With a skilled analysis of how experts in the fields of marketing, advertising, retail atmospherics, and hand-selling attempt to take away our ability to make rational decisions, Rushkoff delivers a bracing account of media ecology today, consumerism in America, and why we buy what we buy, helping us recognize when we're being treated like consumers instead of human beings.

    Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol, self-published this work just before her rampage against the king of Pop Art made her a household name and resulted in her confinement to a mental institution. But the Manifesto, for all its vitriol, is impossible to dismiss as just the rantings of a lesbian lunatic. In fact, the work has indisputable prescience, not only as a radical feminist analysis light-years ahead of its timepredicting artificial insemination, ATMs, a feminist uprising against under-representation in the artsbut also as a stunning testament to the rage of an abused and destitute woman.The focus of this edition is not on the nostalgic appeal of the work, but on Avital Ronell’s incisive introduction, “Deviant Payback: The Aims of Valerie Solanas.” Here is a reconsideration of Solanas’s infamous text in light of her social milieu, Derrida’s “The Ends of Man” (written in the same year), Judith Butler’s Excitable Speech, Nietzsche’s Ubermensch and notorious feminist icons from Medusa, Medea and Antigone, to Lizzie Borden, Lorenna Bobbit and Aileen Wournos, illuminating the evocative exuberance of Solanas’s dark tract.

    Sontag develops further the concept of 'transparency'. When anything can be photographed and photography has destroyed the boundaries and definitions of art, a viewer can approach a photograph freely with no expectations of discovering what it means. This collection of six lucid and invigorating essays, the most famous being "In Plato's Cave", make up a deep exploration of how the image has affected society.

    Its aim is to assist people of all ages to learn more about the universal truths of life that transcend modern times or particular cultures.This treasury of practical morality, personal inspiration, and daily guidance is perfect for people of all persuasions. The organization facilitates group or personal study and spiritual development.

    You know Taoism is one of the world's oldest religions, based on simplicity and balance. However, you may not know it has important parallels with modern Western faith; health, ecology, even in pop culture icons as Luke Skywalker and The Beatles.But you don't have to sit at the feet of a Taoist master to learn how the Taoist tradition has enlightened seekers throughout the centuries! 'The Complete Idiot's Guide to Taoism' will show you exactly why Taoist principles appeal to people from every walk of life! in this 'Complete Idiot's Guide', you get:-The history of the Daode Jing, the world's shortest core religious text, and Laozi, it's mysterious author.-The teachings of Zhuangzi, the often-overlooked master sage of Taoism.-An explanation of ying-yang and what it represents.-Taoism's relationship to Zen Buddhism.

    What good does war do in a world where the flow of goods, services, and information is unstoppable, and the enemy is always behind the lines? In the most personal of the essays, Eco recalls experiencing liberation from fascism in Italy as a boy, and examines the various historical forms of fascism, always with an eye toward such ugly manifestations today. And finally, in an intensely personal open letter to an Italian cardinal, Eco reflects on a question underlying all the reflections in the book--what does it mean to be moral or ethical when one doesn't believe in God?

     This clever and pithy book challenges introverts to take ownership of their personalities...with quiet strength. Sophia Dembling asserts that the introvert’s lifestyle is not “wrong” or lacking, as society or extroverts would have us believe. Through a combination of personal insights and psychology, The Introvert’s Way helps and encourages introverts to embrace their nature, to respect traits they may have been ashamed of and reframe them as assets. You’re not shy; rather, you appreciate the joys of quiet. You’re not antisocial; instead, you enjoy recharging through time alone. You’re not unfriendly, but you do find more meaning in one-on-one connections than large gatherings. By honoring what makes them unique, this astute and inspiring book challenges introverts to “own” their introversion, igniting a quiet revolution that will change how they see themselves and how they engage with the world.

    She’s since returned to the United States, but this distillation of incisive—and irreverent—insights, now updated with a new preface, is just as illuminating today. And perhaps even more so, in the wake of Brexit and the attendant national identity crisis.While there may be no easy answer to the question of how, exactly, to understand the English, The Anglo Files—part anthropological field study, part memoir—helps point the way.

    Or April, the Neo-Nazi bringing up her twin daughters Lamb and Lynx (who have just formed a white-power folk group for kids called Prussian Blue), and her youngest daughter, Dresden. For a decade now, Louis Theroux has been making programs about offbeat characters on the fringes of U.S. society. Now he revisits the people who have most intrigued him to try to discover what motivates them, and why they believe the things they believe. From his Las Vegas base (where else?), Theroux calls on these assorted dreamers, schemers, and outlaws--and in the process finds out a little about the workings of his own mind. What does it mean, after all, to be weird, or "to be yourself"? Do we choose our beliefs or do our beliefs choose us? And is there something particularly weird about Americans? America, prepare yourself for a hilarious look in the mirror that has already taken the rest of the English-speaking world by storm: "Paul Theroux's son writes with just as clear an eye for character and place as his father.... And he's funny.... Theroux's final analysis of American weirdness is true and new." -- Literary Review (England)

