记之前，有以年代为次的“编年史”如春秋，有以地域为限的“国别史”如国语、战国策，有以文告档卷形式保存下来的“政治史”如尚书，可是没有上下几千年，包罗各方面，而又融会贯通，�络分明，像史记那样的通史。
唐刘知几的史通分叙六家，统归二体。所谓“二体”，就是“编年体”和“纪传体”，而史记是纪传体的创始。从此以后，历代的所谓“正史，从汉书到明史，尽管名目有改变（例如汉书改“书”为“志”，晋书改世家”为“载记”），门类有短缺（例如汉书无“世家”，后汉书、三国志等都无“表”、“志及世家”），但都有“纪”有“传”，绝无例外地沿袭了史记的体例。
据司马迁自序，史记全书本纪十二篇，表十篇，书八篇，世家三十篇，列传七十篇（包括太史公自序），共一百三十篇。今本史记一百三十卷，篇数跟司马迁自序所说的相符。但汉书司马迁传说其中“十篇缺，有录无书。三国魏张晏注：“迁没之后，亡景纪、武纪、礼书、乐书、兵书（按：即律书）、汉兴以来将相年表、日者传、三王世家、龟策列传、传靳列传。兀成之间，褚先生补缺，作武帝纪、三王世家、龟策、日者列传，言辞鄙陋，非迁本意也。可见司马迁编写史记，只能说是基本上完成，其中有若干篇，或者没有写定，或者已经定稿而后来散失了。

Three men meet on a ship bound for Haiti, a world in the grip of the corrupt aPapa Doca and the Tontons Macoute, his sinister secret police. Brown the hotelier, Smith the innocent American, and Jones the confidence manathese are the acomediansa of Greeneas title. Hiding behind their actorsa masks, they hesitate on the edge of life. They are men afraid of love, afraid of pain, afraid of fear itself...

In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermino Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.
With humorous sagacity and consummate craft, García Márquez traces an exceptional half-century story of unrequited love. Though it seems never to be conveniently contained, love flows through the novel in many wonderful guises--joyful, melancholy, enriching, ever surprising.

《浮生六记》流传久远，“浮迷”众多。其中两位超级“浮迷”林语堂、俞平伯的贡献，让其成为经典并走向世界：1924年，《浮生六记》由俞平伯整理标点并首次以单行本印行后，迅速广为流传；民国时期，《浮生六记》精彩片段被选入《国文》课本；1935年，《浮生六记》由林语堂译成英文，并相继被译成德文等多种文字。

本书重点不在对具体的艺术理论进行推演，而是意在打通艺术理论经和具体艺术之间的通道，到鲜活的艺术之中，去寻找理论的“歇脚处”；打通艺术和人生之间的通道，到艺术之中，寻找另人特有的人生智慧。中国艺术渊深和海，我舀起一瓢之饮，来说大海的意味，其浅疏显而易见。只能说它传达了自己的一点真实体会而已。
本书共十讲，第一讲听香，讲神情问题；第二讲看舞，主要讲动静关系问题；第三讲储蓄，以“曲径”之名；第四讲讲中国艺术理论中见大的思想，这是东方艺术理论中的特有思想，以“微花”名之；第五讲枯树，说中国艺术中大巧若拙的思想；第六讲空山，说虚实问题；第七讲冷月，说中国艺术中荒寒冷寂的境界；第八讲和风，论中国艺术中的和谐思想。第九讲名慧剑，说的是妙悟的体验；第十讲名扇舟，说的是中国艺术的写意传统。

孔尚任（1648―1718），字聘之，又字季重，号东塘，别号岸堂，自称云亭山人。山东曲阜人，孔子六十四代孙。他的一生大概可以分为三个阶段。一、仕前阶段：三十七岁前，在家过着养亲、读书的生活。他接触了一些南明遗民，了解到许多南明王朝兴亡的第一手史料和李香君的轶事。对写一部反映南明兴亡的历史剧萌发浓厚兴趣，开始了《桃花扇》的构思和试笔，但“仅画其轮廓，实未饰其藻采也”（《桃花扇本末》）。二、出仕阶段：1684年康熙南巡北归，特至曲阜祭孔，三十七岁的孔尚任在御前讲经，颇得康熙的赏识，破格授为国子博士，赴京就任。三十九岁，奉命赴江南治水，历时四载。这个时期，他的足迹几乎踏遍南明故地，又与一大批有民族气节的明代遗民结为知交，接受他们的爱国思想，加深了对南明兴亡历史的认识。他积极收集素材，丰富创作《桃花扇》的构思。康熙二十九年（1690），奉调回京，历任国子监博士、户部主事、广东司外郎。经过毕生努力，三易其稿，康熙三十八年，五十二岁的孔尚任，终于写成了《桃花扇》。一时洛阳纸贵，不仅在北京频繁演出，“岁无虚日”，而且流传到偏远的地方，连“万山中，阻绝入境”的楚地容美（今湖北鹤峰县），也有演出（《桃花扇本末》）。次年三月，孔尚任被免职，“命薄忍遭文字憎，缄口金人受诽谤”（《容美土司田舜年遣使投诗赞予〈桃花扇〉传奇，依韵却寄》），从这些诗句看，他这次罢官很可能是因创作《桃花扇》得祸。三、隐居阶段：罢官后，孔尚任在京赋闲两年多，接着回乡隐居。康熙五十七年（1718）这位享有盛誉的一代戏曲家，就在曲阜石门家中与世长辞了，年七十岁。他的作品.还有和顾采合著的《小忽雷》传奇及诗文集（湖海集》、《岸堂文集》、《长留集》等，均传世。

陈从周是我国著名的建筑学家和园林艺术家。本书以鉴赏的眼光，描述了我国江南江北一个个著名的园林。对建筑、山石、布局，作者都有独特的看法，可以给读者观赏园林以指导。