The Common Reader


Virginia Woolf - 1925
    This collection has more than twenty-five selections, including such important statements as "Modern Fiction" and "The Modern Essay."

The Atomic Times: My H-Bomb Year at the Pacific Proving Ground


Michael Harris - 2005
    Strangelove.Except it really happened.Operation Redwing, the biggest and baddest of America's atmospheric nuclear weapons test regimes, mixed saber rattling with mad science, while overlooking the cataclysmic human, geopolitical and ecological effects. But mostly, it just messed with guys' heads.Major Maxwell, who put Safety First, Second and Third. Except when he didn't.Berko, the wise-cracking Brooklyn Dodgers fan forced to cope with the H-bomb and his mother's cookies.Tony, who thought military spit and polish plus uncompromising willpower made him an exception.Carl Duncan, who clung to his girlfriend's photos and a dangerous secret.Major Vanish, who did just that.In THE ATOMIC TIMES, Michael Harris welcomes readers into the U.S. Army's nuclear family where the F-words were Fallout and Fireball. In a distinctive narrative voice, Harris describes his H-bomb year with unforgettable imagery and insight into the ways isolation and isotopes change men for better--and for worse.

Two Years Before the Mast: A Sailor's Life at Sea


Richard Henry Dana Jr. - 1840
    written after a two-year sea voyage starting in 1834.While at Harvard College, Dana had an attack of the measles, which affected his vision. Thinking it might help his sight, Dana, rather than going on a Grand Tour as most of his fellow classmates traditionally did (and unable to afford it anyway) and being something of a non-conformist, left Harvard to enlist as a common sailor on a voyage around Cape Horn on the brig Pilgrim. He returned to Massachusetts two years later aboard the Alert (which left California sooner than the Pilgrim).He kept a diary throughout the voyage, and after returning he wrote a recognized American classic, Two Years Before the Mast, published in 1840, the same year of his admission to the bar.

The Age of Fable


Thomas Bulfinch - 1855
    The so-called divinities of Olympus have not a single worshipper among living men. They belong now not to the department of theology, but to those of literature and taste. There they still hold their place, and will continue to hold it, for they are too closely connected with the finest productions of poetry and art, both ancient and modern, to pass into oblivion.

The Way to Wealth


Benjamin Franklin - 1757
    It is a collection of adages and advice presented in Poor Richard's Almanac during its first 25 years of publication, organized into a speech given by "Father Abraham" to a group of people. Many of the phrases Father Abraham quotes continue to be familiar today. The essay's advice is based on the themes of work ethic and frugality. Some phrases from the almanac quoted in "The Way to Wealth" include: "There are no gains, without pains" "One today is worth two tomorrows" "A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things" "Get what you can, and what you get hold" "Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears, while the used key is always bright" "Have you somewhat to do tomorrow, do it today" "The eye of a master will do more work than both his hands" "Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" "For want of a nail..."

Behold a Pale Horse


Milton William Cooper - 1991
    This information has been kept in topsecret government files since the 1940s. His audiences hear the truth unfold as he writes about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the war on drugs, the secret government, and UFOs.Bill is a lucid, rational, and powerful speaker whose intent is to inform and to empower his audience. Standing room only is normal. His presentation and information transcend partisan affiliations as he clearly addresses issues in a way that has a striking impact on listeners of all backgrounds and interests. He has spoken to many groups throughout the United States and has appeared regularly on many radio talk shows and on television.In 1988 Bill decided to "talk" due to events then taking place worldwide, events that he had seen plans for back in the early 1970s. Bill correctly predicted the lowering of the Iron Curtain, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the invasion of Panama. All Bill's predictions were on record well before the events occurred. Bill is not a psychic. His information comes from top secret documents that he read while with the Intelligence Briefing Team and from over seventeen years of research.

