Few books can have undergone so many re-evaluations as this one, which has developed a fresh approach to terms which the author was apt to take for granted in recent years, never imagining that, one day, they would undergo such extensive re-evaluation as has transpired in this, arguably his most comprehensively exacting and philosophically significant work to-date, the overall significance of which is also due to the way in which certain antitheses, like life and death, heathen and Christian, energy and gravity, concrete and abstract, etc., have been interpreted from a standpoint owing more to philosophical logic than might at first seem to be the case, with highly credible conclusions that remind one that dualism, in one form or another, was always at the core of John O'Loughlin's approach to philosophy, even if the old class- and plane-orientated duality between noumenal and phenomenal, approximating to ethereal and corporeal, has here undergone a reappraisal which, relative to other such terms, renders it much less general and correspondingly much more particular, in relation, that is, to specific contexts characterized as being either phenomenal or noumenal or, in certain other permutations, as something else altogether! – A Centretruths Editorial

A debut collection that sings with gutbucket colloquialisms, hallucinatory interludes, and Kentucky's storytelling tradition.

Subtitled "a romance," Sabbatical is the story of Susan Rachel Allan Seckler, a sharp young associate professor of early American literature--part Jewish, part Gypsy, and possibly descended from Edgar Allan Poe--and her husband Fenwick Scott Key Turner, a 50-year-old ex-CIA officer currently between careers, a direct descendant of the author of "The Star Spangled Banner" and himself the author of a troublemaking book about his former employer. Seven years into their marriage, they decide to take a sabbatical, a sailboat journey on which they sum up their years together and try to make important decisions about the years ahead. True to its subtitle, the novel combines the mysterious and marvelous (unexplained disappearances, a fabled sea monster in Chesapeake Bay) with romantic love and daring adventure. Sabbatical is quintessential Barth: it involves sailing, twinship, the joy of love and literature, the sorrow of death and disaster, and a playfully complex narrative. The author has written a foreword for this new edition.

First Published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is a collection of essays and short stories accumulated during the 80's and 90's, all loosely connected via a continuous narrative. This is an introduction to a reality that few have time to see while busy with creation of their own. This is a book for intelligent adults who are not afraid of challenging ideas and who insist on the right to think for themselves. The collection is a worm's eye view of British society at the bottom. The narrative is blunt and uncompromising, takes a wry, bitter but often humorous look at many absurdities in the way we conduct our affairs and is more illuminating of humanity in its gloomlight descriptives than the clinically bright light of academic studies by Oxbridge social isolates.

Acclaimed designers Sagmeister & Walsh explore the essence of beauty and the transformative power of beautiful design In this groundbreaking highly visual book, world-renowned designers Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh set out on a mission: to find out what beauty is and the many ways that it impacts our lives. They turn to philosophy, history, and science to understand why we are drawn to beauty and how it influences the way we feel and behave. Determined to translate their findings into action, Sagmeister & Walsh show us how beauty can improve the world.

Dr. Owen Whitfield is the elderly Oxford professor of history who first appeared in Michael O''Brien''s novel The Father''s Tale. In the events of The Sabbatical, which occur sometime later, Dr. Whitfield is looking forward to a sabbatical year of peace and quiet, gardening in his backyard, and tinkering with what he calls his latest "unpublishable book". As the year begins, he is drawn by a series of seeming coincidences into involvement with a group of characters from across Europe, including a family that has been the target of assassination attempts by unknown powers. During his journey to Romania, the situation in which he finds himself becomes more sinister than it first seemed. The story deals with the tension between fatalism and the providential understanding of history, with the courage and love that are necessary for navigating through a confusion of signs, and with the triumph of faith and reason over the forces of destruction.