A philosopher/mechanic's wise (and sometimes funny) look at the challenges and pleasures of working with one's hands  Called "the sleeper hit of the publishing season" by The Boston Globe, Shop Class as Soulcraft became an instant best seller, attracting fans with its radical (and timely) reappraisal of the merits of skilled manual labor. On both economic and psychological grounds, author Matthew B. Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a "knowledge worker," based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing. Using his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford presents a wonderfully articulated call for self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world. Read more

An essay on aesthetics by the Japanese novelist, this book explores architecture, jade, food, and even toilets, combining an acute sense of the use of space in buildings. The book also includes descriptions of laquerware under candlelight and women in the darkness of the house of pleasure. Read more

A philosopher/mechanic's wise (and sometimes funny) look at the challenges and pleasures of working with one's hands “This is a deep exploration of craftsmanship by someone with real, hands-on knowledge. The book is also quirky, surprising, and sometimes quite moving.” —Richard Sennett, author of The CraftsmanCalled “the sleeper hit of the publishing season” by The Boston Globe, Shop Class as Soulcraft became an instant bestseller, attracting readers with its radical (and timely) reappraisal of the merits of skilled manual labor. On both economic and psychological grounds, author Matthew B. Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a “knowledge worker,” based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing. Using his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford presents a wonderfully articulated call for self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world. Read more

An updated version of the seminal 1994 classic volume on the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. Every book with "wabi" or "wabi sabi" in the title is based on the concepts first elucidated in this book. Read more

The book Nietzsche called "the most personal of all my books." It was here that he first proclaimed the death of God—to which a large part of the book is devoted—and his doctrine of the eternal recurrence.Walter Kaufmann's commentary, with its many quotations from previously untranslated letters, brings to life Nietzsche as a human being and illuminates his philosophy. The book contains some of Nietzsche's most sustained discussions of art and morality, knowledge and truth, the intellectual conscience and the origin of logic.Most of the book was written just before Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the last part five years later, after Beyond Good and Evil. We encounter Zarathustra in these pages as well as many of Nietzsche's most interesting philosophical ideas and the largest collection of his own poetry that he himself ever published.Walter Kaufmann's English versions of Nietzsche represent one of the major translation enterprises of our time. He is the first philosopher to have translated Nietzsche's major works, and never before has a single translator given us so much of Nietzsche. Read more

With a new Introduction by Donna Tartt, exclusive to the audiobook.Part treatise, part critique, part call to action, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice is a journey into the uncanny realities revealed to us in the great works of art of the past and present.Received opinion holds that art is culturally determined and relative. We are told that whether a picture, a movement, a text, or sound qualifies as a "work of art" largely depends on social attitudes and convention. Drawing on examples ranging from Paleolithic cave paintings to modern pop music and building on the ideas of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Gilles Deleuze, Carl Jung, and others, J.F. Martel argues that art is an inborn human phenomenon that precedes the formation of culture and even society. Art is free of politics and ideology. Paradoxically, that is what makes it a force of liberation wherever it breaks through the trance of humdrum existence. Like the act of dreaming, artistic creation is fundamentally mysterious. It is a gift from beyond the field of the human, and it connects us with realities that, though normally unseen, are crucial components of a living world.While holding this to be true of authentic art, the author acknowledges the presence—overwhelming in our media-saturated age—of a false art that seeks not to liberate but to manipulate and control. Against this anti-artistic aesthetic force, which finds some of its most virulent manifestations in modern advertising, propaganda, and pornography, true art represents an effective line of defense. Martel argues that preserving artistic expression in the face of our contemporary hyper-aestheticism is essential to our own survival.Art is more than mere ornament or entertainment; it is a way, one leading to what is most profound in us. Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice places art alongside languages and the biosphere as a thing endangered by the onslaught of predatory capitalism, spectacle culture, and myopic technological progress. The book is essential listening for visual artists, musicians, writers, actors, dancers, filmmakers, and poets. It will also interest anyone who has ever been deeply moved by a work of art, and for all who seek a way out of the web of deception and vampiric diversion that the current world order has woven around us."Leaping gracefully from Coleridge to Kubrick, from the Bible to Baudrillard, J.F. Martel offers us a lovely and powerful reminder that the greatest art presents the world through mystery rather than manipulation. Arguing that art's prophetic promise comes from its capacity to rupture the workaday world of means and ends, Martel calls for a visionary return to the imaginal rifts of a novelty beyond artifice.”—Erik Davis, author of TechGnosis“A key work for the soul of our time, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice is for the seasoned artist and the novice alike, for all those who dare to walk in, as J.F. Martel writes, an ‘excess of meaning.’ We need those today who would dare to live this way, and this book is a resounding call to return to the Imaginal life. ‘Sing in me muse,’ spoke Homer, and Martel has writ this large across the pages.”—Jeremy D. Johnson, editor at Reality Sandwich“J.F. Martel is an incisive cultural critic with a penetrating vision of art. His book is a quiet manifesto for the creative act, reminding us of the numinous quality of the aesthetic object, as well as the intrinsic strangeness of our lives in the world.”—Daniel Pinchbeck, author of Breaking Open the Head and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl Read more

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When this book first appeared in 1982, it introduced readers to Robert Irwin, the Los Angeles artist "who one day got hooked on his own curiosity and decided to live it." Now expanded to include six additional chapters and twenty-four pages of color plates, Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees chronicles three decades of conversation between Lawrence Weschler and light and space master Irwin. It surveys many of Irwin's site-conditioned projects―in particular the Central Gardens at the Getty Museum (the subject of an epic battle with the site's principal architect, Richard Meier) and the design that transformed an abandoned Hudson Valley factory into Dia's new Beacon campus―enhancing what many had already considered the best book ever on an artist. Read more

