"The Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics practiced philosophy not as a detached intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art of grappling with issues of daily and urgent human significance: the fear of death, love and sexuality, anger and aggression. Like medicine, philosophy to them was a rigorous science aimed both at understanding and at producing the flourishing of human life. In this engaging book, Martha Nussbaum examines texts of philosophers committed to a therapeutic paradigm - including Epicurus, Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus, Chrysippus, and Seneca - and recovers a valuable source for our moral and political thought of today.The Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics practiced philosophy not as a detached intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art of grappling with issues of daily and urgent human significance: the fear of death, love and sexuality, anger and aggression. Like medicine, philosophy to them was a rigorous science aimed both at understanding and at producing the flourishing of human life. In this engaging book, Martha Nussbaum examines texts of philosophers committed to a therapeutic paradigm--including Epicurus, Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus, Chrysippus, and Seneca--and recovers a valuable source for our moral and political thought of today." -- Google Books.

"Does a neglected masterpiece by Jane Austen enshrine her first love affair? Who was Vita Sackville West's real grandfather? What clues are there to the identity of 'Walter', doyen of Victorian pornographers? When and why did P.G. Wodehouse mutate from hack to genius? Was Oscar Wilde really down and out in Paris? Was Brideshead really Madresfield? These and other excursions into literary or social history have developed out of Mark Girouard's spare time enthusiasms, as diversions from his main occupation as an architectural historian. In nine essays he calls attention to points that have not been noticed before, corrects fallacies that have got into general circulation, suggests, identifies, redates, refutes, or pours a little cold water on unjustified romanticisms. Three further essays sample another enthusiasm, his own family background, and introduce characters such as the dwarf who had to stand on a bench to address the South African Parliament, the colonial governor who fell in love with his niece, and the dowager duchess with whom he spent his childhood on the edge of the park at Chatsworth." --Publisher description.

This gripping novel of adventure, love, and religious persecution follows the life and flight of a Jew under the Spanish Inquisition.

At one time or another, most if not all of us have what might be called a mystical experience, or a moment of ecstasy. This can be triggered off by the sudden apprehension of a beautiful landscape, by love of a person or an object, by the frightening or sublime aspects of a natural phenomenon, or indeed by a multitude of events or states of consciousness which seem to empty the mind of its usual preoccupations or thoughts and fill it instead with short-lived sensations of awe, fulfillment or joy. Most people shrug off such experiences once they have passed; others cling to them and try to repeat and to live by them. This dichotomy in people’s reactions to ecstasy leads to curious and controversial modes of social behavior, and can also be used as a mechanism for manipulating or directing people’s minds. Marghanita Laski published in 1961 a book called Ecstasy which was enthusiastically received and widely discussed. In it she assembled data gathered from a number of individuals on the ecstatic experience, its nature and its triggers. In the present work, she enlarges the scope of her investigation to examine the actual and potential results of a reliance on ecstasy or mystical experience as contrasted with conduct based on reason and analysis. This is very much a book of today, a book for today. It addresses itself wittily and gracefully to problems often subsumed under that cant term, ‘the generation gap’; it weighs the values of ‘the simple life’, the return to nature, as compared to the more sophisticated life of intellectual quest and attainment.

Soul Prints speaks to all listeners, regardless of religious beliefs or practices. Using the power of myth--Biblical and folk--and drawing on his own personal highs and lows, Gafni offers advice on how to form bonds based in truth and love.

One of the founders of the scientific study of sex, Magnus Hirschfeld, M.D. (1868-1935), led the field in objective examinations of homosexuality, transvestism, and gender identity. The Homosexuality of Men and Women was designed to provide a unified, comprehensive description of homosexuality which would rid heterosexuals of homophobic prejudice and allow gays and lesbians to accept themselves and stop feeling isolated. This encyclopedic study opens with a definition and a detailed biological diagnosis of orientation, including the childhood and adolescent phases. Hirschfeld addresses the physical, mental, and emotional life, while explaining the differences between friendship and same-sex love; genuine and false homosexuality; and the inborn nature of homosexuality and bisexuality. He also disputes the theory that homosexuality is treatable. In the second half of the book, Hirschfeld looks at sociology: community life, bonding, roles in society, history, persecution, victimization, and the law. His documentation of gays in the military and the "new technology" of his day-such as the telephone and airplanes and their affect on the lives of homosexuals-offers farsighted observations that strongly parallel today's national debates and new developments.

