* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
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 ... (Goodreads)
The Achitecture of Happiness is a dazzling and generously illustrated journey through the philosophy and psychology of architecture and the indelible connection between our identities and our ... (Barnes & Noble)
For anyone who ever wondered what Marcel Proust had in mind when he wrote the one-and-a-quarter-million words of, In Search of Lost Time, (while bedridden, no less), Alain de Botton has the answer. ... (Goodreads)
If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self—himself—he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it. Dr. Oliver Sacks recounts the ... (Goodreads)
The book starts with Bryson explaining his curiosity about the Appalachian Trail near his house. He and his old friend Stephen Katz start hiking the trail from Georgia in the South , and stumble in ... (Wikipedia)
The Story of Art, one of the most famous and popular books on art ever written, has been a world bestseller for over four decades. Attracted by the simplicity and clarity of his writing, readers of ... (Goodreads)
First published in 1975, Paul Theroux's strange, unique, and hugely entertaining railway odyssey has become a modern classic of travel literature. Here Theroux recounts his early adventures on an ... (Goodreads)
Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing,, Blue Highways, is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads. William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put ... (Goodreads)
The story details the trials that Frances and her husband Ed had to go through to renovate their Tuscan property, an abandoned villa ( Bramasole ) in rural Cortona in Tuscany . As university ... (Wikipedia)
A deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade from Chef Anthony Bourdain, laying out his more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute ... (Goodreads)
In Just Kids , Patti Smith's first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal ... (Goodreads)
"This is a book about making art. Ordinary art. Ordinary art means something like: all art not made by Mozart. After all, art is rarely made by Mozart-like people; essentially-statistically ... (Goodreads)
Originally published in 1854, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, is a vivid account of the time that Henry D. Thoreau lived alone in a secluded cabin at Walden Pond. It is one of the most influential and ... (Goodreads)
Anne Fadiman is—by her own admission—the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of, Fanny Hill, whose husband buys her 19 pounds of dusty books for her birthday, and who once ... (Barnes & Noble)
The, New York Times, bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the ... (Goodreads)
Machiavelli needs to be looked at as he really was. Hence: Can Machiavelli, who makes the following observations, be Machiavellian as we understand the disparaging term? 1. So it is that to know the ... (Goodreads)
In Dark Star Safari the wittily observant and endearingly irascible Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In ... (Goodreads)
What should we have for dinner? The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire , how we answer it today, at ... (Goodreads)
In the highly anticipated Thinking, Fast and Slow , Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and ... (Goodreads)
In 1903, a student at a military academy sent some of his verses to a well-known Austrian poet, requesting an assessment of their value. The older artist, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926), replied to ... (Goodreads)
“Should be read by every parent, teacher, minister, and Congressman in the land.”―The Atlantic, In, The Conquest of Happiness, iconoclastic philosopher Bertrand Russell attempted to diagnose the ... (Barnes & Noble)
In Bryson's biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory ... (Goodreads)
From Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Dillard, a collection that illuminates the dedication and daring that characterizes a writer's life. In these short essays, Annie Dillard—the author of Pilgrim at ... (Goodreads)
Cosmos has 13 heavily illustrated chapters, corresponding to the 13 episodes of the Cosmos television series. In the book, Sagan explores 15 billion years of cosmic evolution and the development of ... (Goodreads)
An alternate cover for this isbn can be found, here,. Martin Buber's I and Thou has long been acclaimed as a classic. Many prominent writers have acknowledged its influence on their work; students of ... (Goodreads)
A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on the 24th of October, 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton ... (Goodreads)
By one of the most profoundly influential thinkers of our century, The Rebel is a classic essay on revolution. For Albert Camus, the urge to revolt is one of the "essential dimensions" of human ... (Goodreads)
In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron ... (Goodreads)
A lucid translation of the well-known Taoist classic by a leading scholar-now in a Shambhala Pocket Library edition. Written more than two thousand years ago, the Tao Teh Ching , or -The Classic of ... (Goodreads)