Best Selling Books by Milan

Milan is the author of Life Is Elsewhere (2000), The Joke (1992), The Festival of Insignificance (2023), The Art of the Novel (2003), Immortality (2023).

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Life Is Elsewhere

release date: Jul 25, 2000
Life Is Elsewhere
The author initially intended to call this novel The Lyrical Age. The lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel, above all, is an epic of adolescence; an ironic epic that tenderly erodes sacrosanct values: childhood, motherhood, revolution, and even poetry. Jaromil is in fact a poet. His mother made him a poet and accompanies him (figuratively) to his love bed and (literally) to his deathbed. A ridiculous and touching character, horrifying and totally innocent ("innocence with its bloody smile"!), Jaromil is at the same time a true poet. He''s no creep, he''s Rimbaud. Rimbaud entrapped by the communist revolution, entrapped in a somber farce.

The Joke

release date: Jan 01, 1992
The Joke
This is the first novel by the author of "Immortality", which won "The Independent" Award for Foreign Fiction in 1991. Milan Kundera is also the author of "The Book of Laughter and Fogetting".

The Festival of Insignificance

release date: Jul 18, 2023
The Festival of Insignificance
“Slender but weighty. . . . What is moving about this novel is its embrace of what has always driven Kundera, the delicate state of living between being and nothingness.”— Boston Globe From the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, an entertaining and enchanting novel—"a fitting capstone on an extraordinary career." (Slate) Casting light on the most serious of problems and at the same time saying not one serious sentence; being fascinated by the reality of the contemporary world and at the same time completely avoiding realism—that’s The Festival of Insignificance. Readers who know Milan Kundera’s earlier books know that the wish to incorporate an element of the “unserious” in a novel is not at all unexpected of him. In Immortality, Goethe and Hemingway stroll through several chapters together talking and laughing. And in Slowness, Vera, the author’s wife, says to her husband: “you’ve often told me you meant to write a book one day that would have not a single serious word in it…I warn you: watch out. Your enemies are lying in wait.” Kundera is finally and fully realizing his old aesthetic dream in this novel that we could easily view as a summation of his whole work. A strange sort of summation. Strange sort of epilogue. Strange sort of laughter, inspired by our time, which is comical because it has lost all sense of humor. What more can we say? Nothing. Just read.

The Art of the Novel

release date: Apr 01, 2003
The Art of the Novel
Kundera brilliantly examines the work of such important and diverse figures as Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Diderot, Flaubert, Tolstoy, and Musil. He is especially penetrating on Hermann Broch, and his exploration of the world of Kafka''s novels vividly reveals the comic terror of Kafka''s bureaucratized universe. Kundera''s discussion of his own work includes his views on the role of historical events in fiction, the meaning of action, and the creation of character in the post-psychological novel.

Immortality

release date: Apr 25, 2023
Immortality
New York Times Bestseller "Inspired. . . . Kundera''s most brilliantly imagined novel. . . . A book that entrances, beguiles and charms us from first page to last." — Cleveland Plain Dealer Milan Kundera''s sixth novel springs from a casual gesture of a woman to her swimming instructor, a gesture that creates a character in the mind of a writer named Kundera. Like Flaubert''s Emma or Tolstoy''s Anna, Kundera''s Agnès becomes an object of fascination, of indefinable longing. From that character springs a novel, a gesture of the imagination that both embodies and articulates Milan Kundera''s supreme mastery of the novel and its purpose: to explore thoroughly the great themes of existence.

Slowness

release date: Apr 25, 2023
Slowness
"Irresistible. . . . Slowness is an ode to sensuous leisure, to the enjoyment of pleasure rather than just the search for it." — Mirabella Milan Kundera''s lightest novel, a divertimento, an opera buffa, Slowness is also the first of this author''s fictional works to have been written in French. Disconcerted and enchanted, the reader follows the narrator of Slowness through a midsummer''s night in which two tales of seduction, separated by more than two hundred years, interweave and oscillate between the sublime and the comic. Underlying this libertine fantasy is a profound meditation on contemporary life: about the secret bond between slowness and memory, about the connection between our era''s desire to forget and the way we have given ourselves over to the demon of speed. And about "dancers" possessed by the passion to be seen, for whom life is merely a perpetual show emptied of every intimacy and every joy.

