Jarvis Jay Masters has taken an extraordinary journey of faith. Strangely enough, his moment of enlightenment came behind the bars of San Quentin's death row. Here, inmate author Masters takes us from the arms of his heroin-addicted mother to an abusive foster home, on his escape to the illusory freedom of the streets and through lonely nights spent in bus stations and juvenile homes, and finally to life inside the walls of San Quentin State Prison....

Thoreau's autobiographical account of his experiment in solitary living, his refusal to play by the rules of hard work and the accumulation of wealth and, above all, the freedom it gave him to adapt his living to the natural world around him.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854—1900) was an Irish poet and playwright who became one of the most popular in London during the 1880s and 1890s. Well-known for his sharp wit and extravagant attire, Wilde was a proponent of aestheticism and wrote in a variety of forms including poetry, fiction, and drama. He was famously imprisoned for homosexual acts from 1895 to 1897 and died at the age of 46, just three years after his release. Although...

Philosophy, 100 Essential Thinkers tells the story of philosophic thought, from the ancient Greeks to W.V.O. Quine, America's greatest living philosopher up until his death on Christmas Day, 2000. While covering all of the greats of philosophy (Plato, Socrates, Spinoza, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, de Beauvoir and Camus, to name just a few), this book also includes many who are not seen primarily as philosophers, such as...

The author, sharing his decades-long friendship and spiritual journey with the late singer, songwriter, novelist and poet, presents this insightful memoir that depicts Leonard Cohen as a captivating persona the likes of which we may never see again.

Friedrich Nietzsche was the most fearlessly provocative and original thinker in Western history. The protean diversity of his writings make him one of the most influential of modern philosophers, yet his often paradoxical statements can be properly understood only within the context of his restless, tragic life. Physically handicapped by weak eyesight, violent headaches and bouts of nausea, this Nietzsche made short shrift of self-pity and ostentatious...

Ariel Burger first met Elie Wiesel at age fifteen. They studied together and taught together. Witness chronicles the intimate conversations between these two men over decades, as Burger sought counsel on matters of intellect, spirituality, and faith, while navigating his own personal journey from boyhood to manhood, from student and assistant to rabbi and, in time, teacher. In this profoundly hopeful, thought-provoking, and inspiring book, Burger...

"Philosophy explores the deepest, most fundamental questions of reality and this accessible and entertaining chronology presents 250 milestones of the most important theories, events, and seminal publications in the field over the last 3,500 years. The brief, engaging entries cover a range of topics and cultures, from the Hindu Vedas and Plato's theory of forms to Ockham's razor, Pascal's wager, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, existentialism, feminism,...

A galaxy of legendary figures from the annals of Western historyIn this enlightening and entertaining work, Paul Johnson, the bestselling author of Intellectuals and Creators, approaches the subject of heroism with stirring examples of men and women from every age, walk of life, and corner of the planet who have inspired and transformed not only their own cultures but the entire world as well. Heroes includes: Samson, Judith, and Deborah • Henry...

The eighteenth-century philosopher’s landmark treatise against monarchy that inspired the French and American Revolutions.
 “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
 
With these stirring words, Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins The Social Contract—the first shot in a battle of ideas that would set the stage for the American War of Independence and the French Revolution....