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The Big Questions of Life
Om Swami - 2020
Loss is unavoidable; grief isn't. Death is certain. And life? Well, life isn't certain. Its uncertainty, unpredictability, even its irrationality, make it what it is. Often, we run blindly into fire, we step on snakes, we get entangled in snares - these are the fires of desire, the snakes of attachment, and the snares of jealousy and covetousness. If we are bitten, burnt and hurt, we call it suffering, and believe it to be the way of life, when, in fact, we are mistaking our pain for our suffering. We have little control over the former but the latter is almost entirely in our hands. We can take things in our stride or be tossed on the tide. All it takes is to be able to open our eyes. This choice, we must remember, is ours; always. Om Swami's new book marks the way to enlightenment through mindful thinking.
Thinking In Numbers: On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math
Daniel Tammet - 2012
In Tammet's world, numbers are beautiful and mathematics illuminates our lives and minds. Using anecdotes, everyday examples, and ruminations on history, literature, and more, Tammet allows us to share his unique insights and delight in the way numbers, fractions, and equations underpin all our lives. Inspired by the complexity of snowflakes, Anne Boleyn's eleven fingers, or his many siblings, Tammet explores questions such as why time seems to speed up as we age, whether there is such a thing as an average person, and how we can make sense of those we love. Thinking In Numbers will change the way you think about math and fire your imagination to see the world with fresh eyes.
Master Your Mind: The More You Think, The Easier It Gets
D.E. Boyer - 2016
D.E. Boyer takes us on a fascinating journey from the depths of despair to an amazing quantum world where anything is possible. First, we will learn how to defend ourselves against the chaos in our minds, then we will learn how to rekindle the magic in our hearts. Along the way, the wisdom of Socrates and the myth of Narcissus will transform the way we think and feel. Boyer then shows us how the military teaches their Navy Seal recruits how to handle their thoughts and feelings when someone is trying to kill them, so we can better handle our bosses, spouses, and children when it feels like they are trying to kill us. We will also get a glimpse of death through the eyes of someone who sees people die every day, giving us a much greater appreciation for life. With extremely amusing stories from her own life that touch on her dysfunctional upbringing and traumatizing career as an intensive care nurse, Boyer teaches us how to control our anxiety, boost our fragile self-esteem, and get into a state of flow so that we can spend most of our time loving life, rather than dreading it. She also gives us crucial health and nutrition tips so that we can live longer with our newfound peace and joy, and she shows us how to be more successful at life by being a better friend, spouse, and parent. With every step we take on this path, we'll find ourselves flirting with the hidden power of the mind, a power that often lies just beyond most people's reach. Only by mastering the basics of thinking and feeling can we gain access to this power. Once the door is unlocked, we will enter another dimension, a quantum world where time is irrelevant and the magic of our mind is waiting to be found.
The Woman Destroyed
Simone de Beauvoir - 1967
Three long stories that draw the reader into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises.
An Ordinary Dude's Guide to Meditation
John Weiler - 2017
Many written by monks, and some written by hippies and spiritual gurus. But how many are written by an ordinary dude? Someone who is just like you: someone who has a day job, whose preferred outfit is jeans and a t-shirt, and enjoys knocking back a few beers on Friday night? I'm as ordinary as they come. The only difference...I've been meditating for over 13 years. And I want to show you how you can too—in a straightforward language that any ordinary dude or dudette can understand. Over a decade of practice, meditation has transformed my life, bringing more peace, calm and clarity into it than I could have ever imagined when I started at the age of 19. And now I want to share how meditation can do the same for you.
ZEN: A Simple Path to More Happiness, More Tranquility, and Less Problems
Andrew Daley - 2012
It provides a useful introduction to Zen for people that have never had any previous experience of the subject matter, and it will provide a little something here and there for experienced Zen practitioners too, even if they are already very happy and very tranquil. The author's aim is to help people glide through life with maximum joy, and minimum fuss. Three of the central aspects of the Zen way of life that the author has found most useful for increasing happiness and tranquility are explored in detail. These are mindfulness, lifestyle and meditating. Between each of the three main chapters in this book are 'Zen tips', much shorter chapters of just a few paragraphs, giving information on a particular topic that the author has found especially useful in helping to maintain Zen tranquility and happiness. From the author: "This book isn't intended as a complete guide to all aspects of Zen culture, history or philosophy, but as an honest and insightful Zen based contribution to people's well being. I hope you enjoy it, and, more importantly, I hope you find it useful!"
The Great Wall of China and other Stories
Franz Kafka - 1931
It includes The Great Wall of China, Blumfeld, An Elderly Bachelor, Investigations of a Dog and his great sequences of aphorisms, with fables and parables on subjects ranging from the legend of Prometheus to the Tower of Babel. Allegorical, disturbing and possessing a dream-like clarity, these writings are quintessential Kafka.