How We Love, Expanded Edition

release date: Jul 11, 2017
How We Love, Expanded Edition
Did you know the last fight you had with your spouse began long before you even met? Are you tired of falling into frustrating relational patterns in your marriage? Do you and your spouse fight about the same things again and again? Relationship experts Milan and Kay Yerkovich explain why the ways you and your spouse relate to each other go back to before you even met. Drawing on the powerful tool of attachment theory, Milan and Kay explore how your childhood created an “intimacy imprint” that affects your marriage today. Their stories and practical ideas help you: * identify your personal love style * understand how your early life impacts you and your spouse * break free from painful patterns that keep you stuck * find healing for the source of conflict, not just the symptoms * create the close, nourishing relationship you dream about Revised throughout with all-new material and additional visual diagrams, this expanded edition of How We Love will bring vibrant life to your marriage. Are you ready for a new journey of love? Note: The revised and expanded How We Love Workbook is available separately.

Ignorance

release date: May 23, 2023
Ignorance
“Kundera once more delivers a seductive, intelligent entertainment … [with] elegance and grace.” — Washington Post Book World “Nothing short of masterful.” — Newsweek A brilliant novel set in contemporary Prague, by one of the most distinguished writers of our time. A man and a woman meet by chance while returning to their homeland, which they had abandoned 20 years earlier when they chose to become exiles. Will they manage to pick up the thread of their strange love story, interrupted almost as soon as it began and then lost in the tides of history? The truth is that after such a long absence “their memories no longer match.” We always believe that our memories coincide with those of the person we loved, that we experienced the same thing. But this is just an illusion. Only those who return after 20 years, like Ulysses returning to his native Ithaca, can be dazzled and astounded by observing the goddess of ignorance first-hand. Kundera is the only author today who can take dizzying concepts such as absence, memory, forgetting, and ignorance, and transform them into material for a novel, masterfully orchestrating them into a polyphonic and moving work.

I'm Just Saying

release date: Apr 25, 2023
I'm Just Saying
A straightforward look at the history and the art of maintaining courteous communication in an increasingly divided world. 2024 Winner, International Book Awards, Current Events Category and Social Change Category 2024 Finalist, International Book Awards, Business: General Category and Business: Motivational Category Have you ever been in a conversation that, after volleying back and forth, ended with the words, “I’m just saying . . .”? Usually, this signals frustration, that the discussion has reached a dead end, that you haven’t made your point, and may even leave you feeling that your relationship with the other person has changed for the worse. Digital interactions, devoid of nuance and understanding, further complicate discussion. We may believe that we are superior because our opinions are the “right” ones, and in the future avoid conversations with those whose opinions differ from ours, sending us into a never-ending echo chamber. In I’m Just Saying, author Milan Kordestani shows us that although challenging conversations can be unpleasant, they can also help us grow. Sometimes, people inspire us to change how we speak, making us better communicators in the process as we search to find common ground with those with whom we disagree. Kordestani uses contemporary case studies and personal experience to teach readers how to have constructive conversations by engaging in civil discourse—the idea that good-faith actors can reach consensus on any opinion-based disagreement. He discusses influential leaders and reflects on his successes and failures in creating The Doe, an online publication focused on civil discourse. He addresses the challenges that digital media consumption presents when seeking common ground—especially when people are only digitally connected. Civil discourse, an essential part of democracy, is becoming rare in today''s digital age. I’m Just Saying examines discourse''s successes and the ways to rebuild it. Drawing from history, popular culture, and personal anecdotes, the book promotes effective civil discourse by providing practical advice and strategies for respect. Through story, I’m Just Saying offers insight and tools for politeness in a divided world.

Milan Svanderlik Photography:

release date: Sep 04, 2020
Milan Svanderlik Photography:
This volume contains examples of Milan''s highly original work in plant photography and still life. Some of the early work dates from 1972 to 1976 and was originally exhibited at London''s Photographers'' Gallery, in 1977, with the later work dating from 2007 to 2016. In particular, Milan has been interested to explore those botanical structures that are often characterized by what at first sight might appear to be a random arrangement of spines, leaves or flowers but which, upon closer scrutiny, are actually revealed to be highly structured patterns and mathematically correct symmetries - even in the repetition of asymmetry, there is a regularity and natural order. By observing the tiniest details and enlarging them substantially, Milan found that there was often an extraordinary, almost abstract, beauty to be enjoyed. In a number of his stunning still life images, Milan has captured what is perhaps the more obvious and conventional beauty of plants and flowers, his ''table top'' arrangements capturing for all time the innate stillness and richness of natural beauty. The Photographer, Milan Svanderlik, is a veteran observer of the extraordinary diversity and beauty of nature, people and life in general. Milan Svanderlik Photography: Plants & Still Life, comprising photographs taken from 1972 to 2016, is the first of three volumes illustrating his work. Over the years, Milan''s highly original and well-regarded photographs have been exhibited in a number of art galleries, both here in London and ''over the pond, in New York.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