The first book by the author of the classic philosophical text Beyond Good and Evil.   The youthful faults of this work were exposed by the author himself in the brilliant Attempt at a Self-Criticism, which he added to the new edition of 1886. But the book, whatever its excesses, remains one of the most relevant statements on tragedy ever penned. It exploded the conception of Greek culture that was prevalent down through the Victorian era, and it analyzed themes developed in the twentieth century by classicists, existentialists, psychoanalysts, and others. Read more

This companion volume to Jorjani’s Philosophy of the Future presents an overview of his philosophical project in terms of the fundamental domains of thought: Ontology, Epistemology, Ethics, Aesthetics, and Politics. What is demonstrated here is the range of thinking proper to any true philosopher. There is also some new information regarding the psychedelic cult of the sorceress Medea and her relation to both Prometheus and Mithra. This executive summary of Jorjani’s thinking serves to preface what is presented in the shocking second half of the book.Here we see a very wide selection from the Black Notebook kept by Jorjani from 2003 to 2005, from the age of 22 to 24. A few excerpts from this generative matrix of Jorjani’s philosophical thought were provocatively quoted in Philosophy of the Future. Now, most of the notebook is revealed. From meditations and critical commentaries on texts such as the Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation and the writings of the early Wittgenstein to the embryonic development of his own philosophical vision, this is an intimate look into the soul of the author. Read more

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The most intriguing…and thought-provoking book that Hannah Arendt wrote (The New York Times Book Review), The Life of the Mind is the final work by the political theorist, philosopher, and feminist thinker.This fascinating book investigates thought itself as it exists in contemplative life. In a shift from Arendt's previous writings, most of which focus on the world outside the mind, this is an exploration of the mind's activities she considered to be the most fundamental. The result is a rich, challenging analysis of human mental activity in terms of thinking, willing, and judging. Read more

📚 La Brevedad de la Vida - Edición Completa 📚🌟 ¡Descubre tu nuevo compañero de viaje hacia una vida plena y consciente! 🌟Esta es la versión completa del célebre ensayo "La Brevedad de la Vida", enriquecida con contenidos exclusivos que no encontrarás en ningún otro lugar. Sumérgete en una obra que no solo explora las profundas reflexiones de Séneca sobre la vida, sino que también te ofrece herramientas prácticas para aplicar estas enseñanzas en tu vida cotidiana.🔎 ¿Qué encontrarás en esta edición especial? 🔍1. 📅 Camino para Aprender a Vivir el Presente: Un viaje de 30 días con desafíos diarios para desarrollar la conciencia del momento presente y mejorar tu capacidad de vivir cada instante al máximo.2. 🌍 Consejos de Longevidad de los Pueblos del Mundo: Descubre los secretos de algunos de los pueblos más longevos del planeta, como los japoneses de Okinawa, los sardos y muchos más. Adopta sus hábitos saludables y mejora tu vida para vivir más y mejor.3. 🧘 Ejercicios para Comprender la Brevedad de la Vida: Prácticas de meditación y mindfulness diseñadas para ayudarte a interiorizar la preciosidad del tiempo y vivir con mayor intencionalidad y gratitud.🌺 ¿Por qué deberías leer este libro? 🌺- Transformación Personal: Aprende a enfocarte en lo que realmente importa y a vivir una vida más auténtica y satisfactoria.- Bienestar Completo: Integra consejos prácticos y comprobados que te ayudarán a mejorar tu salud física, mental y espiritual.- Sabiduría Eterna: Lleva contigo las palabras de Séneca y descubre cómo sus enseñanzas milenarias pueden tener un impacto positivo en tu vida moderna.💖 Una Inversión en Ti Mismo 💖Leer "La Brevedad de la Vida - Edición Completa" es un acto de amor hacia ti mismo. Es una invitación a ralentizar, reflexionar y reconocer la belleza y la fugacidad de cada instante. Deja que este libro te guíe hacia una vida más plena, consciente y satisfactoria.📖 Compra ahora y comienza tu camino de transformación. 📖🛒 No pierdas la oportunidad de vivir mejor, más tiempo y más conscientemente. 🛒✨ Tu vida merece ser vivida al máximo – y todo comienza con la consciencia. ✨ Read more

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Based on John Dewey's lectures on esthetics, delivered as the first William James Lecturer at Harvard in 1932, Art as Experience has grown to be considered internationally as the most distinguished work ever written by an American on the formal structure and characteristic effects of all the arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature. Read more

Over the past two centuries Western culture has largely valorized a particular kind of “good” music—highly serious, wondrously deep, stylistically authentic, heroically created, and strikingly original—and, at the same time, has marginalized music that does not live up to those ideals.   In Good Music, John J. Sheinbaum explores these traditional models for valuing music. By engaging examples such as Handel oratorios, Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, jazz improvisations, Bruce Springsteen, and prog rock, he argues that metaphors of perfection do justice to neither the perceived strengths nor the assumed weaknesses of the music in question. Instead, he proposes an alternative model of appreciation where abstract notions of virtue need not dictate our understanding. Good music can, with pride, be playful rather than serious, diverse rather than unified, engaging to both body and mind, in dialogue with manifold styles and genres, and collaborative to the core. We can widen the scope of what music we value and reconsider the conventional rituals surrounding it, while retaining the joys of making music, listening closely, and caring passionately. Read more

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