The fact that there are nine other counties named Hamilton in these United States besides the one in Iowa where MacKinlay Kantor was born simply provides a frame for this many-dimensioned, nostalgic portrait of an American way of life which some think is rapidly disappearing. Tim Kantor's photographs from all ten counties provide stunning evidence that certain truths, worth preserving, are still to be found. Ranging as far northeast as the Adirondacks, as far west as the Texas plains, as far south as Florida, and into six neighboring mid-western states, the Hamilton counties form a cross section of the America MacKinlay Kantor knows well. They provide scenes and subjects which call upon his richest veins of memory and imagination. A sweeping mid-western landscape, for example, recalls the voices of pioneers which even the trail of a jet stream in the sky does not diminish. An old lady sitting alone on her porch brings to mind the mysterious Miss Hattie and her antic poltergeist; sturdy farm scenes inspire a moving story of a man's love for his land. Eight new short stories of American life by the prize-winning novelist, sketches, anecdotes, reportage, historical summation and more than one hundred eloquent photographs move together through these pages to make Mamilton County a beautiful and unique book.

Most American young people, like their ancestors, harbor desires for a worthy life: a life of meaning, a life that makes sense. But they are increasingly confused about what such a life might look like, and how they might, in the present age, be able to live one. With a once confident culture no longer offering authoritative guidance, the young are now at sea--regarding work, family, religion, and civic identity. The true, the good, and the beautiful have few defenders, and the higher cynicism mocks any innocent love of wisdom or love of country. We are supercompetent regarding efficiency and convenience; we are at a loss regarding what it's all for. Yet because the old orthodoxies have crumbled, our "interesting time" paradoxically offers genuine opportunities for renewal and growth. The old Socratic question "How to live?" suddenly commands serious attention. Young Americans, if liberated from the prevailing cynicism, will readily embrace weighty questions and undertake serious quests for a flourishing life. All they (and we) need is encouragement. This book provides that necessary encouragement by illuminating crucial--and still available--aspects of a worthy life, and by defending them against their enemies. With chapters on love, family, and friendship; human excellence and human dignity; teaching, learning, and truth; and the great human aspirations of Western civilization, it offers help to both secular and religious readers, to people who are looking on their own for meaning and to people who are looking to deepen what they have been taught or to square it with the spirit of our times.

This book of essays presents the essential teachings of the Western Baul spiritual master Lee Lozowick, with special emphasis on what he has named Enlightened Duality. This dynamic spiritual principle suggests that one can combine a firmly-rooted and integrated awareness of the nondual (all is One) nature of reality, with a lively, conscious relationship to the duality or play of opposites that characterizes our everyday lives. In the tradition of the Bauls of Bengal, India, Enlightened Duality is called sahaj samadhi, meaning an open-eyed resting in the Ultimate, even while living in ordinary ways. Unlike those strictly nondual perspectives that claim a oneness that relegates the human experience to an illusion of mind, Lozowick asserts that unity is the law and Life is Real. The individual who has incorporated Enlightened Duality lives in a state of union with the Divine while remaining naturally functional within the world of appearances. The truth of Enlightened Duality can be found in the writings of many of the worlds great traditions, including the Sufi, Vajrayana Buddhist, and both bhakti and tantric Hindu Paths. At the same time, Lee Lozowicks teaching on Enlightened Duality is unique; although firmly rooted in theistic ancient tradition, these are teachings that carry their own flavorstreetwise, humorous, passionate and eminently practical. This is a vast treatment of age-old spiritual questions, yet it remains immediate and usable. Many essays focus on relationships, both personal and planetarydealing with love, sex, family, and the ecology of the Earth. Because this integration of spiritual principles into the whirl of daily relational life is often so challenging, a students perspective is offered throughout the book, in commentaries by

1941: an hour before the attack on Pearl Harbour, a man from the future materialises in President Roosevelt s office. His offer of military aid may cut the War and its pending atrocities short, and alter the course of the future . . . The future: welcome to Mars, where the lives of three ordinary people become entwined in one dingy smokesbar the moment an assassin opens fire. The target: the mysterious Bill Glimmung. But is Glimmung even real? The truth might just be found in the remote FDR Mountains, an empty place, apparently of no significance, but where digital intelligences may be about to bring to fruition a long-held dream of the stars . . . Mixing mystery and science fiction, the Holocaust and the Mars of both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Philip K. Dick, Martian Sands is a story of both the past and future, of hope, and love, and of finding meaning no matter where or when you are.