release date: May 04, 2004
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
When The Unbearable Lightness of Being was first published in English, it was hailed as "a work of the boldest mastery, originality, and richness" by critic Elizabeth Hardwick and named one of the best books of 1984 by the New York Times Book Review. It went on to win the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and quickly became an international bestseller. Twenty years later, the novel has established itself as a modern classic. To commemorate the anniversary of its first English-language publication, HarperCollins is proud to offer a special hardcover edition. A young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing; one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover -- these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel. Controlled by day, Tereza''s jealousy awakens by night, transformed into ineffably sad death-dreams, while Tomas, a successful surgeon, alternates loving devotion to the dependent Tereza with the ardent pursuit of other women. Sabina, an independent, free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals -- of parents, husband, country, love itself -- whereas her lover, the intellectual Franz, loses all because of his earnest goodness and fidelity. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel, says the novelist, "the unbearable lightness of being" -- not only as the consequence of our private acts but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine. This magnificent novel encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, and embraces, it seems, all aspects of human existence. It juxtaposes geographically distant places (Prague, Geneva, Paris, Thailand, the United States, a forlorn Bohemian village); brilliant and playful reflections (on "eternal return," on kitsch, on man and animals -- Tomas and Tereza have a beloved doe named Karenin); and a variety of styles (from the farcical to the elegiac) to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world''s truly great writers.

Jacques and His Master

release date: Jul 18, 2023
Jacques and His Master
A deliciously witty and entertaining "variation" on Diderot''s novel Jacques le Fatalist, written for Milan Kundera''s "private pleasure" in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia. When the "heavy Russian irrationality" fell on Czechoslovakia, Milan Kundera explains, he felt drawn to the spirit of the eighteenth century—"And it seemed to me that nowhere was it to be found more densely concentrated than in that banquet of intelligence, humor, and fantasy, Jacques le Fataliste." The upshot was this "Homage to Diderot," which has now been performed throughout the United States and Europe. Here, Jacques and His Master, newly translated by Simon Callow, is a text that will delight Kundera''s admirers throughout the English-speaking world.

Identity

release date: Apr 21, 1998
Identity
Milan Kundera''s Identity translated from the French by Linda Asher. There are situations in which we fail for a moment to recognize the person we are with, in which the identity of the other is erased while we simultaneously doubt our own. That also happens with couples -- indeed, above all with couples, because lovers fear more than anything else "losing sight" of the loved one. With stunning artfulness in expanding and playing variations on the meaningful moment, Milan Kundera has made this situation -- and the vague sense of panic it inspires -- the very fabric of his new novel. Here brevity goes hand in hand with intensity, and a moment of bewilderment marks the start of a labyrinthine journey during which the reader repeatedly crosses the border between the real and the unreal, between what occurs in the world outside and what the mind creates in its solitude. Of all contemporary writers, only Kundera can transform such a hidden and disconcerting perception into the material for a novel, one of his finest, most painful, and most enlightening. Which, surprisingly, turns out to be a love story.

Advances in Multiple Criteria Decision Making and Human Systems Management

release date: Jan 01, 2007
Advances in Multiple Criteria Decision Making and Human Systems Management
Edited as a Festschrift in honor of Prof Milan Zeleny, this volume reflects and emulates his unmistakable legacy: the essential multidimensionality of human and social affairs. It contains papers dealing with: Multiple Criteria Decision Making; Social and Human System Management; and Information, Knowledge and Wisdom Management.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

release date: Mar 28, 2023
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
"An absolutely dazzling entertainment. . . . Arousing on every level—political, erotic, intellectual, and above all, humorous." —Newsweek "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting calls itself a novel, although it is part fairy tale, part literary criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part autobiography. It can call itself whatever it wants to, because the whole is genius." —New York Times Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.

