Literature and Evil


Georges Bataille - 1957
    “It is guilty and should admit itself so.” The word, the flesh, and the devil are explored by this extraordinary intellect in the work of eight outstanding authors: Emily Bronte, Baudelaire, Blake, Michelet, Kafka, Proust, Genet and De Sade.Born in France in 1897, Georges Bataille was a radical philosopher, novelist, and critic whose writings continue to exert a vital influence on today's literature and thought.

Elon Musk: Success Secrets


George Ilian - 2018
    Their determination to meet their goals and the challenges they overcame to succeed, make their stories unique and inspirational.Elon Musk is known for thinking outside the box, dreaming big and working tirelessly to achieve those dreams. He is open to ideas and ways to collaborate and improve what he is working on while funding these solutions. He thrives on his passion for work and is willing to put his weight behind projects he believes in and the innovations coming out of Space X and Tesla provide ample proof.Discover this maverick’s story and how you could emulate him!George Ilian has made his mark on the digital industry, owning an ebook business among other endeavours. He is the author of 18 books in the genre of business and motivation.

Before the Chop: LA Weekly Articles 2011-2012


Henry Rollins - 2013
    For reasons of space, the Weekly must often slightly truncate the pieces and also sees fit to change the name of the piece. So, what you read there isn’t always what I sent them. This is one of the reasons I wanted to put this book out. Also, knowing there are a lot of people out there without the time to go to some website and read something every week, I thought it would be a good idea to have the articles all in one place. I hope you enjoy the book and thank you. - Henry

Journey Around My Room and a Nocturnal Expedition Around My Room


Xavier de Maistre - 2004
    But with only a butler and a dog for company, Xavier de Maistre managed to fill his time by embarking on a journey around his bedroom, later writing an account of what he had seen. Whether venturing from his bed to his sofa, or even to his mirror, he wears his "traveling outfit"--his favorite pink and blue pajamas. Out of his forced reclusion comes a captivating fantasy--a novel take on travel literature that would inspire many later writers, including Marcel Proust. This edition also contains de Maistre's "A Nocturnal Expedition around My Room." Xavier de Maistre was a military man, who supplemented his army career with short works of fiction.

A Path and a Practice: Using Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching as a Guide to an Awakened Spiritual Life


William Martin - 2004
    But no modern translation has yet captured the essential thrust of Lao Tzu's work as a practical guide to living an awakened life. Now William Martin, whose acclaimed previous reinterpretations of the Tao (for parents, couples, and elders) have introduced or reacquainted this classic text to thousands of readers, strikingly translates the Tao's eighty-one chapters to uniquely address someone on a Tao—or path—with a practice. Martin frames his new translation with two illuminating, groundbreaking sections: "A Path," which introduces the Tao's nonlinear construction and explains how it works its themes; and "A Practice," which provides practical guidance for readers exploring each of the Tao's themes in depth. Martin's genius in this new translation uncovers how directly the Tao speaks to readers on or about to embark on a spiritual journey.

The Karate Way: Discovering the Spirit of Practice


Dave Lowry - 2009
    Here, Dave Lowry, one of the best-known writers on the Japanese martial arts, illuminates the complete path of karate including practice, philosophy, and culture. He covers myriad subjects of interest to karate practitioners of all ages and levels, including:    • The relationship between students and teachers    • Cultivating the correct attitude during practice    • The differences between karate in the East and West    • Whether a karate student really needs to study in Japan to perfect the art    • The meaning of rank and the black belt    • Detailed descriptions of kicks, punches, evasions, and techniques and the philosophical concepts that they manifest    • What practice means and looks like as one ages    • How the practice of karate aims toward cultivating character and spiritual development After forty years studying karate and the budo arts, Lowry is an informative and reliable guide, highlighting aspects of the karate path that will surprise, entertain, and enlighten.

Suicide


Édouard Levé - 2008
    Presenting itself as an investigation into the suicide of a close friend—perhaps real, perhaps fictional—more than twenty years earlier, Levé gives us, little by little, a striking portrait of a man, with all his talents and flaws, who chose to reject his life, and all the people who loved him, in favor of oblivion. Gradually, through Levé’s casually obsessive, pointillist, beautiful ruminations, we come to know a stoic, sensible, thoughtful man who bears more than a slight psychological resemblance to Levé himself. But Suicide is more than just a compendium of memories of an old friend; it is a near-exhaustive catalog of the ramifications and effects of the act of suicide, and a unique and melancholy farewell to life.

Living by your own Rules


Devdutt Pattanaik - 2016
    His profound management sutras are derived from his bestselling books on business and management. They show how individuals can realize their potential, create wealth and achieve lasting success by following uniquely Indian principles (based on Hindu, Jain and Buddhist mythology) of goal setting, strategic thinking and decision-making.

