'I have relinquished all that ties me to the world, but the one thing that still haunts me is the beauty of the sky'These simple, inspiring writings by three medieval Buddhist monks offer peace and wisdom amid the world's uncertainties, and are an invitation to relinquish earthly desires and instead taste life in the moment.One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers...

'It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met...'Moonlight, sake, spring blossom, idle moments, a woman's hair - these exquisite reflections on life's fleeting pleasures by a thirteenth-century Japanese monk are delicately attuned to nature and the senses.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the hu...

These two works on life's fleeting pleasures are by Buddhist monks from medieval Japan, but each shows a different world-view. In the short memoir Hôjôki, Chômei recounts his decision to withdraw from worldly affairs and live as a hermit in a tiny hut in the mountains, contemplating the impermanence of human existence. Kenko, however, displays a fascination with more earthy matters in his collection of anecdotes, advice and observations. From ribald stories of drunken monks to ach...

Essays in Idleness by Yoshida Kenkō is one of the most treasured works of classical Japanese literature, a timeless collection of reflections that captures the beauty, simplicity, and fleeting nature of life. Written in the fourteenth century by the Buddhist monk and courtier Yoshida Kenkō, this remarkable work offers a series of short observations and meditations on human experience, nature, culture, and the passing of time. Composed of brief and often contemplative passages, the book inv...

This book gathers contributions from a multidisciplinary research team comprised of control engineering and economics researchers and formed to address a central interdisciplinary social issue, namely economically enabled energy management. The book’s primary focus is on achieving optimal energy management that is viable from both an engineering and economic standpoint. In addition to the theoretical results and techniques presented, several chapters highlight experimental case studies, wh...

'Nothing more lonely -'A selection of Basho's most magical haikuIntroducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and ...

'What is the life of a human being - a drop of dew, a flash of lightning? This is so sad, so sad.'Autobiographical stories from one of Japan's masters of modernist story-telling.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blosso...

'Can I bear to leave these blue hills?'A generous selection from three of the greatest and most enjoyable of Chinese poetsIntroducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century Califo...

'People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed - a knife - a purse - and a dark lane...'In this provocative and blackly funny essay, Thomas de Quincey considers murder in a purely aesthetic light and explains how practically every philosopher over the past two hundred years has been murdered - 'insomuch, that if a man calls himself a philosopher, and never had his life attempted, rest assured there is noth...

'You will hear it for yourselves, and it will surely fill you with wonder...'In this selection from Marco Polo's famous travel book, the intrepid Venetian describes the customs of India, recounts the story of the king who died eighty-four times and explains how to retrieve diamonds from snake-infested caves...Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books f...

'We must learn to love, learn to be kind, and this from our earliest youth ... Likewise, hatred must be learned and nurtured, if one wishes to become a proficient hater'This volume contains a selection of Nietzsche's brilliant and challenging aphorisms, examining the pleasures of revenge, the falsity of pity, and the incompatibility of marriage with the philosophical life.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics...

'Better mad with the crowd than sane all alone'In these witty, Machiavellian aphorisms, unlikely Spanish priest Baltasar Gracián shows us how to exploit friends and enemies alike to thrive in a world of deception and illusion.Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ...