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. For Mitch Albom, that person was his college professor Morrie Schwartz. Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder. Wouldn’t you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life today the way you once did when you were younger? Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man’s life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final "class": lessons in how to live. "The truth is, Mitch," he said, "once you learn how to die, you learn how to live." Tuesdays with Morrie is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie’s lasting gift with the world.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST * "I wrote this book not sure I could follow the road to character, but I wanted at least to know what the road looks like and how other people have trodden it."--David Brooks With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and original ways. In The Social Animal, he explored the neuroscience of human connection and how we can flourish together. Now, in The Road to Character, he focuses on the deeper values that should inform our lives. Responding to what he calls the culture of the Big Me, which emphasizes external success, Brooks challenges us, and himself, to rebalance the scales between our "résumé virtues"--achieving wealth, fame, and status--and our "eulogy virtues," those that exist at the core of our being: kindness, bravery, honesty, or faithfulness, focusing on what kind of relationships we have formed. Looking to some of the world's greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. Labor activist Frances Perkins understood the need to suppress parts of herself so that she could be an instrument in a larger cause. Dwight Eisenhower organized his life not around impulsive self-expression but considered self-restraint. Dorothy Day, a devout Catholic convert and champion of the poor, learned as a young woman the vocabulary of simplicity and surrender. Civil rights pioneers A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin learned reticence and the logic of self-discipline, the need to distrust oneself even while waging a noble crusade. Blending psychology, politics, spirituality, and confessional, The Road to Character provides an opportunity for us to rethink our priorities, and strive to build rich inner lives marked by humility and moral depth. "Joy," David Brooks writes, "is a byproduct experienced by people who are aiming for something else. But it comes."

From host of The Rubin Report , the most-watched talk show about free speech and big ideas on YouTube right now, a roadmap for free thinking in an increasingly censored world. The left is no longer liberal. Once on the side of free speech and tolerance, progressives now ban speakers from college campuses, "cancel" people who aren't up to date on the latest genders, and force religious people to violate their conscience. They have abandoned the battle of ideas and have begun fighting a battle of feelings. This uncomfortable truth has turned moderates and true liberals into the politically homeless class. Dave Rubin launched his political talk show The Rubin Report in 2015 as a meeting ground for free thinkers who realize that partisan politics is a dead end. He hosts people he both agrees and disagrees with--including those who have been dismissed, deplatformed, and despised--taking on the most controversial issues of our day. As a result, he's become a voice of reason in a time of madness. Now, Rubin gives you the tools you need to think for yourself in an age when tribal outrage is the only available alternative. Based on his own story as well as his experiences from the front lines of the free speech wars, this book will empower you to make up your own mind about what you believe on any issue and teach you the fine art of: Checking your facts, not your privilege , when it comes to today's most pervasive myths, from the wage gap and gun violence to climate change and hate crimes. Standing up to the mob against today's absurd PC culture, when differences of opinion can bring relationships, professional or personal, to a sudden end. Defending classically liberal principles such as individual rights and limited government, because freedom is impossible without them. The Progressive Woke Machine is waging war against the last free thinkers in the world. Don't Burn This Book is the definitive account of our current political upheaval and your guide to surviving it. Dave Rubin is the creator and host of The Rubin Report , the most-watched talk show about free speech and big ideas on YouTube. A former progressive turned classical liberal, he speaks to millions all over the world, including touring with Dr. Jordan Peterson, and performs stand-up comedy in cities around the United States.