A group of resourceful kids start "solution-seekers.com," a website where "cybervisitors" can get answers to questions that trouble them. But when one questioner asks the true meaning of Christmas, the kids seek to unravel the mystery by journeying back through the prophecies of the Old Testament. What they find is a series of "S" words that reveal a "spectacular story!" With creative characters, humorous dialogue and great music, The "S" Files is a children's Christmas musical your kids will love performing.

'This lecture premiered at The Louvre auditorium as part of FIAC’s public programs in October, 2017. To give it, I loaded the talk into a teleprompter program on my laptop. The linebreaks in the piece are a result of the way the teleprompter program broke them up in order to facilitate the reading of the work. Although I have never written lineated verse, I love the idea that a computer lineated the verse for me. This lecture, then, reads an awful lot like the way I talk, but it is truly nothing like the way I talk.’ KG

This book needs no introduction. The hardback edition was the hottest seller of 2004. WH Smith cited it as the record holder for most copies of an autobiography sold in one week. In fact it has turned out to be the surprise darling of the book trade! Now, at last, the paperback edition is available and Katie has brought it right up-to-date with full details of her love for Peter, their new life together, their engagement and their impending wedding. She also reveals the projects she has been working on and what the future holds for her career. No book buyer will want to miss out on the next instalment of Katie's life - so fasten your seatbelts for another rollercoaster ride.

Champion procrastinator Kevin Larson has a history emergency--a 10-page report due tomorrow, and he hasn't written a word. He and his friends gather in his room to get the job done, but a series of freak accidents involving a cat, a website, and a mysterious blue light launch the four 7th-graders back to a California Gold Rush town in 1880. A girl named Sarah takes in the four timewrecked kids, at the risk of another beating by her stepfather. Kevin wants to help Sarah escape, but to do that he'll have to change the past. But if he chooses the wrong change, he and his friends may be trapped in 1880 forever.If you like time travel books that mix adventure with history, you'll love Timewrecked. Buy it today!

"Eugenio Zolli is a prophet for our time, charged with asking a single question: Why? This question was a grace from God that set him off on his course as a scholar and a mystic. In trying to explore the missing link between the Old and New Testament, he discovered the love of God for all humanity. In this way, his life experience led him to an accomplishment in Jesus Christ, in itself a prophecy of the New World mentioned in the Holy Scripture"--

Peter Janos had recently turned eighteen when he heard rumours that a demonstration was going to take place that day in Budapest. He and his classmates in the sixth form of his prestigious school were instructed not to attend, which naturally made them all the more eager to do so. They could not have known that this 'demonstration' would turn into a major uprising which was to change forever the lives of those involved. The date was October 23rd 1956. "John Peter has the most extraordinary tale to tell. He was one of the most powerful critics of his time, and so it's good to see his love of theatre shine through his writing; but what is more surprising is the nature of the battles he had to fight to achieve his preeminence." Simon Russell Beale How I Became An Englishman is John Peter's astounding account of childhood in a Soviet State and his hair-raising escape from Hungary after the 1956 Uprising, to safety in England, and his gradual transformation into John Peter, Oxford graduate, author of Vladimir's Carrot: Modern Drama and the Modern Imagination, and Chief Drama Critic of The Sunday Times. 'Anybody who came across John Peter was instantly charmed by a puckish individual with a perpetual twinkle in the eye who drew people in by whispering quiet witticisms that were equally perceptive and funny. Even though he left his native Hungary in the late 1950s and completed his education at Oxford, the accent remained, but beyond that, the man became as Anglicised as his name. What readers of this thrilling, slim tome will discover is that, before Peter even came of age, he had lived through torrid times, lucky to escape alive and intact from a childhood and youth that contained many terrifying moments. Indeed, his hidden Jewish ancestry meant that, had a stray word been misplaced, Peter might have become a victim of the Nazis or their local collaborators and been murdered or condemned to a concentration camp....a stirring tale.' British Theatre Guide

At 34, Faith has given up on love. Her cleavage is disappointing, her best friend is clinically depressed and her younger sister is getting breast implants as an engagement present. She used to think about falling in love, but that was a long time ago. Having heard one too many love-gone-wrong stories from the other side of her desk, Faith is worn thin by her work as a legal counsellor in a women's crisis centre. Then one night, an odd twist of fate brings her to a suburban veterinary clinic where she wrings out years of unshed tears. It is a night that will slowly change the way she sees herself and begin the unearthing of long-buried family secrets so she can forgive herself for something she doesn't remember, but that has shaped her into the woman she is today. Faith will finally understand what she has always needed to know: that before you can save others, you have to save yourself.