Happiness: Ten Years of n+1


n+1 - 2014
    n+1 appeared in the fall of 2004, the brainchild of a group of writers working out of a small apartment. Intended to revive the leftist social criticism and innovative literary analysis that was the hallmark of the Partisan Review and other midcentury magazines, n+1 was a rejoinder to the consumerism and complacency of the Bush years. It hasn't slowed down since. n+1 has given us the most clear-eyed reporting on the 2008 crash and the Occupy movement, the best criticism of publishing culture, and the first sociological report on the hipster. No media, new or old, has escaped its ire as n+1's outspoken contributors have taken on reality TV, Twitter, credentialism, drone strikes, and Internet porn.Happiness, released on the occasion of n+1's tenth anniversary, collects the best of the magazine as selected by its editors. These essays are fiercely contentious, disconcertingly astute, and screamingly funny. They explore our modern pursuits of happiness and take a searching moral inventory of the strange times we live in. Founding lights Chad Harbach, Keith Gessen, Benjamin Kunkel, Marco Roth, and Mark Greif are featured alongside Elif Batuman, Rebecca Curtis, Emily Witt, and other young talents launched by n+1. This n+1 anthology is the definitive work of the definitive twenty-first century intellectual magazine.

Infinite Baseball: Notes from a Philosopher at the Ballpark


Alva Noë - 2019
    Because of this, despite ever greater profits, Major League Baseball is bent on finding ways to shorten games, and to tailor baseball to today's shorter attention spans. But for the true fan, baseball is always compelling to watch -and intellectually fascinating. It's superficially slow-pace is an opportunity to participate in the distinctive thinking practice that defines the game. If baseball is boring, it's boring the way philosophy is boring: not because there isn't a lot going on, but because the challenge baseball poses is making sense of it all.In this deeply entertaining book, philosopher and baseball fan Alva No� explores the many unexpected ways in which baseball is truly a philosophical kind of game. For example, he ponders how observers of baseball are less interested in what happens, than in who is responsible for what happens; every action receives praise or blame. To put it another way, in baseball - as in the law - we decide what happened based on who is responsible for what happened. Noe also explains the curious activity of keeping score: a score card is not merely a record of the game, like a video recording; it is an account of the game. Baseball requires that true fans try to tell the story of the game, in real time, as it unfolds, and thus actively participate in its creation.Some argue that baseball is fundamentally a game about numbers. Noe's wide-ranging, thoughtful observations show that, to the contrary, baseball is not only a window on language, culture, and the nature of human action, but is intertwined with deep and fundamental human truths. The book ranges from the nature of umpiring and the role of instant replay, to the nature of the strike zone, from the rampant use of surgery to controversy surrounding performance enhancing drugs. Throughout, Noe's observations are surprising and provocative.Infinite Baseball is a book for the true baseball fan.

Artaud Anthology


Antonin Artaud - 1965
    Artaud, however, was not insane but in luciferian pursuit of what society keeps hidden. The man who wrote Van Gogh the Man Suicided by Society raged against the insanity of social institutions with insight that proves more prescient with every passing year. Today, as Artaud’s vatic thunder still crashes above the "larval confusion" he despised, what is most striking in his writings is an extravagant lucidity.This collection gives us quintessential Artaud on the occult, magic, the theater, mind and body, the cosmos, rebellion, and revolution in its deepest sense.Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonine Artaud, was a French dramatist, poet, essayist, actor, and theatre director, widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theatre and the European avant-garde.Jack Hirschman (b. December 13, 1933, in New York, NY) is a poet and social activist who has written more than 50 volumes of poetry. Dismissed from teaching at UCLA for anti-war activities in 1966, he moved to San Francisco in 1973, and was the city's present poet laureate. Hirschman translates nine languages and edited The Artaud Anthology.

Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London


Lauren Elkin - 2015
    Feminine form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities.That is an imaginary definition.'If the word flâneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flâneuse?In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flâneuses who have lived and walked in those cities.From nineteenth-century novelist George Sand to artist Sophie Calle, from war correspondent Martha Gellhorn to film-maker Agnes Varda, Flâneuse considers what is at stake when a certain kind of light-footed woman encounters the city and changes her life, one step at a time.

The Book of Rock Lists


Dave Marsh - 1981
    

The Pearls of Love and Logic for Parents and Teachers


Jim Fay - 2000
    Book by Fay, Charles, Fay, Jim, Cline, Foster W.

The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers


Mark T. Conard - 2008
    They had already made films that redefined the gangster movie, the screwball comedy, the fable, and the film noir, among others. No Country is just one of many Coen brothers films to center on the struggles of complex characters to understand themselves and their places in the strange worlds they inhabit. To