The great board game revolution is here-- What do these games tell us about our society, our relationships, and ourselves? "Games, Jonathan Kay and Joan Moriarity show in this lively and insightful book, are not just fun and games: they allow us to explore the complexities of the world, from evolution to war to climate." - STEVEN PINKER, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress "Kay and Moriarity are both skilled writers and elucidators, and their voices are distinct enough to provide the book with a pleasing yin and yang. It's a far more perceptive and intriguing book than it appears at first blush, particularly for those readers who have never thought of games as an artistic medium - at least not one that comments on society." - KIRKUS REVIEWS Board games are among our most ancient and beloved art forms. During the rise of digital media, they fell from prominence for a decade or two but today they are in a new golden age. They're ingeniously designed, beautiful to look at, and exhilarating to play. Games are reclaiming their place in our culture, as entertainment, social activity, and intellectual workout equipment. Alone among all art forms, games require their audience (called "players") to participate. If nobody's playing, there is no game. As a result, games can tell far more about us than our TV shows, movies or music ever could. How does The Game of Life illustrate our changing attitudes about virtue? How does a World War II conflict simulation game explain the shortcomings of a failed novelist? Each chapter of Your Move examines one game, and what it reveals about our culture, history, society, and relationships. The book's two co-authors bring the perspectives of a writer who plays, and a player who writes. Before Jonathan Kay began his distinguished career as an author and commentator, he had a passion for games, and in recent years he has rediscovered them. Meanwhile, Joan Moriarity's career has been spent designing, developing, distributing, art directing, recommending and teaching board games and, recently, writing about them for a wider audience. With its short, punchy essays, and beautiful photographs of the games themselves, every chapter will be a worthwhile read in itself, and the book overall will leave you inspired to discover the truths of your own inner and outer world through play -- whether you're a seasoned veteran or a total newcomer.

"Thoughtful and convincingly argued . . . Rauch's impressive book is as enthusiastic an encomium to marriage as anyone, gay or straight, could write." — David J. Garrow, The Washington Post Book World In May 2004, gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts, but it remains a divisive and contentious issue across America. As liberals and conservatives mobilize around this issue, no one has come forward with a more compelling, comprehensive, and readable case for gay marriage than Jonathan Rauch. In this book, he puts forward a clear and honest manifesto explaining why gay marriage is important—even crucial—to the health of marriage in America today, grounding his argument in commonsense, mainstream values and confronting social conservatives on their own turf. Marriage, he observes, is more than a bond between individuals; it also links them to the community at large. Excluding some people from the prospect of marriage not only is harmful to them but also is corrosive of the institution itself. Gay marriage, he shows, is a "win-win-win" for strengthening the bonds that tie us together and for remaining true to our national heritage of fairness and humaneness toward all.

Finalist for the 1997 National Book Award for Nonfiction Jamaica Kincaid’s brother Devon Drew died of AIDS on January 19, 1996, at the age of thirty-three. Kincaid’s incantatory, poetic, and often shockingly frank recounting of her brother’s life and death is also a story of her family on the island of Antigua, a constellation centered on the powerful, sometimes threatening figure of the writer’s mother. My Brother is an unblinking record of a life that ended too early, and it speaks volumes about the difficult truths at the heart of all families.

In this important and insightful work, Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD, demonstrates the powerful healing potential of the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) process. You can transform emotional pain, depression, shame, and conflict into empowering connections. Rosenberg shares that behind all emotional pain are unmet needs. He provides simple steps to create the heartfelt presence necessary for healing to occur. Learn how to transform your relationships, find satisfying reconciliation, and move beyond pain to a place of clear, honest communication. Through role-play dialogues and every-day examples, Rosenberg demonstrates the keys to healing pain and conflict without compromise. The healing power of NVC provides practical and effective tools for individuals, mental health practitioners, mediators, families and couples.

"In 1950, mathematician-philosopher Norbert Wiener ended this classic book on the place of machines in society with a warning: "We shall never receive the right answers to our questions unless we ask the right questions.... The hour is very late, and the choice of good and evil knocks at our door." Wiener, the founder of the science of cybernetics--the study of the relationship between computers and the human nervous system--was widely mislabeled as an advocate for the automation of human life. As The Human Use for Human Beings reveals, his vision was much more complex and interesting, and is more relevant in today's world of AI than anyone could have anticipated. In his new introduction, Brian Christian aptly calls Wiener the "progenitor of contemporary AI-safety discourse." Wiener hoped that machines would release people from relentless and repetitive drudgery to achieve more creative pursuits, yet he anticipated the danger of dehumanizing and displacement. His pioneering views on the human-machine relationship as a "communicative process" are only more crucial now, as we carry in our pockets AI devices that we can literally speak to. His prescient warnings illuminate our contemporary relationships with language, art, and even social media. The Human Use of Human Beings examines the implications of cybernetics for education, law, language, science, technology, as Wiener anticipates the enormous impact--in effect, a third industrial revolution--that the computer has had on our lives."-- Provided by publisher

