Discourses: Literature, Language & Philosophy, Aug. 2023, Pt. 3 | Prepub Alert

Probing thought. 

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Discourses of the Elders: The Aztec Huehuetlatolli; a First English Translation. Norton. Aug. 2023. 224p. tr. from Latin by Sebastian Purcell. ISBN 9781324020585. $25. PHILOSOPHY

Egginton, William. The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality. Pantheon. Aug. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9780593316306. $30. PHILOSOPHY

Eilenberger, Wolfram. The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times. Penguin Pr. Aug. 2023. 400p. ISBN 9780593297452. $30. PHILOSOPHY

Guzmán, Sandra, ed. Daughters of Latin America: An International Anthology of Writing by Latine Women. Amistad: HarperCollins. Aug. 2023. 496p. ISBN 9780063052574. $32.99. Spanish ed. HarperEspañol. tr. by Raquel Salas Rivera. ISBN 9780063245136. Pap. $19.99. CD. LITERATURE

Hayes, Terrance. Watch Your Language: Visual and Literary Reflections on a Century of American Poetry. Penguin. Jul. 2023. 256p. ISBN 9780143137733. pap. $20. LITERATURE

Nuttall, Jenni. Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women’s Words. Viking. Aug. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780593299579. $29. LANGUAGE

Shapland, Jenn. Thin Skin: Essays. Pantheon. Aug. 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780593317457. $24. LITERATURE

A specialist in Latin American philosophy, SUNY-Cortland professor Purcell offers the first full translation of Discourses of the Elders, an important Aztec document comprising conversations between elders and young people on attaining a meaningful life and recorded in Latin script by Spanish clergymen. In The Rigor of Angels, John Hopkins professor Egginton explores how Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges, German physicist Werner Heisenberg, and Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant pushed against the limits of human understanding to give us a deepened view of the world. Following up the rave-reviewed Time of the Magicians: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the Decade that Reinvented Philosophy , about philosophy in the post–World War I era, Eilenberger investigates Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand, and Simone Weil to show how philosophy unfolded before and during World War II in The Visionaries. Emmy Award–winning author/filmmaker Guzmán brings together writing by Latine women from U.S. Laureate Ada Limón and Guggenheim Fellow Maryse Condé to award-winning author Sandra Cisneros and U.S. Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez in Daughters of Latin America (20,000-copy English and 12,000-copy Spanish first printing). In Watch Your Language, National Book Award–winning poet Hayes uses illustrated prose to discuss a century of verse, drawing in forgotten Black poets; see also his forthcoming collection So To Speak (Penguin Poets, Jul.). In Mother Tongue, Oxford medieval literature professor Nuttall considers usage dating from Old English about women’s bodies and experiences, digging for words less loaded or distancing than language we use today. Following National Book Award finalistMy Autobiography of Carson McCullers, Shapland’s Thin Skin examines our entanglement in the world.

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