The Idea Of Perfection

Grenville makes awkward atmospheres and fumbling encounters wonderfully vivid. Read it and cringe' The Times The Idea of Perfection is a funny and touching romance between two people who've given up on love. Set in the eccentric little backwater of Karakarook, New South Wales, pop. 1374, it tells the story of Douglas Cheeseman, a gawky engineer with jug-handle ears, and Harley Savage, a woman altogether too big and too abrupt for comfort. Harley is in Karakarook to foster 'Heritage', and Douglas is there to pull down the quaint old Bent Bridge. From day one, they're on a collison course. But out of this unpromising conjunction of opposites, something unexpected happens: sometimes even better than perfection. 'From these two reticent characters, besieged by two lifetimes of regret, doubt and dismay, Grenville manufactures an extraordinary comedy of manners, made all more powerful by her own reticence as a writer' Guardian 'Outrageously entertaining' Daily Mail 'Mined throughout with little pockets of danger and depth' Guardian 'A truly amazing writer' Rosie Boycott, chair of the Orange Prize jury

A fresh look into the monumental work of Paul Valéry, one of the major French literary figures of the twentieth century. Heir to Mallarmé and the symbolists, godfather to the modernists, Paul Valéry was a poet with thousands of readers and few followers, great resonance and little echo. Along with Rilke and Eliot, he stands as a bridge between the tradition of the nineteenth century and the novelty of the twentieth. His reputation as a poet rests on three slim volumes published in a span of only ten years. Yet these poems, it turns out, are inseparable from another, much vaster intellectual and artistic enterprise: the Notebooks. Behind the published works, behind the uneventful life of the almost forgotten and then exceedingly famous poet, there hides another story, a private life of the mind, that has its record in 28,000 pages of notes revealed in their entirety only after his death. Their existence had been hinted at, evoked in rumors and literary asides; but once made public it took years for their significance to be fully appreciated. It turned out that the prose fragments published in Valéry’s lifetime were not the after-the-fact musings of an accomplished poet, nor his occasional sketchbook, nor excerpts from his private journal. They were a disfigured glimpse of a vast and fragmentary “exercise of thought,” a restless intellectual quest as unguided and yet as persistent, as rigorous, and as uncontainable as the sea that is so often their subject. The Idea of Perfection shows both sides of Valéry: the craftsman of sublimely refined verse, and the fervent investigator of the limits of human intellect and expression. It intersperses his three essential poetic works—Album of Early Verse, The Young Fate, and Charms—with incisive selections from the Notebooks and finishes with the prose poem “The Angel.” Masterfully translated by Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody, with careful attention to form and a natural yet metrical contemporary poetic voice, The Idea of Perfection breathes new life into poems that are among the most beautiful in the French language and the most influential of the twentieth century.

The book utilizes feminist thought and other philosophical considerations to argue in a unique way for an ethical picture of human life that stands in marked contrast with traditional understandings. Slote here revives Isaiah Berlin's bold views on the impossibility of perfection in ways that no one has previously attempted. The Appendix describes a new kind of philosophical/ethical methodology that combines and balances (traditionally) "feminine" and "masculine" elements.

'Winner of the Vance Palmer Award for Fiction, Victorian Premier's Literary Prize, 1995. Albion Gidley Singer creates his world as a vast collection of facts, facts he uses to support his own power and status. After an awkward childhood, aware that he is a disappointment to his father, he acquires, the trappings of respectability success in busi...

"This book is about taking the head off an evil witch". With these words Marion Woodman begins her spiral journey, a powerful and authoritative look at the psychology and attitudes of modern women. Marion Woodman continues her remarkable exploration of women's mysteries through case material, dreams, literature and mythology, in food rituals, rape symbolism, Christianity, imagery in the body, sexuality, creativity and relationships.

'Searching for the Secret River is the extraordinary story of how Kate Grenville came to write her award-winning novel, The Secret River. It all began with her ancestor Solomon Wiseman transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life who later became a wealthy man and built his colonial mansion on the Hawkesbury. Increasingly obse...

Breakthroughs in genetics present us with a promise and a predicament. The promise is that we will soon be able to treat and prevent a host of debilitating diseases. The predicament is that our newfound genetic knowledge may enable us to manipulate our nature—to enhance our genetic traits and those of our children. Although most people find at least some forms of genetic engineering disquieting, it is not easy to articulate why. What is wrong with re-engineering our nature? The Case against Perfection explores these and other moral quandaries connected with the quest to perfect ourselves and our children. Michael Sandel argues that the pursuit of perfection is flawed for reasons that go beyond safety and fairness. The drive to enhance human nature through genetic technologies is objectionable because it represents a bid for mastery and dominion that fails to appreciate the gifted character of human powers and achievements. Carrying us beyond familiar terms of political discourse, this book contends that the genetic revolution will change the way philosophers discuss ethics and will force spiritual questions back onto the political agenda. In order to grapple with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront questions largely lost from view in the modern world. Since these questions verge on theology, modern philosophers and political theorists tend to shrink from them. But our new powers of biotechnology make these questions unavoidable. Addressing them is the task of this book, by one of America’s preeminent moral and political thinkers.