Inspired by the wonder of his own parental experiences, former psychoanalyst and New York Times best-selling author Jeffrey Masson offers a remarkable look at one of the most fulfilling roles in the animal world: fatherhood. In The Evolution of Fatherhood , he explores the extraordinary dedication and behavior of nature's most outstanding dads. Discover the male emperor penguin incubating his egg through Antarctic blizzards, prairie dog dads teaching their pups vital life skills through play, and the South American tamarin monkey who actively "coaches" his mate through labor. Learn why wolves make devoted fathers, while their close relatives, dogs, often don't display the same level of paternal care. With captivating writing and impeccable research, Masson celebrates the unique and often surprising role males play in the lives of their young. He contrasts these heroes with nature's less involved fathers--like lions, langurs, and bears--and challenges the notion that paternal care is purely biological. Masson passionately demonstrates that for many animals, fatherhood is a profound, all-encompassing emotional experience. Compelling and inspirational, The Evolution of Fatherhood is a book that will forever change how you perceive parenthood, family bonds, and the rich emotional lives of the animals who share our world.

Your search for parenting tips that actually improve your family dynamics is over. While other parenting resources offer communication models or discipline techniques, this powerful, practical booklet offers the unique skills and perspective of the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) process. NVC stresses the importance of putting compassionate connection first to create a mutually respectful, enriching family dynamic filled with clear, heartfelt communication. An exceptional resource for parents, parent educators, families and anyone else who works with children. For over forty years, Dr. Marshall Rosenberg has taught NVC to parents, families, children and teachers. Parents around the world have used his advice to deepen family connections, move past conflicts and improve communication. His revolutionary approach helps parents motivate children to cooperate without either the threat of punishment or the promise of reward. Learn how to model compassionate communication in the home to help your children successfully resolve conflicts and express themselves clearly.

Child abuse is beginning to be recognized as something more significant than an isolated family affair. The title of Alice Miller's book, first published in Germany in 1981, spells out the unspoken commandment that such abused children - indeed, all of us - have been obeying since early childhood. We have all been made to feel from our earliest days that we are to blame for anything shameful that happens to us, so that our awareness of these inflicted abuses dims. Alice Miller demonstrates that this centuries-old tradition also finds expression in Freud's notions of "the Oedipus complex" and "infantile sexuality" - his drive theory - which put the blame on the child. Freud maintained that his patients who claimed to have been sexually molested as children were only "fantasizing" as a defense against their own sexual desires for their innocent parents. This theory helped to conceal the fact that sexual abuse of children occurs frequently and results in later emotional disturbances in the victims of such abuse - because they are not allowed awareness of it. In fairy tales, works of literature, and dreams, Alice Miller maintains, the truth about childhood can emerge, precisely because it is not recognized as such. Detailed examples from Kafka, Flaubert, Beckett, and Virginia Woolf offer proof of her thesis and illustrate her understanding of human creativity.

