A World Appears By Michael Pollan

Credit: A World Appears

 

Overview

 

When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: that it feels like something to be us. Yet the fact we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, considering we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives - scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic - to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life. Read more here. Credit: Michael Pollan.

First Things First

 

Credit: First Things First

Overview

Time management tips: Stephen R. Covey's First Things First is the gold standard for time management books. His principle-centered approach for prioritizing gives you time management tips that enable you to make changes and sacrifices needed in order to obtain happiness, and retain a feeling of security. First Things First: The Interactive Edition takes Dr. Covey's philosophy and remasters the entire text to include: videos, infographics, analysis and more. Credit: Stephen R. Covey; First Things First.

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

 

Credit: The Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday

Overview

Why have history's greatest minds—from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson, along with today's top performers from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities—embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers 366 days of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the playwright Seneca, or slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus, as well as lesser-known luminaries like Zeno, Cleanthes, and Musonius Rufus. Every day of the year you'll find one of their pithy, powerful quotations, as well as historical anecdotes, provocative commentary, and a helpful glossary of Greek terms. Credit: The Daily Stoic; Book.

How to Have Your Best Year Ever

Credit: Best Year Ever, Author Jim Rohn

Overview

Recognize the value of each day, seize every moment and make each one count towards living the life you’ve always dreamed of!  Discover the life-changing power of decision and determination in Jim Rohn's enlightening guide, How to Have Your Best Year Ever.  Jim Rohn, master motivator and business philosopher, unfolds the blueprint to achieving unparalleled success and fulfillment in every aspect of life. From harnessing the precious value of time and money to mastering life's five puzzle pieces, this book is a comprehensive roadmap to personal and financial independence. The wisdom encapsulated in this book emphasizes the importance of personal progress, cultivating a wealth-filled library, leveraging your five best abilities, and the miracle-working power of words. Credit: Best Year Ever.

Four Thousand Weeks By Olive Burkeman

 

Credit: Four Thousand Weeks

 

The paperback edition of the liberating Sunday Times bestseller is set to enhance readers' lives even further with extra content on how we can all spend our four thousand weeks. The average human lifespan is absurdly, outrageously, insultingly brief- if you live to 80, you have about four thousand weeks on earth. How should we use them best? Of course, nobody needs telling that there isn't enough time. We're obsessed by our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, the struggle against distraction, and the sense that our attention spans are shrivelling. Yet we rarely make the conscious connection that these problems only trouble us in the first place thanks to the ultimate time-management problem- the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Four Thousand Weeks is an uplifting, engrossing and deeply realistic exploration of this problem that draws on philosophy, literature and psychology to cover the past, present and future of our battles with time. It goes far beyond practical tips, and its many revelations will transform the reader's worldview. Drawing on the insights of ancient philosophers, Benedictine monks, artists and authors, Scandinavian social reformers, renegade Buddhist technologists and many others, Oliver Burkeman sets out to realign our relationship with time - and in doing so, to liberate us from its grasp. Credit: Four Thousand Weeks; Oliver Burkeman.

'Is God Real?' By Lee Strobel

Credit: Is God Real by Lee Strobel

Overview

When life feels overwhelming, we want to know if there really is a deity who loves us, knows us, and cares about what happens to us. Join investigative journalist and former atheist Lee Strobel on a quest to determine whether we can know with confidence that God is real.

In this rational exploration of the proof of God's existence, Lee investigates:

If God is real, why is there so much suffering?

How do we know which God is real?

If God is real, why does he seem so hidden?

How do recent scientific findings support the claim that God is real?

If God is real, what difference does it make?

Learn more about the book 'Is God Real' here.  Author website of Lee Strobel.

 

#Spotlight Become What You Are

 

Credit: Become What You Are

In this collection of writings, including nine new chapters never before available in book form, Alan Watts displays the intelligence, playfulness of thought, and simplicity of language that has made him so perennially popular as an interpreter of Eastern thought for Westerners. He draws on a variety of religious traditions, and covers topics such as the challenge of seeing one's life “just as it is,” the Taoist approach to harmonious living, the limits of language in the face of ineffable spiritual truth, and the psychological symbolism of Christian thought. “Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal. For the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it exists forever. . . . You may believe yourself out of harmony with life and its eternal Now; but you cannot be, for you are life and exist Now.” Credit: Become What You, Overview

Credit: Alan Watts; EverydayPower

Life & Economics: "Equal is Unfair"

 

Credit: Equal is Unfair | Don Watkins & Yaron Brook

Overview

We’ve all heard that the American Dream is vanishing, and that the cause is rising income inequality. The rich are getting richer by rigging the system in their favor, leaving the rest of us to struggle just to keep our heads above water. To save the American Dream, we’re told that we need to fight inequality through tax hikes, wealth redistribution schemes, and a far higher minimum wage. But what if that narrative is wrong? What if the real threat to the American Dream isn’t rising income inequality—but an all-out war on success? In Equal is Unfair, a timely and thought-provoking work, Don Watkins and Yaron Brook reveal that almost everything we’ve been taught about inequality is wrong. Credit: Amazon

✒ Meet the Authors

Credit: Don Watkins

Don Watkins is a best-selling author and one of today's most vocal opponents of the welfare state. A fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, Don studies inequality, Social Security, entitlements, and the moral foundations of capitalism. He is a host of the weekly podcast on the entitlement state, The Debt of Dialogues. You can find Don's work @ donswriting.com. Credit: Amazon

Credit: Yaron Brook

Yaron Brook is chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute. He wears many hats at the institute and travels extensively as ARI’s spokesman. Brook can be heard weekly on The Yaron Brook Show, which airs live on the BlogTalkRadio podcast. He is also a frequent guest on national radio and television programs. An internationally sought-after speaker and debater, Brook also pens works that make one think. As coauthor, with Don Watkins, of the national best-seller Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand's Ideas Can End Big Government, Brook and Watkins argue that the answer to our current economic woes lies not in "trickle-down government" but in Rand's inspiring philosophy of capitalism and self-interest. Last year, Brook and Watkins released a new book, Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality, a book that shows the real key to making America a freer, fairer, more prosperous nation is to protect and celebrate the pursuit of success―not pull down the high fliers in the name of equality. Brook is also contributing author to Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, Winning the Unwinnable War: America’s Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism and Big Tent: The Story of the Conservative Revolution — As Told by the Thinkers and Doers Who Made It Happen. He was a columnist at Forbes.com, and his articles have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily and many other publications.

Brook was born and raised in Israel. He served as a first sergeant in Israeli military intelligence and earned a BSc in civil engineering from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. In 1987 he moved to the United States where he received his MBA and PhD in finance from the University of Texas at Austin; he became an American citizen in 2003. For seven years he was an award-winning finance professor at Santa Clara University, and in 1998 he cofounded BH Equity Research, a private equity and hedge fund manager, of which he is managing founder and director. Profile Summary Credit: Fedsoc.org