Art and Literature All books
Élisa Brune
A Heavy Heart Reflections on Cioran
This moving text on existential suffering is an invitation to read or reread Cioran
Jean-Didier Vincent
Celui qui parlait presque
When a rich English woman, a grouchy scientist, a bonobo monkey and a young man interested in religion meet together in a castle of Provence, what do they do? They talk. And what do they talk about? About the origins of life, the appearance of language, about the secrets of memory, or about the emergence of desire. Subtle and witty, J.-D. Vincent, a neurobiologist, author of The Biology of Passions, offers us here a defense and an illustration of material reason.
Alfred Sauvy
The Sources of Humour
With a view as encyclopedic as it is malicious, Alfred Sauvy invites us to journey through centuries and cultures in search of that eternal antidote to sadness and pedantry: humor. Faithful to his own voice, the author voluntarily leaves the floor to the humorists and offers us a pivotal reference work that combines erudition with an anthology that is full of alacrity. Alfred Sauvy (1898-1990) was a professor at the Collège de France, created and directed the Institut de Conjoncture, and later the National Institute of Demographic Study. Member of the Economic and Social Council of Paris, he was a longtime representative of France at the United Nations.
Ricardo Bofill, Jean-Louis André
Life's Spaces
Catalonian Ricardo Bofill is probably today's most famous and most controversial architect. In this book, illustrated with sketches and outlines, written directly in French with the help of journalist J.-L. André, he reveals an analysis of his art and an invitation to read the city.
Karine Alavi
Over-Living
A relatable psychological drama: chaos is never far from the apparent normality of life.
Virginie Pape
Life’s Music
The beneficial effects, in both paediatrics and gerontology, of the distant music that composes our lives
Sylvie Vauclair, Claude-Samuel Lévine
The Music of the Spheres
A fascinating work on a the latest findings in the study of the stars
Patrick Lemoine
Right of Sanctuaries
This book is a detailed reconstruction of daily life at the Asile du Vinatier, a psychiatric institution near Lyon, from 1937 to 1945, a period marked by the earliest institutional attempts to treat mental illness. It was also the time when the blindness of administrative rules, the meanness of politicians, and the indifference of society at large resulted in a collective drama: the gradual extermination of mental patients. Patrick Lemoine is a psychiatrist and department head at the Hôpital du Vinatier in Lyon.
Ricardo Bofill, Nicolas Véron
Urban Architecture
What is there in common between all my designs ? What meaning can I give today to my architecture ? Without doubt, that of a desire to organise space. Due to an apprenticeship in perception, observation, and geometrisation of nature, in addition to a historical journey, I have learnt that in order to go past the initial momentum, I have to acquire the mastery of a whole new language." Ricardo Bofill Ricardo Bofill is probably one of the most famous, yet most controversial architects of his time. In this book illustrated with pictures and plans, he delivers an analysis of his art which amounts to an invitation to read the city.
Jean-François Peyret, Jean-Didier Vincent
Faust A Natural History
It all began in July 1995, when theatre director Jean-François Peyret met with biologist Jean-Didier Vincent, in the latters lab. The intellectual exchange and friendship that developed from that meeting resulted, several years later, in a theatrical production based on a free adaptation of Goethes Faust, until then deemed unperformable. In this book, they look back on their production of Faust, and take stock of their experience. Their book can be regarded as a novel, a dialogue, a confession, a reinterpretation of Faust, or simply a mind game. Quietly and without ostentation, Peyret offers the reader a brilliant examination of the theatre today, and Vincent upholds his views more freely and strongly than ever before.
André Miquel
Chateaubriand’s Memoires from Beyond the Grave Selections chosen and presented by André Miquel
For the 250th birthday of François-René de Chateaubriand: colloquia, commemorations (Saint-Malo, Combourg, Châtenay-Malabry) celebrate the great writer.
Laurence Ostolaza
On the Advantage of Being Born A Love Affair
The desire to have a child is the subject of this moving, timely novel
Sébastien Balibar
The Child and the Concerto
An amateur pianist blends the present of a concert, recounted as it unfolds, and an inner monologue, with different episodes from the past and from his musical memories, and ends up telling the story of a life.
Polo Tonka
I Am the Crazy One
In the vein of his earlier work, the author, a true writer, speaks with great clarity about his mental state, and shares the excesses of it with humor and irony.