A Modern Utopia
H.G. Wells - 1905
With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
An Intimate History of Humanity
Theodore Zeldin - 1994
"An intellectually dazzling view of our past and future."--Time magazineContents1. How humans have repeatedly lost hope, and how new encounters, and a new pair of spectacles, revive them2. How men and women have slowly learned to have interesting conversations3. How people searching for their roots are only beginning to look far and deep enough4. How some people have acquired an immunity to loneliness5. How new forms of love have been invented6. Why there has been more progress in cooking than in sex7. How the desire that men feel for women, and for other men, has altered through the centuries8. How respect has become more desirable than power9. How those who want neither to give orders nor to receive them can become intermediaries10. How people have freed themselves from fear by finding new fears11. How curiosity has become the key to freedom12. Why it has become increasingly difficult to destroy one’s enemies13. How the art of escaping from one’s troubles has developed, but not the art of knowing where to escape to14. Why compassion has flowered even in stony ground15. Why toleration has never been enough16. Why even the privileged are often somewhat gloomy about life, even when they can have anything the consumer society offers, and even after sexual liberation17. How travellers are becoming the largest nation in the world, and how they have learned not to see only what they are looking for18. Why friendship between men and women has been so fragile19. How even astrologers resist their destiny20. Why people have not been able to find the time to lead several lives21. Why fathers and their children are changing their minds about what they want from each other22. Why the crisis in the family is only one stage in the evolution of generosity23. How people choose a way of life, and how it does not wholly satisfy them24. How humans become hospitable to each other25. What becomes possible when soul-mates meet
Fearless Speech
Michel Foucault - 1983
The history of thought is the analysis of the way an unproblematic field of experience becomes a problem, raises discussions and debate, incites new reactions, and induces crisis in the previously silent behaviors, practices, and institutions. It is the history of the way people become anxious, for example, about madness, about crime, about themselves, or about truth.Comprised of six lectures delivered, in English, by Michel Foucault while teaching at Berkeley in the Fall of 1983, Fearless Speech was edited by Joseph Pearson and published in 2001. Reviewed by the author, it is the last book Foucault wrote before his death in 1984 and can be read as his last testament. Here, he positions the philosopher as the only person able to confront power with the truth, a stance that boldly sums up Foucault’s project as a philosopher.Still unpublished in France, Fearless Speech concludes the genealogy of truth that Foucault pursued throughout his life, starting with his investigations in Madness and Civilization, into the question of power and its technology. The expression “fearless speech” is a rough translation of the Greek parrhesia, which designates those who take a risk to tell the truth; the citizen who has the moral qualities required to speak the truth, even if it differs from what the majority of people believe and faces danger for speaking it.Parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth through frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy.Michel Foucault (1926–84) is widely considered to be one of the most influe
Discover Your Destiny With The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
Robin S. Sharma - 2004
From the author of the international bestseller, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. • The Monk is back with a visionary new book on awakening your authentic greatness, full of fresh and exciting new lessons to stimulate your life.• Combining Eastern wisdom with Western success principles in this deeply inspiring, yet highly practical guide, Robin Sharma offers a blueprint for living a beautiful life, rich with joy, prosperity and lasting inner peace.• This fable follows the story of Dar Sanderson, a middle-aged human resources manager with a good job, nice home and steady income. Despite his apparent success, Dar is deeply unhappy, realising that his good life is keeping him from his best life. After encountering the Monk, he embarks on a 6-month odyssey to discover his authentic self and reclaim the life of his dreams. Along the way he learns the 7 stages every person must choose to walk if they wish to seek a life of lasting happiness and personal freedom.• Robin Sharma is renowned for his captivating story-telling, which has earned him fans including the master of spiritual fiction Paulo Coelho.
On Love and Death
Patrick Süskind - 2005
In this witty and thought-provoking meditation on the two elemental forces of human existence, he brilliantly draws on scenes as contemporary as a young couple having oral sex in a traffic jam, as literary as Thomas Mann's discovery of forbidden love at an advanced age, and as mythical as the stories of death conquered through love in the narratives of Orpheus and Jesus.
When You Kant Figure It Out, Ask a Philosopher: Timeless Wisdom for Modern Dilemmas
Marie Robert - 2018
In twelve clever, accessible chapters, you'll get advice from Epicurus about how to disconnect from constant news alerts and social media updates, Nietzsche's take on getting in shape, John Stuart Mill's tips for handling bad birthday presents, and many other classic insights to help you navigate life today.Hilarious, practical, and edifying, When You Kant Figure It Out, Ask a Philosopher brings the best thinkers of the past into the 21st Century to help us all make sense of a chaotic new world.
The Book of Manuals
Paulo Coelho - 2008
Gradually, I developed something of a passion for the manual and started to draw up my own, based on my observations of daily life. When Celso Loducca asked me to write a book, I thought: Why not collect together all the manuals I’ve written over the years and publish them? The result is the book you’re holding in your hands now.