Philosophy


Kevin Perry - 2015
    More than a lifestyle, larger than any single idea, broader than a conviction, philosophy is the love of exploration, of knowledge, of uncertainty, and of that cornerstone of free thinking: doubt. Kevin Perry’s “Philosophy” takes the reader on a grand tour of life’s biggest questions, examining all that the world’s greatest philosophers have said about life and death, love and loss, language, art and God, to name a few. Philosophy is a great companion and a roadmap to navigate life’s major milestones, including: How to make sense of death What loving someone or something means The effect of art on our lives What role language plays in understanding the world How do our ideas affect our actions

Feeding The Mind (Collected Works Of Lewis Carroll)


Lewis Carroll - 1973
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece


Three Initiates - 1912
    This concise guide offers a modern interpretation of the doctrine, distilling its teachings with seven compelling principles that can be applied to self-development in daily life.

In the Beginning...Was the Command Line


Neal Stephenson - 1999
    And considering that the "one man" is Neal Stephenson, "the hacker Hemingway" (Newsweek) -- acclaimed novelist, pragmatist, seer, nerd-friendly philosopher, and nationally bestselling author of groundbreaking literary works (Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, etc., etc.) -- the word is well worth hearing. Mostly well-reasoned examination and partial rant, Stephenson's In the Beginning... was the Command Line is a thoughtful, irreverent, hilarious treatise on the cyber-culture past and present; on operating system tyrannies and downloaded popular revolutions; on the Internet, Disney World, Big Bangs, not to mention the meaning of life itself.

Random Reminiscences of Men and Events


John D. Rockefeller - 1909
    CONTENTS Some Old Friends The Difficult Art of Getting The Standard Oil Company Some Experiences in the Oil Business Other Business Experiences and Business Principles The Difficult Art of Giving The Benevolent Trust -- The Value of the Cooperative Principle in Giving

The Economic Consequences of the Peace


John Maynard Keynes - 1919
    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Father and Son


Edmund Gosse - 1907
    Father and Son remains one of English literature's seminal autobiographies. In it, Edmund Gosse recounts, with humor and pathos, his childhood as a member of a Victorian Protestant sect and his struggles to forge his own identity despite the loving control of his father. His work is a key document of the crisis of faith and doubt and a penetrating exploration of the impact of evolutionary science. An astute, well-observed, and moving portrait of the tensions of family life, Father and Son remains a classic of twentieth-century literature.This edition contains an illuminating introduction, and provides a series of fascinating appendices including extracts from Philip Gosse's Omphalos and Edmund Gosse's harrowing account of his wife's death from breast cancer.

Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography


Theodore Roosevelt - 1913
    or Teddy. He was also a widely respected historian, naturalist and explorer of the Amazon Basin; his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, U.S. Western and political history, an autobiography and a host of other topics.

Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis


Michael Ward - 2008
    S. Lewis's famed but apparently disorganised Chronicles of Narnia have an underlying symbolic coherence, pointing to such possible unifying themes as the seven sacraments, the seven deadly sins, and the seven books of Spenser's Faerie Queene. None of these explanations has won general acceptance and the structure of Narnia's symbolism has remained a mystery.Michael Ward has finally solved the enigma. In Planet Narnia he demonstrates that medieval cosmology, a subject which fascinated Lewis throughout his life, provides the imaginative key to the seven novels. Drawing on the whole range of Lewis's writings (including previously unpublished drafts of the Chronicles), Ward reveals how the Narnia stories were designed to express the characteristics of the seven medieval planets - - Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Luna, Mercury, Venus, and Saturn - - planets which Lewis described as "spiritual symbols of permanent value" and "especially worthwhile in our own generation." Using these seven symbols, Lewis secretly constructed the Chronicles so that in each book the plot-line, the ornamental details, and, most important, the portrayal of the Christ-figure of Aslan, all serve to communicate the governing planetary personality. The cosmological theme of each Chronicle is what Lewis called 'the kappa element in romance', the atmospheric essence of a story, everywhere present but nowhere explicit. The reader inhabits this atmosphere and thus imaginatively gains connaitre knowledge of the spiritual character which the tale was created to embody.Planet Narnia is a ground-breaking study that will provoke a major revaluation not only of the Chronicles, but of Lewis's whole literary and theological outlook. Ward uncovers a much subtler writer and thinker than has previously been recognized, whose central interests were hiddenness, immanence, and knowledge by acquaintance."