Seven "small" texts of great literature March 31, 2020 – Posted in: Books – Tags: , , ,

by Dimitris Doulgeridis, published by Ta Nea

Western thought and Eastern philosophy, phlegmatic humoral writing and essays, poetry and the so-called "short prose" – all texts that marked their time. In this way, we recommend the new "Selected" series of Oxy publications, with a highly stylized appearance, precisely to stand out as a unit within the production of the publishing house (Brainfood Publishing).

The poem If by Rudyard Kipling, first published in 1910 as part of the fantasy story collection Rewards and Fairies, still stands as a reminder that triumph is only a short distance from disaster. At Fire by Jack London, a man attempts to cross the forests around Canada's Yukon River with the thermometer reading minus 60 degrees Celsius. The dangers are greater than he had anticipated and soon he is forced to make a stop to recover his strength.

The Walking by Henry David Thoreau is based on two lectures by the author, summarizing his ideas about nature and man as they were formed during his permanent stay in the woods. THE Civil disobedience of the same was published for the first time in 1849, a time of great changes in Europe and the USA. Defining man as the absolute regulator of the citizen-state relationship, it is primarily a universal one
character declaration of the individual's independence.

In the Micromega by Voltaire, a giant space traveler roams the Universe and makes a fortuitous stop on our little Earth in the saving year 1737. There he meets a group of distinguished scientists of the human species and begins a dialogue of interplanetary proportions.

In the Book of tea Kakuzo Okakura reveals the inexhaustible culture of Asia by connecting the role of tea with the aesthetic and cultural side of Japanese life.

For the end: The Lazy thoughts of a lazy person by Jerome K. Jerome, a 220-page treatise on all of life's big issues (from love and laziness to penury and furnished flats) from the 'ambassador' of British humour.

The translator and editor of the "Selected" series, Thanos Karagiannopoulos

Coincidentally, it is also the book in which the editor of the series, Thanos Karagiannopoulos (who has done the translation in this one, as in the Civil disobedience):

"I confess that I have a special weakness for Lazy thoughts of a lazy person by Jerome K. Jerome (also author of Three Men in a Boat) – a hilarious 1886 booklet translated into Greek for the first time. Divided into small thematic chapters (from love and vanity to ... weather and furnished apartments), it makes you think and laugh out loud with the unexpected combination of "lazy" sto-gasm and caustic English humor.

He notes about the new series: "It covers a wide range of "small" classic texts of philosophy and literature, more or less well-known, which largely characterized their time and maintain their influence and appeal to the world readership undiminished to this day" .

The translations have been done by Pelos Tsiaras, Vasiliki Kokkinou, Christina Mania, Christina Theohari.