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Aldous Huxley, author of eleven novels, remains one of the towering figures of the twentieth century, his work resistant to passing fads in literature. This critical biography explores Huxley's lifelong quest for self-actualization by intertwining the events of his life and details of the creative period that produced each book. Considering Huxley's letters, essays and interviews in its examination of the thematic content of each novel, the text finds a man striving for the intellectual growth that would yield a sound philosophical and spiritual view of life, one he infused into his work.

First published in 1930, the content will strike the present day reader as mannered in the extreme.

One day, an unlit candle wandered off into the forest to dream, pray and meditate on what could be. He pondered the possibility of a different kingdom, one where the light of hope would prevail, and the light of love would be constant. The Story of the Little Candle is an easy to follow tale that can help children face challenges in a positive manner, and empower them to overcome difficulties. Children will easily identify with the main character, who finds his light from within, defeats the dark king, and illuminates the entire kingdom. This powerful story can inspire kids to address issues such as bullying, self-image, social skills and learning challenges, while encouraging reading, creativity and visioning skills.

In this hugely entertaining sequel to the New York Times bestselling memoir An Appetite for Wonder, Richard Dawkins delves deeply into his intellectual life spent kick-starting new conversations about science, culture, and religion and writing yet another of the most audacious and widely read books of the twentieth century—The God Delusion. Called “one of the best nonfiction writers alive today” (Stephen Pinker) and a “prize-fighter” (Nature), Richard Dawkins cheerfully, mischievously, looks back on a lifetime of tireless intellectual adventure and engagement. Exploring the halls of intellectual inquiry and stardom he encountered after the publication of his seminal work, The Selfish Gene; affectionately lampooning the world of academia, publishing, and television; and studding the pages with funny stories about the great men and women he’s known, Dawkins offers a candid look at the events and ideas that encouraged him to shift his attention to the intersection of culture, religion, and science. He also invites the reader to look more closely at the brilliant succession of ten influential books that grew naturally out of his busy life, highlighting the ideas that connect them and excavating their origins. On the publication of his tenth book, the smash hit, The God Delusion, a “resounding trumpet blast for truth” (Matt Ridley), Richard Dawkins was catapulted from mere intellectual stardom into a circle of celebrity thinkers dubbed, “The New Atheists”—including Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. Throughout A Brief Candle in the Dark, Dawkins shares with us his infectious sense of wonder at the natural world, his enjoyment of the absurdities of human interaction, and his bracing awareness of life’s brevity: all of which have made a deep imprint on our culture.

This psychological reading of Huxley's oeuvre as a whole traces Huxley's self-transformation in his books and aims to do justice to the artist and the person who was Aldous Huxley. It is safe to regard as basic to his entire work the unfolding of the conflict we find so clearly delineated in his early short story "Farcical History of Richard Greenow" (Limbo, 1920), with Pearl Bellairs representing the emotional tradition that threatens the synthetic philosopher. Huxley's own story is plainly visible even in Limbo and Crome Yellow (1921), but it is in Antic Hay (1923) that the pattern of the future assumes a solid foundation. There we encounter in full force the tensions that follow him throughout his life: on the one hand an extreme of sensuality and on the other a longing for the "chaste pleasures," for a quiet and mystical worid completely different from that in which he found himself. The question of the relations between body and mind as well as the mystery of human consciousness haunt him to the very last, but after his mid-life crisis, depicted in Eyeless in Gaza (1936), a strong faith in the reality of a spiritual world is obvions. In the end he even manages to reinstate the body in his scheme of things. (Series: "Human Potentialities". Studien zu Aldous Huxley & zeitgenossischer Kultur/Studies in Aldous Huxley & Contemporary Culture - Vol. 5)