Philosophy Adventure

Who needs philosophy? Ayn Rand's answer: Everyone. This collection of essays was the last work planned by Ayn Rand before her death in 1982. In it, she summarizes her view of philosophy and deals with a broad spectrum of topics. According to Ayn Rand, the choice we make is not whether to have a philosophy, but which one to have: a rational, conscious, and therefore practical one, or a contradictory, unidentified, and ultimately lethal one.

A Thousand Small Sanities is a manifesto rooted in the lives of people who invented and extended the liberal tradition. Taking us from Montaigne to Mill, and from Middlemarch to the civil rights movement, Adam Gopnik argues that liberalism is not a form of centrism, nor simply another word for free markets, nor merely a term denoting a set of rights. It is something far more ambitious: the search for radical change by humane measures. Gopnik shows us why liberalism is one of the great moral adventures in human history.

Winner of the Bookseller Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year. Research published in the New York Times and the Huffington Post proves that talking to strangers is good for us. But how do you get people to talk to strangers? Strangers Have the Best Candy is the book that answers that question. Margaret Meps Schulte shares her own humorous, illustrated stories of chance encounters with strangers, demonstrating how such encounters lead to adventure, friendship, and serendipity. You'll meet everyday strangers, as well as larger-than-life characters like Captain Craig, the Scourge of Lake...

The What Every Catholic Should Know series is intended for the average faithful Catholic who wants to know more about Catholic faith and culture. The authors in this series take a panoramic approach to the topic of each book aimed at a non-specialist but enthusiastic listenership. Already published titles in this series include: literature, salvation, mercy, being Catholic, God, and philosophy.

Author A.J. Jacobs discovers that his coffee - and every other item in our lives - would not be possible without hundreds of people we usually take for granted: farmers, chemists, artists, presidents, truckers, mechanics, biologists, miners, smugglers, and goatherds. By thanking these people face-to-face, Jacobs finds some much-needed brightness in his life. Gratitude does not come naturally to Jacobs, but he sets off on the journey on a dare from his son. And by the end, it’s clear to him that scientific research on gratitude is true. Gratitude’s benefits are legion.

Daniel Klein journeys to the Greek island Hydra to discover the secrets of aging happily. Drawing on the lives of his Greek friends, as well as philosophers ranging from Epicurus to Sartre, Klein learns to appreciate old age as a distinct and extraordinarily valuable stage of life. He uncovers simple pleasures that are uniquely available late in life, as well as headier pleasures that only a mature mind can fully appreciate.

This lively and engaging book is the ideal introduction for anyone who has ever been puzzled by what philosophy is or what it is for. Edward Craig argues that philosophy is not an activity born from another planet; learning about it is just a matter of broadening and deepening what most of us do already. He shows that philosophy is no mere intellectual pastime.

Just 150 years ago, most of our world was an unexplored wilderness. Our sense of its age was vastly off the mark. And what we believed to be the history of our own species consisted of fantastic myths and fairy tales; fossils, known for millennia, were seen as the bones of dragons and other imagined creatures. How did we learn so much so quickly? Remarkable Creatures celebrates the pioneers who replaced our fancies with the even more remarkable real story of how our world evolved.

Myths are usually seen as stories from the depths of time—fun and fantastical, but no longer believed by anyone. Yet, as Philip Ball shows, we are still writing them—and still living them—today. From Robinson Crusoe and Frankenstein to Batman, many stories written in the past few centuries are commonly, perhaps glibly, called "modern myths." But Ball argues that we should take that idea seriously. Our stories of Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Sherlock Holmes are doing the kind of cultural work that the ancient myths once did.

Behind a cacophony of traffic noise, iPhone alerts and our ever-spinning thoughts, an elusive notion - silence - lies in wait. But what really is silence? Where can it be found? And why is it more important now than ever? Erling Kagge, the Norwegian adventurer and polymath, once spent 50 days walking solo in Antarctica with a broken radio. In this meditative, charming and surprisingly powerful book, he explores the power of silence and the importance of shutting out the world.

