Other books that might interest you

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  Idleness - A Philosophical Essay

  Brian O'Connor

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  The first book to challenge modern philosophy’s case against idleness, revealing why the idle state is one of true freedom 
  For millennia, idleness and laziness have been regarded as vices. We're all expected to work to survive and get ahead, and devoting energy to anything but labor and self-improvement can seem like a luxury or a moral failure. Far from questioning this conventional wisdom, modern philosophers have worked hard to develop new reasons to denigrate idleness. In Idleness, the first book to challenge modern philosophy's portrayal of inactivity, Brian O'Connor argues that the case against an indifference to work and effort is flawed--and that idle aimlessness may instead allow for the highest form of freedom. 
  Idleness explores how some of the most influential modern philosophers drew a direct connection between making the most of our humanity and avoiding laziness. Idleness was dismissed as contrary to the need people have to become autonomous and make whole, integrated beings of themselves (Kant); to be useful (Kant and Hegel); to accept communal norms (Hegel); to contribute to the social good by working (Marx); and to avoid boredom (Schopenhauer and de Beauvoir).  
  O'Connor throws doubt on all these arguments, presenting a sympathetic vision of the inactive and unserious that draws on more productive ideas about idleness, from ancient Greece through Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Schiller and Marcuse's thoughts about the importance of play, and recent critiques of the cult of work. A thought-provoking reconsideration of productivity for the twenty-first century, Idleness shows that, from now on, no theory of what it means to have a free mind can exclude idleness from the conversation.

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  A Lover of Unreason - The Life...

  Yehuda Koren

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  Assia was my true wife, and the best friend I ever had', wrote Ted Hughes, after his lover surrendered her life and that of their young daughter in 1969, six years after Sylvia Plath had suffered a similiar fate. Diva, she-devil, enchantress, muse, Lillith, Jezebel - Assia inspired many epithets during her life. The tragic story of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes has always been related from one of two points of view: hers or his. Missing for over four decades had been a third: that of Hughes's mistress. This first biography of Assia Wevill views afresh the Plath-Hughes relationship and at the same time, recounts the journey that shaped her life. Wevill's is a complex story, formed as it is by the pull of often contrary forces.

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  Vera Brittain and the First...

  Mark Bostridge

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  Vera Brittain and the First World War tells the remarkable story of the author behind Testament of Youth whilst charting the book's ascent to become one of the most loved memoirs of the First World War period. Such interest is set to expand even more in this centenary year of the war's outbreak. 
   
  In the midst of her studies at Oxford when war broke out across Europe, Vera Brittain left university in 1915 to become a V.A.D (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse, treating soldiers in London, Malta and Etaples in France. The events of the First World War were to have an enormous impact on her life. Four of Brittain's closest friends including her fiancé Roland Leighton and her brother Edward Brittain MC were killed in action, sparking a lifelong commitment to pacifism. In 1933 she published Testament of Youth, the first of three books dealing with her experience of war. In equal measures courageous, tragic and deeply fascinating, Testament of Youth is one of the most compelling and important works of war literature ever to have been written by a British woman. 
   
  Mark Bostridge's Vera Brittain and the First World War, published to coincide with the film of Testament of Youth, explores the effects of the First World War on Vera Brittain, both in terms of her personal life and in terms of its effect on her development as a writer and her eventual decision to become a pacifist. Taking advantage of the interest generated by the film, it will bring her story to a new generation and incorporate the most up-to-date research. It will also include a short essay 'From Book to Film', describing the process of turning Testament of Youth into a major feature film. This will include interviews with the production staff and actors, as well as with members of Vera Brittain's family, including Shirley Williams. 
   
  The film, which has been scripted by Juliette Towhidi and is being produced by BBC Films and Heyday Films, the makers of Harry Potter, is currently in production.  Alicia Vikander (Anna Karenina) stars as Brittain, with Kit Harington (Game of Thrones, Pompeii) playing her fiancé Roland Leighton.

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  Crackling Mountain and Other...

  Osamu Dazai

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  Crackling Mountain and Other Stories features eleven outstanding works by Osama Dazai, widely regarded as one of the 20th century Japan's most gifted writers.Dazai experimented with a wide variety of short story styles and brought to each a sophisticated sense of humor, a broad empathy for the human condition, and a tremendous literary talent.The eleven stories in this collection of Japanese literature present the most fully rounded portrait available of a tragic, multifaceted genius of modern Japanese letters.

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  Finding My Badass Self - A Year...

  Sherry Stanfa-Stanley

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  • Women, especially boomers, still lead the market in book-buying.
  
  • A recent Gallup poll classifies about half of respondents as “struggling” or “suffering” in their lives; this book will reach out to those who are discontent and looking to shake things up, try new things, or escape—even if it’s just by living vicariously through the author.
  
  • Readers continue to be intrigued by stories of people who undertake new adventures and experiences, including former President George H.W. Bush, who celebrated his 90th birthday by going skydiving; Warren Buffet, who took a Dale Carnegie course to overcome his anxiety about public speaking; and, most recently, Kevin Hart and Jimmy Fallon who faced their personal fears by riding a roller coaster together.
  
  • A 2015 survey about New Year’s resolutions showed that the majority of responders wanted to “live life to the fullest."

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  Elon Musk - Tesla SpaceX and the...

  Ashlee Vance

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  In the spirit of Steve Jobs and Moneyball, Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary life of one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting, unpredictable, and ambitious entrepreneurs—a real-life Tony Stark—and a fascinating exploration of the renewal of American invention and its new “makers.” 
  Elon Musk spotlights the technology and vision of Elon Musk, the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, who sold one of his Internet companies, PayPal, for $1.5 billion. Ashlee Vance captures the full spectacle and arc of the genius’s life and work, from his tumultuous upbringing in South Africa and flight to the United States to his dramatic technical innovations and entrepreneurial pursuits. 
  Vance uses Musk’s story to explore one of the pressing questions of our age: can the nation of inventors and creators who led the modern world for a century still compete in an age of fierce global competition? He argues that Musk—one of the most unusual and striking figures in American business history—is a contemporary, visionary amalgam of legendary inventors and industrialists including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs. More than any other entrepreneur today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as the visionaries of the golden age of science-fiction fantasy. 
  Thorough and insightful, Elon Musk brings to life a technology industry that is rapidly and dramatically changing by examining the life of one of its most powerful and influential titans.

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