Influenced by works such as Don Juan, and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide: the question of living or not living in an absurd universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Camus posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.

    A leading exponent of French existentialism, her work complements, though it is independent of, that of her great friend Jean-Paul Sartre. In "The Ethics of Ambiguity," Madame de Beauvoir penetrates at once to the core ethical problems of modern man: what shall he do, how shall he go about making values, in the face of this awareness of the absurdity of his existence? She forces the reader to face the absurdity of the human condition, and then, having done so, proceeds to develop a dialectic of ambiguity which will enable him not to master the chaos, but to create with it.

    Cioran writes incisively about Western civilizations, the writer, the novel, mystics, apostles, and philosophers."A sort of final philosopher of the Western world. His statements have the compression of poetry and the audacity of cosmic clowning."—Washington Post"An intellectual bombshell that blasts away at all kinds of cant, sham and conventionality. . . . [Cioran's] language is so erotic, his handling of words so seductive, that the act of reading becomes an encounter in the erogenous zone."—Jonah Raskin, L.A. Weekly

    Present here is a remarkable combination of the insight of the poet and the contemplation of the philosopher.In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard moves beyond anxiety on the mental-emotional level to the spiritual level, where — in contact with the eternal — anxiety becomes despair. Both anxiety and despair reflect the misrelation that arises in the self when the elements of the synthesis — the infinite and the finite — do not come into proper relation to each other. Despair is a deeper expression for anxiety and is a mark of the eternal, which is intended to penetrate temporal existence.

    Drawing on philosophy, literature, neuroscience, and other fields of study, Ligotti takes the penetrating lens of his imagination and turns it on his audience, causing them to grapple with the brutal reality that they are living a meaningless nightmare, and anyone who feels otherwise is simply acting out an optimistic fallacy. At once a guidebook to pessimistic thought and a relentless critique of humanity's employment of self-deception to cope with the pervasive suffering of their existence, The Conspiracy against the Human Race may just convince readers that there is more than a measure of truth in the despairing yet unexpectedly liberating negativity that is widely considered a hallmark of Ligotti's work.

    Nietzsche's basic claim is that Christianity is a poisoner of western culture and perversion of the words of and practice of Jesus. Throughout the text, Nietzsche is very critical of institutionalized religion and its priest class, from which he himself was descended. The majority of the book is a systematic attack upon the interpretations of Christ's words by St. Paul and those who followed him. Nietzsche claimed in the Foreword to have written the book for a very limited readership. In order to understand the book, he asserted that the reader "... must be honest in intellectual matters to the point of hardness to so much as endure my seriousness, my passion." The reader should be above politics and nationalism. Also, the usefulness or harmfulness of truth should not be a concern. Characteristics such as "Strength which prefers questions for which no one today is sufficiently daring; courage for the forbidden" are also needed. He disdained all other readers.

    Lewellyn Powys called it "the greatest work of prose of the greatest period of English prose-writing," while the celebrated surgeon William Osler declared it the greatest of medical treatises. And Dr. Johnson, Boswell reports, said it was the only book that he rose early in the morning to read with pleasure. In this surprisingly compact and elegant new edition, Burton's spectacular verbal labyrinth is sure to delight, instruct, and divert today's readers as much as it has those of the past four centuries.

    But here's the kicker: There's NO science behind any of it. Quite to the contrary, however, science actually disproves these things.Thanks to the overwhelming amount of fitness pseudo-science and lies being pushed on us every day by bogus magazines and self-styled "gurus," it's becoming harder and harder to know how to get in shape. Well, this book was written to debunk some of the most common and harmful myths in the health and fitness industry, and teach you what you really have to do to get lean, strong, and healthy.

    Written for 'The School of Life series, Foley takes one of his favourite philosophers, Henri Bergson, and highlights the ideas from Bergson that are most relevant to our ordinary everyday dilemmas.

    

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

    Selection includes the following: RALPH WALDO EMERSON: Art, Character, Circles, Compensation, Divinity School Address, Experience, Friendship, Gifts, Heroism, History, Intellect, Literary Ethics, Love, Man the Reformer, Nature, New England Reformers, Nominalist and Realist, Politics, Prudence, Representative Men, Self-Reliance, The American Scholar, The Conservative, The Method of Nature, The Over-Soul, The Poet, The Transcendentalist, The Young American, HENRY DAVID THOREAU: An Excursion to Canada, A Plea for Captain John Brown, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Autumnal Tints, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Night and Moonlight, Slavery in Massachusetts, The Landlord, Walden, Walking

    Now, The View from the Cheap Seats brings together for the first time ever more than sixty pieces of his outstanding nonfiction. Analytical yet playful, erudite yet accessible, this cornucopia explores a broad range of interests and topics, including (but not limited to): authors past and present; music; storytelling; comics; bookshops; travel; fairy tales; America; inspiration; libraries; ghosts; and the title piece, at turns touching and self-deprecating, which recounts the author’s experiences at the 2010 Academy Awards in Hollywood.

    These extracts from his writings cover the whys, whats and wherefores of meditation. Osho urges, cajoles and encourages the reader to step out on the path to peace and fulfilment, and gives advice on how to stay on it.

    From classrooms built around group learning to open-plan offices that encourage endless meetings, it sometimes seems that the 21st century is designed for the extroverted. This TIME Spotlight Story explores the Upside of Being an Introvert.