Read The Case Against Fragrance and you will never think about fragrance in the same way again. If you have been suffering fragrance in silence, you will know you are not alone.’ Conversation Kate Grenville had always associated perfume with elegance and beauty. Then the headaches started. Like perhaps a quarter of the population, Grenville reacts badly to the artificial fragrances around us: other people’s perfumes, and all those scented cosmetics, cleaning products and air fresheners. On a book tour in 2015, dogged by ill health, she started wondering: what’s in fragrance? Who tests it for safety? What does it do to people? The more Grenville investigated, the more she felt this was a story that should be told. The chemicals in fragrance can be linked not only to short-term problems like headaches and asthma, but to long-term ones like hormone disruption and cancer. Yet products can be released onto the market without testing. They’re regulated only by the same people who make and sell them. And the ingredients don’t even have to be named on the label. This book is based on careful research into the science of scent and the power of the fragrance industry. But, as you’d expect from an acclaimed novelist, it’s also accessible and personal. The Case Against Fragrance will make you see—and smell—the world differently. When I was little, my mother had a tiny, precious bottle of perfume on her dressing-table and on special occasions she’d put a dab behind her ears. The smell of Arpege was always linked in my mind with excitement and pleasure–Mum with her hair done, wearing her best dress and her pearls, off for a night out with Dad. When I got old enough to have my own special occasions I also had my favourite perfume. I loved the bottles: those sensuous shapes. I loved the names and the labels, so evocative of all things glamorous. Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. Her bestselling novel The Secret River received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. The Idea of Perfection won the Orange Prize. Grenville’s other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian’s Story, Dark Places and Joan Makes History. Kate lives in Sydney and her most recent works are the non-fiction books One Life: My Mother’s Story and The Case Against Fragrance. ‘One spritz of aftershave or perfume can leave other people retching and clutching their heads—you never see that in the ads.’ Kaz Cooke ‘Beginning with her own physical reaction to fragrance that begins with a headache a lot of us know ourselves, she investigates the fragrance industry and its side-effects and interweaves these facts with the personal to create an accessible work of non-fiction.’ ArtsHub ‘Fact-dense and extensively referenced, the book is a delight to read and never gets bogged down...While some of the science has been simplified, the book generally conveys the sense of it correctly...Well developed and thoughtful. Read The Case Against Fragrance and you will never think about fragrance in the same way again. If you have been suffering fragrance in silence, you will know you are not alone.’ Conversation ‘Grenville sets out to unlock the dark science—the volatile compounds, conspiracies and carcinogens—hiding in perfume, the ingredients of which are regularly listed as alcohol, water and the mysterious catch-all “fragrance”.’ New Statesman ‘In this appealingly written exploration, Kate uncovers the dark side of the fragrance industry, from the carcinogens in after-shave to the hormone disruptors in perfume that mimic oestrogen.’ Child ‘An insightful and frightening book.’ Readings ‘Readable, interesting and informative.’ Big Book Club ‘Grenville expresses hope though that our society will find solutions to the fragrant violation of personal space based on courtesy and civility rather than on regulation and policy.’ Australian Book Review ‘You may be familiar with Australian novelist Kate Grenville’s work but she enters new territory here. After exposure to perfumes and scents delivered ill-health her way, Grenville got curious as to why...The result is a fascinating (and worrying) exposé of the potentially damaging health effects of fragrances and the laxity of their regulation. Grenville digs into the science of scent as well as the intrigue of a multi-billion-dollar industry and makes it beautifully accessible in the process.’ WellBeing ‘The Orange Prize-winning novelist’s discovery that she reacts badly to the artificial fragrances all around us led her to investigate what is in fragrances, what it does to people and whether it is properly tested for safety...The result is this accessible and personal book on the science of fragrance’ Bookseller ‘[Grenville] raises valuable questions about the potentially harmful chemicals surrounding us every day and why we so unabashedly live in ignorance of them.’ Reader’s Digest UK, Best New Books to Read This Summer ‘In some places, though, the danger [of fragrance] is beginning to be taken as seriously as passive smoking 30 years ago...it sounds silly, until you read Kate Grenville’s explosive exposé and wonder why no one ever told you this stuff before.’ Mail on Sunday ‘An accessible, intelligent, seriously researched—and terrifying—book’ Daily Mail UK