"This book will challenge you to rethink your vision of a good life. With sharp insights and lucid prose, Paul Bloom makes a captivating case that pain and suffering are essential to happiness. It's an exhilarating antidote to toxic positivity." --Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife One of Behavioral Scientist's "Notable Books of 2021" From the author of Against Empathy, a different kind of happiness book, one that shows us how suffering is an essential source of both pleasure and meaning in our lives Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? We go to movies that make us cry, or scream, or gag. We poke at sores, eat spicy foods, immerse ourselves in hot baths, run marathons. Some of us even seek out pain and humiliation in sexual role-play. Where do these seemingly perverse appetites come from? Drawing on groundbreaking findings from psychology and brain science, The Sweet Spot shows how the right kind of suffering sets the stage for enhanced pleasure. Pain can distract us from our anxieties and help us transcend the self. Choosing to suffer can serve social goals; it can display how tough we are or, conversely, can function as a cry for help. Feelings of fear and sadness are part of the pleasure of immersing ourselves in play and fantasy and can provide certain moral satisfactions. And effort, struggle, and difficulty can, in the right contexts, lead to the joys of mastery and flow. But suffering plays a deeper role as well. We are not natural hedonists--a good life involves more than pleasure. People seek lives of meaning and significance; we aspire to rich relationships and satisfying pursuits, and this requires some amount of struggle, anxiety, and loss. Brilliantly argued, witty, and humane, Paul Bloom shows how a life without chosen suffering would be empty--and worse than that, boring.

In the fourteen articles collected in this volume, Carol Gilligan and her colleagues expand the theoretical base of In a Different Voice and apply their research methods to a variety of life situations. The contrasting voices of justice and care clarify different ways in which women and men speak about relationships and lend different meanings to connection, dependence, autonomy, responsibility loyalty, peer pressure, and violence. By examining the moral dilemmas and self-descriptions of children, high school students, urban youth, medical students, mothers, lawyers, and others, the authors chart a new terrain: a mapping of the moral domain that includes the voices of women. In this new terrain the authors trace far-reaching implications of the inclusion of women’s voices for developmental psychology, for education, for women, and for men.

Written as a cultural weapon and a call to arms, Howl touched a raw nerve in Cold War America and has been controversial from the day it was first read aloud nearly fifty years ago. This first full critical and historical study of Howl brilliantly elucidates the nexus of politics and literature in which it was written and gives striking new portraits of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs. Drawing from newly released psychiatric reports on Ginsberg, from interviews with his psychiatrist, Dr. Philip Hicks, and from the poet's journals, American Scream shows how Howl brought Ginsberg and the world out of the closet of a repressive society. It also gives the first full accounting of the literary figures―Eliot, Rimbaud, and Whitman―who influenced Howl, definitively placing it in the tradition of twentieth-century American poetry for the first time. As he follows the genesis and the evolution of Howl, Jonah Raskin constructs a vivid picture of a poet and an era. He illuminates the development of Beat poetry in New York and San Francisco in the 1950s--focusing on historic occasions such as the first reading of Howl at Six Gallery in San Francisco in 1955 and the obscenity trial over the poem's publication. He looks closely at Ginsberg's life, including his relationships with his parents, friends, and mentors, while he was writing the poem and uses this material to illuminate the themes of madness, nakedness, and secrecy that pervade Howl. A captivating look at the cultural climate of the Cold War and at a great American poet, American Scream finally tells the full story of Howl―a rousing manifesto for a generation and a classic of twentieth-century literature.

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold traces the evolution of the lesbian community in Buffalo, New York from the mid-1930s up to the early 1960s. Drawing upon the oral histories of 45 women, it is the first comprehensive history of a working-class lesbian community. These poignant and complex stories show how black and white working-class lesbians, although living under oppressive circumstances, nevertheless became powerful agents of historical change. Based on 13 years of research, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold ranges over such topics as sex, relationships, coming out, butch-fem roles, motherhood, aging, racism, work, oppression and pride. Kennedy and Davis provide a unique insider's perspective on butch-fem culture and argue that the roots of gay and lesbian liberation are found specifically in the determined resistance of working-class lesbians.

