Lars Gustafsson's Funeral Music for Freemasons, the Swedish author's fifth book of fiction to be translated into English, follows the lives of three free spirits of the 1950s, from their aspiring student years in Stockholm to their present realities, so different from their youthful imaginings.

Text: English, Swedish (translation)

To readers familiar with Lars Gustafsson's work, the playful philosophizing of Sigsmund will come as no surprise, as he leisurely pulls together seeming fragments into a narrative of 1970s Berlin that at once looks back to Homer, Dante, and the Faust legend and ahead to space warfare and intergalactic travel, childhood memories of Sweden, Marxist-Leninism, sports competition, art, epistemology, daydreams--nothing is excluded from the purview of Gustafsson's lighthearted humanism. And behind it all broods the restless spirit of the author's alter ego, the warring king, Sigismund III of Poland (d. 1632).

'Stories of Happy People' is a collection of ten short fictions that maps the range of contentment, from inner joy to the edges of despair

Caldwell lives by the lakeside at Austin, Texas, with his wife of thirty years, his two children having long ago flown the nest. He is a judge in the Federal Bankruptcy Court. And the dog? A mongrel that kept upsetting his dustbins as it rooted about in them, until the judge went after it and secretly beat its brains out with the edge-trimmers. But this is not a crime story - for all that Caldwell's lifelong mentor, the Dutchman van de Rouwers, Philosophy guru and idol of the American campuses, was fished out dead from the lake about the time his Murky Past caught up with him. No, this is a Philosophical Tale- weaving through the judge's humdrum life between the Bench, the campus bookstore, the cocktail party circuit and his own kitchen, Great Metaphysical Questions are asked, about the reality of Good and Evil, ontological proofs of the existence of God, and the theoretical existence of the Most Intelligent Man in America. Lars Gustafsson taps a rich vein of comedy in the series of contrasts here engendered between the mundane and the highflown as reported in the judge's maybe fanciful narrative. The Tale of a Dog has marked affinity with his last novel, translated into English as A Tiler's Afternoon , in the clearsighted dissection of small people trying to cope with an all too complex modern world.

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Excerpt from International Law Fiore, Nouveau Droit International Public, deuxiéme édition, traduite de l'italien et annotée par Antoine, 3 vols.

Reproduction of the original: International Incidents for Discussion in Conversation Classes by Lassa Oppenheim

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Excerpt from International Law, Vol. 2: A TreatiseHague Regulations respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, adopted by the Hague Peace Conference of 1899.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Contents: Wedding Bell Blues; Sweet Blindness; Stoned Soul Picnic; Blowin' Away; Emmie; Time and Love; Save the Country; Brown Earth; I Never Meant to Hurt You; Eli's Coming; And When I Die; Film-Flam Man; Stoney End.

A struggling author’s unexpected success sparks a family conflict in this New York Times –bestselling novel by the author of Gentleman’s Agreement . For most of his career as a novelist, Gregory Johns has toiled in relative obscurity. His books have sold modestly, and he lives comfortably enough in the suburbs with his wife and daughter. He leaves the grand gestures and extravagant parties to his more expansive brother, Thornton, an insurance salesman who moonlights as Gregory’s literary agent. When Gregory’s latest book is unexpectedly selected for a notable prize, the brothers suddenly find themselves at the center of a publicity frenzy. With talk of a movie deal in the air, Gregory moves out to California—but it’s Thorn who really rises to the occasion, thriving on and encouraging the attention, while Gregory toils away dutifully at scripts and rewrites. At last, Thorn feels he is in his element—but what happens when the brothers’ fifteen minutes are up?

"During the German occupation of the Netherlands, 1940 to 1945, all Jews were ordered to register the religion of their grandparents. The Reichskommissar appointed the young lawyer Hans Calmeyer to adjudicate "doubtful cases." Calmeyer used his assignment to save at least 3,700 Jews from deportation and death, dwarfing the number saved by Schindler's famous rescue operation."--Back cover.

Little Lauren lived with her loving family in a small stone house by the sea. Her radiant smile and sweet disposition warmed the hearts of everyone she met, and she loved to play pretend but things changed the day a new babysitter came into little Lauren's life. with the help of her best friend Rodney, Lauren finds the courage to use her voice and face her fears. Together, Lauren and Rodney learn an important lesson for children everywhere: 'If you're choking back tears and your heart's filled with fears ... you know very well, it's OK to tell.'

Challenging the central place that "practices" have recently held in Christian theology, Lauren Winner explores the damages these practices have inflicted over the centuries Sometimes, beloved and treasured Christian practices go horrifyingly wrong, extending violence rather than promoting its healing. In this bracing book, Lauren Winner provocatively challenges the assumption that the church possesses a set of immaculate practices that will definitionally train Christians in virtue and that can't be answerable to their histories. Is there, for instance, an account of prayer that has anything useful to say about a slave-owning woman's praying for her slaves' obedience? Is there a robustly theological account of the Eucharist that connects the Eucharist's goods to the sacrament's central role in medieval Christian murder of Jews? Arguing that practices are deformed in ways that are characteristic of and intrinsic to the practices themselves, Winner proposes that the register in which Christians might best think about the Eucharist, prayer, and baptism is that of "damaged gift." Christians go on with these practices because, though blighted by sin, they remain gifts from God.

In April 1994, two immigration attorneys in Scottsdale, Arizona did something no one had ever done before. They advertised their legal services to approximately 6,000 of the 9,000 discussion groups called "Newsgroups" on the Global Internet, reaching tens of millions of people. Their innovative, money-making venture netted over 25,000 customer inquiries for one night's work. The two Internet pioneers, by spending only $20.00 - the price of this book - brought in $100,000 worth of business. But they also received a flood of "flames"--E-mailed insults - from thousands of Internet users who did not want this part of the Internet used for business purposes. With one advertisement, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel became the focal point of the violent controversy that continues to rage over commercialization of the once strictly academic Internet.