On Art and Life | Penguin Great IdeasThroughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are. John Ruskin's insights

Darwish composed this remarkable elegy at the apex of his creativity

In the aftermath

His stories revel in the erotic tensions of city life

I and Thou is Martin Buber’s pioneering work and the centerpiece of his groundbreaking philosophy

he and his family fled for their safety

This is a culmination of Chua Beng Huat's study of Singapore's public housing system

He reveals how every building - from the Parthenon to the Great Mosque of Damascus to a typical Georgian house - was influenced by the energy available to its architects

Dina Zaman

the period of Japanese occupation in the 1940s

Reminiscent of Kurasawa’s film Ikiru

and academic Mortimer J

where he first ate an oyster as a child