Farewell Waltz

release date: May 23, 2023
Farewell Waltz
"After Farewell Waltz there cannot be any doubt. Kundera is a master of contemporary literature. This novel is both an an example of virtuosity and a descent into the human soul." —L''Unite Set in an old-fashioned Central European spa town, Farewell Waltz poses the most serious questions with a blasphemous lightness that makes us see that the modern world has deprived us even of the right to tragedy. In this dark farce of a novel, eight characters are swept up in an accelerating dance: a pretty nurse and her repairman boyfriend; an oddball gynecologist; a rich American (at once saint and Don Juan); a popular trumpeter and his beautiful, obsessively jealous wife; and an disillusioned former political prisoner about to leave his country and his young woman ward. It is perhaps the most brilliantly plotted and sheer entertaining of Milan Kundera''s novels. Written in Bohemia in 1969-70, the book was first published (in 1976) in France under the title La valse aux adieux (Farewell Waltz), and later in thirty-four other countries. This beautiful translation, made from the French text prepared by the novelist himself, fully reflects Kundera''s own tone and intentions, and offers an opportunity for both the discovery and the rediscovery of one of the very best of a great writer''s works.

The Cosmic Microwave Background

release date: Jun 30, 2024
The Cosmic Microwave Background
Explanations of the cosmic microwave background prompt this unique case study of theory building in modern science.

Testaments Betrayed

release date: Jun 27, 2023
Testaments Betrayed
"A defense of fiction and a lesson in the art of reading." —New York Times Book Review "Testaments Betrayed is to be savored paragraph by paragraph. . . . It must be purchased, read, pondered, and argued within the margins. And frequently reread." — Washington Post A brilliant and thought-provoking essay from one of the twentieth century’s masters of fiction, Testaments Betrayed is written like a novel: the same characters appear and reappear throughout the nine parts of the book, as do the principal themes that preoccupy the author. Kundera is a passionate defender of the moral rights of the artist and the respect due a work of art and its creator’s wishes. The betrayal of both—often by their most passionate proponents—is one of the key ideas that informs this strikingly original and elegant book.

Encounter

release date: Jul 18, 2023
Encounter
“I can’t imagine reading this book without being challenged and instructed, amused, amazed and aroused, and ultimately delighted.” —John Simon, New York Times Book Review Milan Kundera’s brilliant collection of essays is a passionate defense of art in an era that, he argues, no longer values art or beauty. With the same dazzling mix of emotion and ideas that characterizes his bestselling novels, the internationally acclaimed author revisits the artists whose works help us better understand what it means to be human. Elegant, startlingly original, and provocative, Encounter combines many of the author’s signature themes with personal reflections and stories.

Modern Free Society and Its Nemesis

release date: Jan 01, 2007
Modern Free Society and Its Nemesis
Modern Free Society and Its Nemesis explores whether and to what extent conservatism represents a negation to free society and liberty in Western countries.

The Change

release date: May 23, 2016
The Change
Working at Whole Foods had been good to Milan Ross. It not only allowed him to earn a decent living but also provided his family the medical insurance his family so desperately needed. But it wasn’t until Milan was offered the opportunity to attend Dr. Stoll’s Immersion program that his life totally changed. This is the story of how Milan Ross lost two hundred and twenty-five pounds of excess weight and found the passion his life had been missing. Since 2010, Dr. Scott Stoll, a medical doctor and past Olympic athlete, has conducted a week-long intensive health program. The seven-day course provides the most up-to-date information on nutrition, achievable exercise, and culinary education, as well as encouragement, coaching, and vision casting. While food is the centerpiece of the program, it is meant to be a transformational experience that forever changes the attitudes, habits, and lives of those who attend the program—all in just one week. It was to this program that Whole Foods sent Milan Ross. The Change not only tells the personal story of Milan Ross and what he experienced during that crucial week of his life but also provides the voice of Dr. Stoll, who takes the reader through the very same program Milan experienced. Unlike weight-loss books that offer quick fixes to lose the pounds, The Change is designed to look within each individual and see what is driving him or her to eat food that is known to be unhealthy. Based on science and inner strength, which is the true seed of change, this book is meant to have its readers lose weight and be healthy not for just a month or a year but for a lifetime.
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