At the age of 48, film critic David Denby returned to his alma mater, Columbia University, to re-experience the core humanities courses he had taken as a freshman 30 years before. Facing the question of what he really knows, Denby re-examines the besieged Western classics, ranging from Homer, Sappho, and Sophocles to Dante, Nietzsche, and Woolf. What relevance do the writers and thinkers of the past have to our current life? The answer surprised Denby and will surprise and enlighten his listeners.

Falling Upwards tells the story of the enigmatic group of men and women who first risked their lives to take to the air and so discovered a new dimension of human experience. Why they did it, what their contemporaries thought of them, and how their flights revealed the secrets of our planet in wholly unexpected ways is its subject.

In this classic 1948 memoir, now in its fourth edition, Caroline Pratt recounts, in a wry authorial voice much closer to Will Rogers than John Dewey, how she founded what is now the dynamic City and Country School in New York City; invented the maple "unit blocks” that have become a staple in classrooms and children’s homes around the globe; and came to play an important role in reimagining preschool and primary-school education in ways that resound in the tumultuously creative age before us.

Although content in their temple high up in the mountains, Tiny Dragon realises that something feels incomplete. So it is that they decide to make a journey together, to new and distant lands. As they encounter dangers and challenges, they learn that everything they need is already inside them and that change, though sometimes scary, is possible and, with patience, can lead to better things.

"I'll fight you till my final breath!" Momma Ruth has Alzheimer's but she's not giving up. She doesn't think there's anything wrong with her. "God knows, not all those know-it-all doctors," she says. She dreams of escaping from Oak Hill - and one day she does. Her sons are terrified, thinking she might get killed; but their mother isn't one bit afraid, charging boldly into the unknown on one last adventure. Ruth meets a compassionate bus driver, a helpful trucker, a protective airman, a large black woman heartbroken over a breakup with her babies' daddy, a thieving online whore, a kind-...

This audiobook contains a broad overview of time travel in science fiction, along with a detailed examination of the philosophical implications of time travel. The emphasis of this book is now on the philosophical and on science fiction, rather than on physics, as in the author’s earlier books on the subject. In that spirit there are, for example, no tech notes filled with algebra, integrals, and differential equations, as there are in the first and second editions of Time Machines.

What's so special about Ted? Nobody knows...and certainly not Ted! This certainly isn't what Ted pictured as far as alien abductions! Well, he's not really in a position to complain, because his new home is a space ship crewed by over six thousand gorgeous females with bodies drawn from his own memories and desires... Ted isn't going anywhere anytime soon. With his trusted allies, the gorgeous blonde Gwen and the Earth-obsessed hottie, Hayden, Ted tries to unravel the breeding program he's been embroiled in, fight the mysterious and totally desirable Council, and maybe even find a decent ...

He is a man capable of abandoning two sailors in an open boat, yet he is an avid and thoughtful reader of the moral philosophers. He is Wolf Larsen, captain of the seal-hunting Ghost and the unforgettable protagonist of one of the world's great sea novels. Tormented by his own convictions, Larsen is an enigma both fascinating and repellent to his reluctant crewman, Humphrey Van Weyden. Throughout their long and perilous voyage together, the captain's ruthless belief in the survival of the fittest is pitted against Van Weyden's "civilization".

This is probably Madame Blavatsky's most listenable book, usually published under the title From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan. It contains much of her spiritual travels throughout India with a number of keen observations. In many ways, this is a pioneering work by a feminist intellectual way ahead of her time.

Inside are true stories that happened to a formerly successful American starting with nothing in a new state. Most attempting Florida transplants arrive, get chewed on, and leave. Max wasn’t that smart. It’s difficult being afraid with little to lose. "Discomforts Of (Non) Conformity" then challenges commonly held beliefs about our falling-apart world. As a former nightmare boss taught Max, even a loud irritable elephant fears a modest mouse making obvious statements. Redemption In Florida surprisingly lays groundwork for Discomforts Of (Non) Conformity. The two books are woven together...