Ecstasy And Other Stories

STORIES THAT TOUCH YOUR HEART BY ONE OF THE BEST MODERN TAMIL WRITERS Special Birth Centenary Edition Thi. Janakiraman (ThiJa) was one of the best Tamil prose writers of the twentieth century. The stories in this specially curated collection offer a view of the modernizing Tamil countryside as well as the changing landscape of human relationships. A man builds his reputation based on lies to meet the expectations of his father, a woman desiring tenderness from her abusive husband finds release in an unexpected way, a music teacher is mocked for taking on a lower-caste student, and a drowning cat becomes the centre of attention during funerary rituals. In these and other tales, Janakiraman reaches inside the depths of the human heart and lays bare its contradictory pulls. Through their brilliant translation, Professor David Shulman and the late S. Ramakrishnan reveal the 'perfect pitch' of Janakiraman's precise, exquisite Tamil. They deftly capture his fluid, sensitive style in idiomatic English, seamlessly rendering the subtle inflections of the original. Prof. Shulman's insightful and affecting introduction places Janakiraman within the long continuum of Tamil literature. There is also a short, beautiful memoir on him, written by his daughter Uma.

Lloyd from Leith has a transfiguring passion for the unhappily married Heather. Together they explore the true nature of house music and chemical romance. Will their ardour fizzle and die or will it ignite and blaze like a thousand suns? Ecstasy follows them and others through the backstreets of Edinburgh, stifling suburban sitting rooms and the bright lights of London. Exhilarating and dazzling, this is Welsh at his very best.

STORIES THAT TOUCH YOUR HEART BY ONE OF THE BEST MODERN TAMIL WRITERS Special Birth Centenary Edition Thi. Janakiraman (ThiJa) was one of the best Tamil prose writers of the twentieth century. The stories in this specially curated collection offer a view of the modernizing Tamil countryside as well as the changing landscape of human relationships. A man builds his reputation based on lies to meet the expectations of his father, a woman desiring tenderness from her abusive husband finds release in an unexpected way, a music teacher is mocked for taking on a lower-caste student, and a drowning cat becomes the centre of attention during funerary rituals. In these and other tales, Janakiraman reaches inside the depths of the human heart and lays bare its contradictory pulls. Through their brilliant translation, Professor David Shulman and the late S. Ramakrishnan reveal the 'perfect pitch' of Janakiraman's precise, exquisite Tamil. They deftly capture his fluid, sensitive style in idiomatic English, seamlessly rendering the subtle inflections of the original. Prof. Shulman's insightful and affecting introduction places Janakiraman within the long continuum of Tamil literature. There is also a short, beautiful memoir on him, written by his daughter Uma.

With historical, contemporary and futuristic backdrops, this outrageously diverse collection of original stories explores every conceivable variation of BDSM erotica - from knitting circles to the Titanic to the retelling of The Little Mermaid. Agony/Ecstasy features all-new tales by some of the hottest names in romance and erotica, as well as a host of newcomers. Authors include Meljean Brook, Jean Johnson, Bettie Sharp and many more.

The history of ecstasy, its discovery and use and social implications.

What does it mean to be a hero? The ancient Greeks who gave us Achilles and Odysseus had a very different understanding of the term than we do today. Based on the legendary Harvard course that Gregory Nagy has taught for well over thirty years, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours explores the roots of Western civilization and offers a masterclass in classical Greek literature. We meet the epic heroes of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, but Nagy also considers the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the songs of Sappho and Pindar, and the dialogues of Plato. Herodotus once said that to read Homer was to be a civilized person. To discover Nagy’s Homer is to be twice civilized. “Fascinating, often ingenious... A valuable synthesis of research finessed over thirty years.” —Times Literary Supplement “Nagy exuberantly reminds his readers that heroes—mortal strivers against fate, against monsters, and...against death itself—form the heart of Greek literature... [He brings] in every variation on the Greek hero, from the wily Theseus to the brawny Hercules to the ‘monolithic’ Achilles to the valiantly conflicted Oedipus.” —Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly

From its first publication in 1997, Altered State established itself as the definitive text on Ecstasy and dance culture. This new edition sees Matthew Collin cast a fresh eye on the heady events of the acid house 'Summer of Love' and the rave scene's euphoric escalation into commercial excess as MDMA became a mass-market narcotic. Altered State is the best-selling book on Ecstasy culture, using a cast of memorable characters to track the origins of the scene and its drug through psychedelic subcults, underground gay discos and the Balearic paradise of Ibiza, to the point where Tony Blair was using an Ecstasy anthem as an election campaign song. Altered State critically examines the ideologies and myths of the scene, documenting the criminal underside to the blissed-out image, shedding new light on the social history of the most spectacular youth movement of the twentieth century.