    Each reading is based on a quotation from one of the world’s great philosophers, poets, saints, and sages. Augustine and Einstein, Emily Dickinson and Jalaladdin Rumi, Biblical verses, Buddhist sutras, Hasidic proverbs, and Hindu Upanishads can all be found here. Each quote is accompanied by a commentary from Easwaran, explaining how the wisdom of the ages can help us here and now. Some days offer gentle reminders to slow down and be mindful. Other days give advice for changing an unwanted habit, mending a relationship, staying strong in hard times, or striving toward the peaks of spirituality described in all religions. This is a book to read in the morning to start the day right, or at night to prepare for peaceful rest. Each day, each year, brings fresh insights and inspiration.

    He eviscerates the major arguments for religion, and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence.The God Delusion makes a compelling case that belief in God is not just wrong, but potentially deadly. It also offers exhilarating insight into the advantages of atheism to the individual and society, not the least of which is a clearer, truer appreciation of the universe's wonders than any faith could ever muster.

    This world of total human experience is the world that is (or at least ought to be) reflected and molded by the arts, above all by the art of literature. "What is the function of literature," Mr. Huxley asks, "what its psychology, what the nature of literary language? And how do its function, psychology and language differ from those of science? What in the past has been the relationship between literature and science? What is it now? What might it be in the future? And what would it be profitable, artistically speaking, for a twentieth-century man of letters to do about twentieth-century science?"Ours is the Age of Science; but from a study of the best contemporary literature one would find it difficult to infer this most obvious of facts. Contemporary poetry, drama and fiction contain remarkably few references to contemporary science—few references even to the metaphysical and ethical problems which contemporary science has raised. That this state of affairs should somehow be remedied is the theme of every recent discussion of "the Two Cultures." unfortunately most of these discussions have been carried on in abstract terms and with almost no citations of case histories, no references to the concrete problems of literary and scientific writing, no illustrative examples. Mr. Huxley has approached the subject in a different way. He deals with specific questions in the fields of immediate experience, of conceptualization, of philosophical interpretation and of verbal expression; and he illustrates these wide-ranging themes with copious quotations, drawn from a great variety of sources. He analyzes the nature of literary language and contrasts its many-meaninged richness with the simplified and jargonized language of science. He shows how the poets of earlier centuries made use of the scientific knowledge available to them. He gives examples of the ways in which modern science has modified and added to the traditional raw materials of literature. And he concludes with a speculative discussion of the ways in which future men of letters may work up the raw materials of brand new fact and revolutionary hypothesis provided by science, transfiguring them into a new kind of literature, capable of expression and at the same time coordinating and giving significance to the totality of an ever-widening human experience.

    He brings to his treatment of these questions the same courage, scrupulous logic, and lofty wisdom for which his other work as philosopher, writer, and teacher has been famous. These qualities make the essays included in this book perhaps the most graceful and moving presentation of the freethinker's position since the days of Hume and Voltaire. "I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue," Russell declares in his Preface, and his reasoned opposition to any system or dogma which he feels may shackle man's mind runs through all the essays in this book, whether they were written as early as 1899 or as late as 1954. The book has been edited, with Lord Russell's full approval and cooperation, by Professor Paul Edwards of the Philosophy Department of New York University. In an Appendix, Professor Edwards contributes a full account of the highly controversial "Bertrand Russell Case" of 1940, in which Russell was judicially declared "unfit" to teach philosophy at the College of the City of New York. Whether the reader shares or rejects Bertrand Russell's views, he will find this book an invigorating challenge to set notions, a masterly statement of a philosophical position, and a pure joy to read.Why I am not a Christian --Has religion made useful contributions to civilization? --What I believe --Do we survive death? --Seems, madam? Nay, it is --Free man's worship --On Catholic and Protestant skeptics --Life in the Middle Ages --Fate of Thomas Paine --Nice people --New generation --Our sexual ethics --Freedom and the colleges --Can religion cure our troubles? --Religion and morals --Appendix: How Bertrand Russell was prevented from teaching at the College of the City of New York

    Known throughout the world as the guru who encouraged an entire generation to "turn on, tune in, and drop out," he draws on wit, humor, and skepticism to debunk the power of psychotherapy and to advocate reprogramming the brain with psychedelics. Discussing how various drugs affect the brain, how to change behavior, and how to develop creativity, he also delves into psychopharmacological catalyzing, fear of potential, symbol and language imprinting, and brain reimprinting with Hinduism, Buddhism, and LSD.

    In memoirs, essays and stories that are funny, moving, visionary or insightful, twenty-three famous writers celebrate these places where minds open and the world expands.Public libraries are lifelines, to practical information as well as to the imagination, but funding is under threat all over the country. This book is published in support of libraries, with all royalties going to The Reading Agency's library programmes.