Katie Roiphe’s stimulating work has made her one of the most talked about cultural critics of her generation. Now this bracing young writer delves deeply into one of the most layered of subjects: marriage. Drawn in part from the private memoirs, personal correspondence, and long-forgotten journals of the British literary community from 1910 to the Second World War, here are seven “marriages à la mode”—each rising to the challenge of intimate relations in more or less creative ways. Jane Wells, the wife of H.G., remained his rock, despite his decade-long relationship with Rebecca West (among others). Katherine Mansfield had an irresponsible, childlike romance with her husband, John Middleton Murry, that collapsed under the strain of real-life problems. Vera Brittain and George Gordon Catlin spent years in a “semidetached” marriage (he in America, she in England). Vanessa Bell maintained a complicated harmony with the painter Duncan Grant, whom she loved, and her husband, Clive. And her sister Virginia Woolf, herself no stranger to marital particularities, sustained a brilliant running commentary on the most intimate details of those around her. Every chapter revolves around a crisis that occurred in each of these marriages—as serious as life-threatening illness or as seemingly innocuous as a slightly tipsy dinner table conversation—and how it was resolved…or not resolved. In these portraits, Roiphe brilliantly evokes what are, as she says, “the fluctuations and shifts in attraction, the mysteries of lasting affection, the endurance and changes in love, and the role of friendship in marriage.” The deeper mysteries at stake in all relationships.

Journalist Abigail Pogrebin is many things—wife, mother, New Yorker—but the one that has defined her most profoundly is “identical twin.” As children, she and her sister, Robin, were inseparable. But when Robin began to pull away as an adult, Abigail was left to wonder not only why, but also about the very nature of twinship. What does it mean to have a mirror image? How can you be unique when somebody shares your DNA? In One and the Same , Abigail sets off on a quest to understand how genetics shape us, crisscrossing the country to explore the varied relationships between twins, which range from passionate to bitterly resentful. She speaks to the experts and tries to answer the question parents ask most—is it better to encourage their separateness or closeness? And she paints a riveting portrait of twin life, yielding fascinating truths about how we become who we are.

The New Thought Movement was an enormously popular late nineteenth-century spiritual movement led largely by and for women. Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science is but one example of the fascinating range of these groups, which advocated a belief in mind over matter and espoused women's spiritual ability to purify the world. This work is the first to uncover the cultural implications of New Thought, embedding it in the intellectual traditions of nineteenth-century America, and illuminating its connections with the self-help and New Age enthusiasms of our own fin-de-siècle. Beryl Satter examines New Thought in all its complexity, presenting along the way a captivating cast of characters. In lively and accessible prose, she introduces the people, the institutions, the texts, and the ideas that comprised the New Thought movement. This fascinating social and intellectual history explores the complex relationships among social reform, alternative religion, medicine, and psychology which persist to this day.

"Dr. Ruth, " herself a grandmother of three, turns her attention from sexual relationships to the one relationship that unites generations. "Grandparenthood" offers tips, wisdom, and humor to help grandparents develop a more rewarding bond with their children and their grandchildren.

When Hamilton Jordan died of peritoneal mesothelioma in 2008, he left behind amostly finished memoir, a book on which he had been working for the last decade. Jordan's daughter, Kathleen-with the help of her brothers and mother-took up the task of editing and completing the book. A Boy from Georgia -the result of this posthumous father-daughter collaboration-chronicles Hamilton Jordan's childhood in Albany, Georgia, charting his moral and intellectual development as he gradually discovers the complicated legacies of racism, religious intolerance, and southern politics, and affords his readers an intimate view of the state's wheelers and dealers. Jordan's middle-class childhood was bucolic in some ways and traumatizing in others. As Georgia politicians battled civil rights leaders, a young Hamilton straddled the uncomfortable line between the southern establishment to which he belonged and the movement in which he believed. Fortunate enough to grow up in a family that had considerable political clout within Georgia, Jordan went into politics to put his ideals to work. Eventually he became a key aide to Jimmy Carter and was the architect of Carter's stunning victory in the presidential campaign of 1976; Jordan later served as Carter's chief of staff. Clear eyed about the triumphs and tragedies of Jordan's beloved home state and region, A Boy from Georgia tells the story of a remarkable life in a voice that is witty, vivid, and honest.