The Letter(TM) by Jerry Yellin confronts that quality in a novel in which two men are destined for conflict from their first meeting at age 13, continuing as one accepts his personal vision of a peaceful and inclusive God to become a rabbi while the other pursues a life of political and personal conquest that seems at first to be impossible to reconcile with his Protestant Christian faith. Religion is a comfort, if not a beacon, for Yellin's rabbi, Mark Davidson; it is a tool rather than a philosophy for Adam Flowers, a shallow politician and American Talibaptist. "As a WWII fighter pilot Jerry Yellin knows a few things about threats to humanity, and this nation. In The Letter he uses his considerable insight to strike a major blow against religious bigotry, hatred, and intolerance. If you are not concerned about the invasion of American politics by religious extremists, you will be when you finish this intriguing novel. I love the book!" -- Troy Evans Author Jerry Yellin was a WW 2 fighter pilot from Hillside, NJ. He flew P-51's over Japan from Iwo Jima. Married to Helene for 60 years, they have four sons and six grandchildren, three in America and three born and raised in Japan. Jerry is the author of the award winning historical fiction book The Blackened Canteen and his memoir Of War and Weddings. For More Info perform a Video Search "World War II: Jerry Yellin" These videos will bring Jerry's true story to life. "The hint of violence is always on the back burner, and kept me turning the page. My favorite line in the book: "This is where grown men come to cry." A deep compelling story that will keep you awake at night, wondering about the future of this planet, the human family and where we came from. I highly recommend this book. Five stars!!!" -- Kathleen Rogers, MWSA Reviewer "In his novel The Letter, Jerry Yellin tells the story of an American family divided by religion and politics, love and hate, old and new. By exposing the ramifications of one-way thinking he makes the case for religious tolerance in a personal and convincing way. A consummate storyteller, Jerry keeps us turning the pages through myriad plot twists and masterful plotting. A must read for everyone." -- Linda Egenes, author of Visits with the Amish: Impressions of the Plain Life "Most human beings have the bad habit of defining themselves by nationality, religion, or both-divisions which can lead to violent disagreements and, ultimately, death. In The Letter a powerful U.S. Senator who considers himself a Christian fundamentalist learns, after reading The Letter, that his bloodline is quite different-that he may, in fact, be just what he hates. Highly recommended for those who believe in the ultimate brotherhood of man, and for those who seek to exorcise their own demons." -- Neal Stannard: Author of Now and Then, the Movies Get it Right "The playing field that is Mark Davidson's life is be-sodded when he receives a letter from an attorney that reveals that his boyhood adversary who has grown up to become a hawkish politician is indeed his half-brother. His enemy has become his family. Does he have a duty to his brother? Does he have a duty to those who are the victims of his brother's brutal hatreds? The Letter is the novel you would expect when both religion and brotherhood engage in full combat for peace and for primacy, and yet, both must find a way to survive." A rare find with real-life messages. -- Jack Woodville London, Author of French Letters

When Eli Rubinstein marries a German woman (nicknamed Beast) who may or may not be homosexual and may or may not be Hitler youth, it's not surprising that things go horribly wrong. In an effort to get rid of this nightmarish female, Eli finds himself fighting for survival in the slums of London, handing out payoffs to crooked cops in Chicago, and finally ending up in the gay-friendly climes of San Francisco during the waning days of the Haight Ashbury drug and free love culture. Though this dark, perverse, funny, erotic, and somewhat insane story is ultimately about Eli's battle for freedom, disparate tales about Crowley Magick, the professional world of chess and backgammon, a vampire attack in San Francisco's golden gate park, UFOs in the Oregon woods, and the wise lessons of a Haight Ashbury holy man paint a picture of a colorful time, not so long ago, that no longer exists.

Much of the deeply personal information comes from Jeffrey's experience as an artist as well as in his own clinic using a healing procedure he developed called The Coleman Technique. Learn how your chakras influence your intimate relationships, your connection to money, sex, love, creativity and yor emotions.