Philosophy

Evolution and Ethics
by Thomas H. Huxley
The discourse on 'Evolution and Ethics,' reprinted in the first half of the present volume, was delivered before the University of Oxford, as the second of the annual lectures founded by Mr. Romanes: whose name I may not write without deploring

What Is True Peace?
Creating True Peace
by Thich Nhat Hanh
True peace is always possible. Yet it requires strength and practice, particularly in times of great difficulty. To some, peace and nonviolence are synonymous with passivity and weakness. In truth, practicing peace and nonviolence is far from passive.

Burn It or Bury It
Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form
by Michael Sims
Hair derives its existence from within the body; it grows with an apparent life of its own; it can be separated from the body; and it is relatively difficult to destroy.

Why do we exist?
For the Time Being
by Annie Dillard
Why do we exist? Where did we come from? How can one person matter? Dillard searches for answers in a powerful array of images: pictures of bird-headed dwarfs in the standard reference of human birth defects; ten thousand terra-cotta figures fashioned

The Curriculum
Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson
by Mitch Albom
Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it

Written Among the Quadi on the River Gran
The Emperor's Handbook: A New Translation of The Meditations
by Scot Hicks, David Hicks
1. First thing every morning tell yourself: today I am going to meet a busybody, an ingrate, a bully, a liar, a schemer, and a boor. Ignorance of good and evil has made them what they are.

The Form Complete
Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form
by Michael Sims
Neanderthals yawned. Tutankhamen cried. Eleanor of Aquitaine belched. No doubt Murasaki Shikibu combed her hair and Askia Muhammad liked to prop up his feet. The pages of Louis XV yearned to sit down.

Do Not Rip the Ticket or Otherwise Mutilate It
As Luck Would Have It
by Joshua Piven
Steve Roberts is having trouble reading the numbers. It's dark outside, and he's driving, so try as he might, he can barely make them out. It's late, and he's tired, and the woman on the radio is announcing the winning numbers over and over

Nietzsche Dreams of Schwarzenegger
Aristotle Would Have Liked Oprah - Lessons for Living and Other Philosophic Musings
by Ethel Diamond
Would Aristotle have liked Oprah? Diamond believes that had he lived in modern times he would have greatly admired the talk show host, for both hold the same basic belief: 'happiness depends upon ourselves.'

On Anticipation
The Art of Travel (Vintage)
by Alain De Botton
It was hard to say when exactly winter arrived. The decline was gradual, like that of a person into old age, inconspicuous from day to day until the season became an established, relentless reality.

Listening To The Voice Inside
The Exquisite Risk
by Mark Nepo
The next time, I was more drawn to listen than forced. It was a few years later on my father's sailboat, which was the oasis of my youth. It was a thirty-foot ketch that he'd built. Once out to sea, I remember being pulled forward by the water

Lovelessness: Our Need for Love, Our Desire for Status
Status Anxiety
by Alain De Botton
Anyone who's ever lost sleep over an unreturned phone call or the neighbor's Lexus had better read Alain de Botton's irresistibly clear-headed new book, immediately. For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents turns

Part 1
Shadows; Unlocking Their Secrets, from Plato to Our Time
by Roberto Casati
For Plato, shadows were the symbol of our limitations. For Galileo, they knocked the Earth from the center of the cosmos. They are a source of fear and a symbol of ignorance, and they loom large in art and design, mythology and folklore, physics

Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship
Responsibility and Judgment
by Hannah Arendt
Responsibility and Judgment gathers together unpublished writings from the last decade of Arendt's life, where she addresses fundamental questions and concerns about the nature of evil and the making of moral choices.

On The Plumage of Birds
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Ph.D.
For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world.

Opening The Gift
The Exquisite Risk
by Mark Nepo
Before stories were recorded, what happened to the living was told and retold around fires, on cliffs, and in the shade of enormous trees. And it is said that somewhere on the edge of what was known and unknown, a man and a woman paused in their struggles

Consolations for Unpopularity
The Consolations of Philosophy
by Alain De Botton
The ancient Greek Epicurus has the wisest, and most affordable, solution to cash flow problems. A remedy for impotence lies in Montaigne. Seneca offers advice upon losing a job. And Nietzsche has shrewd counsel for everything from loneliness to illness.