Essay Essays

Exploring the relationship between Christianity and Zen, especially through his dialogue with the great Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki, the book makes an excellent introduction to a comparative study of these two traditions, as well as giving the listener a strong taste of the mature Merton. Never does one feel him losing his own faith; rather, one feels that faith getting deeply clarified and affirmed. Just as the body of "Zen" cannot be found by the scavengers, so too, Merton suggests, with the eternal truth of Christ.

As the Enlightenment movement was gathering strength in the early 18th century, various challenges to established religious faith were launched. In response, a number of celebrated commentators produced defences of religion and morality, and among these was Alexander Pope, who was inspired to write "some pieces on Human Life and Manners." The result was a collection of poems in rhyming couplets, designated "Epistles", which were published in instalments.

Oxford mathematician and author John Lennox takes a closer look at Hawking's logic regarding what brought the universe into being. In lively, layman's terms, Lennox guides us through the key points in Hawking's arguments - with clear explanations of the latest scientific and philosophical methods and theories - and demonstrates that far from disproving a creator God, they make his existence seem all the more probable.

“Buy the ticket, take the ride,” was a favorite slogan of Hunter S. Thompson, and it pretty much defined both his work and his life. Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone showcases the roller-coaster of a career at the magazine that was his literary home.

A sex and relationship columnist bares it all in a series of essays—part memoir, part manifesto—that explore the author’s coming of age and coming out as a bisexual man and move toward embracing and celebrating sex unencumbered by shame.

In today's challenging and busy world, don't you wish you knew how to quiet your mind and focus on yourself? In On Meditation, renowned spiritual leader, Sri M, answers all your questions on the practice and benefits of meditation. With his knowledge of all the various schools of practice and the ancient texts, he breaks down the complicated practice into a simple and easy method that any working man or woman, young or old, can practice in their everyday lives.

Dans la veine de son célèbre Crépuscule des Idoles, ce recueil d'aphorismes qui ne fut jamais achevé par l'auteur—le projet initial fut abandonné en 1888—visait à exposer l'ensemble de sa doctrine dans un ouvrage synthétique. L'existence même de ce livre suscita de vives polémiques et aujourd'hui encore la fiabilité de certains passages reste à prouver, des études philologiques récentes ayant mis à découvert de nombreuses erreurs que n'aurait pu commettre Frédéric Nietzsche.

Albert Camus (1913-1960) is unsurpassed among writers for a body of work that animates the wonder and absurdity of existence. Personal Writings brings together, for the first time, thematically-linked essays from across Camus's writing career that reflect the scope and depth of his interior life. Grappling with an indifferent mother and an impoverished childhood in Algeria, an ever-present sense of exile, and an ongoing search for equilibrium, Camus's personal essays shed new light on the emotional and experiential foundations of his philosophical thought....

Listeners will find here not only the country’s leading conservative thinker offering a pas­sionate defense of limited government, but also a highly independent mind whose views - on feminism, evolution and the death penalty, for example - defy ideological convention. Things That Matter also features several of Krautham­mer’s major path-breaking essays - on bioeth­ics, on Jewish destiny and on America’s role as the world’s superpower - that have pro­foundly influenced the nation’s thoughts and policies.

In 2020, Claire Luchette in O, The Oprah Magazine described the beloved Italian novelist Elena Ferrante as “an oracle among authors”. Here, in these four crisp essays, Ferrante offers a rare look at the origins of her literary powers.

Winner of Child magazine's Book of the Year award for her hilarious and candid book on single motherhood, The Lunch-Box Chronicles, Marion Winik returns to the topic of parenting in these nine essays. Beginning with the story of her second wedding and her move to rural Pennsylvania, she covers everything from blending families and having a child in one's 40s to dealing with the legal problems of teenage boys to the evolution of the values of a family over generations.

Novelist, cultural observer, and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age. A writer who embraces “under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous” points of view, she filets cherished shibboleths and the conformity of thought and attitude that has overtaken us.

For anyone who could use proof that the world is full of good people, this beautifully illustrated book features 101 stories of human decency from Upworthy, the beloved social media brand that reaches more than 100 million people per month.

This highly regarded volume features a modern translation of all ten books of The Republic. Translated by Raymond Larson. The Republic is an explosion of thought; a ten-book brainstorm of one of the greatest minds of all-time.

Forty essays on history, art, and literature to lift your mind and spirit. Guy Davenport serves as the listener's guide through history and literature, providing links between music and sculpture, modernist poets and classic philosophers, the past and present-pointing out the values and avenues of thought that have shaped our ideas and our thinking.

In this essay, Orwell describes his personal journey to becoming a writer and offers some important motives for writing. Moving from his experience of writing his first completed poems to trying his hand at short stories, to finding fame as a fully fledged writer, Orwell discusses the importance of writing, his continuous technique and sets out some important motives for becoming a writer yourself.

From graffiti gangs and Grand Theft Auto to sugar daddies, Schopenhauer, and a deadly game of Russian roulette, in these essays, Chelsea Hodson probes her own desires to examine where the physical and the proprietary collide. She asks what our privacy, our intimacy, and our own bodies are worth in the increasingly digital world of liking, linking, and sharing. Starting with Hodson’s own work experience, which ranges from the mundane to the bizarre - including modeling and working on a NASA Mars mission - Hodson expands outward, looking at the ways in which the human will submits, whether in the marketplace or in a relationship.

A refreshingly honest, wonderfully humorous, and entirely inspiring exploration of change, fear, and what it really means to be alone, from everyone’s favorite TikTok oracle, Devrie Donalson.

Following the international critical acclaim of The Cost of Living, this final volume of Deborah Levy's "living autobiography" is an exhilarating, thought-provoking, and boldly intimate meditation on home and the spectres that haunt it.

In The Selfishness of Others, the essayist Kristin Dombek provides a clear-sighted account of how a rare clinical diagnosis became a fluid cultural phenomenon, a repository for our deepest fears about love, friendship, and family. She cuts through hysteria in search of the razor-thin line between pathology and common selfishness, writing with robust skepticism toward the prophets of NPD and genuine empathy for those who see themselves as its victims. And finally, she shares her own story in a candid effort to find a path away from the cycle of fear and blame.