Download or read book The Age of Absurdity written by Michael Foley and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PHILOSOPHY. A wry and accessible investigation into how the desirable states of wellbeing and satisfaction are constantly undermined by modern life. Michael Foley examines the elusive condition of happiness common to philosophy, spiritual teachings and contemporary psychology, then shows how these are becoming increasingly difficult to apply in a world of high expectations. The common challenges of earning a living, maintaining a relationship and ageing are becoming battlegrounds of existential angst and self-loathing in a culture that demands conspicuous consumption, high-octane partnerships and perpetual youth. Foley presents an entertaining strategy of not just accepting but embracing today's world - finding happiness in its absurdity.
Download or read book The Age of Absurdity written by Michael Foley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-09-16 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like Alain de Botton crossed with Charlie Brooker, Foley succeeds in educating and enlightening us in this wry take on the existential dilemmas of modern life. ‘Fascinating . . . the quest for happiness and how we are getting it all wrong' Jeremy Vine, Sunday Telegraph The good news is that the great thinkers from history have proposed the same strategies for happiness and fulfilment. The bad news is that these turn out to be the very things most discouraged by contemporary culture. This knotty dilemma is the subject of The Age of Absurdity – a humourous and accessible investigation into how the desirable states of wellbeing and satisfaction are constantly undermined by modern life. Michael Foley examines the elusive conditions of happiness common to philosophy, spiritual teachings and contemporary psychology, then shows how these are becoming increasingly difficult to apply in a world of high expectations. The common challenges of earning a living, maintaining a relationship and ageing are becoming battlegrounds of existential angst and self-loathing in a culture that demands conspicuous consumption, high-octane partnerships and perpetual youth. Rather than denouncing and rejecting these challenges, Foley presents an entertaining strategy of not just accepting but embracing today's world – finding happiness in its absurdity.
Download or read book Albert Camus s Philosophy of Communication written by and published by Cambria Press. This book was released on with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Selling America Short written by Richard C. Sauer and published by Wiley. This book was released on 2010-04-26 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An industry insider reveals the inner workings of our financial system and the agencies who attempt to control it During his dozen years as an SEC attorney, author Richard Sauer opened and supervised some of its most notable financial cases-investigations that took him to a dozen countries and returned hundreds of millions of dollars to American investors. While a partner at a major law firm and, later, a hedge fund manager, he saw firsthand the follies and failures of our system. Now, in Selling America Short, he shares his extraordinary experiences with you. Selling America Short is a gripping chronicle of crooked companies, financial philanderers and hapless enforcers told through the eyes of personal experience. Page by page, it shows the damage wrought by the deep biases and lack of worldly experience common among those who hold the reins of our capital markets. Sheds light on the inner workings of our financial system Takes you on a fascinating journey of a rogue's gallery of crooked executives, professional fraud enablers, and squirrelly technocrats Offers a firsthand account of the many ways contrarian views of public companies are suppressed and punished, depriving the market of critical information With the capital markets in turmoil, people are fascinated with what is happening on Wall Street. This book provides a unique look at the forces and events that led directly to financial tragedy and continue to wreak havoc.
Download or read book Embracing the Ordinary written by Michael Foley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-07-05 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'In recession-chastened, soddenly staycationing Britain, Foley may well have devised a new bestseller format: a how-to book offering a way of escape ... [a] lovely book' Guardian It has always been difficult to appreciate everyday life, often devalued as dreary, banal and burdensome, and never more so than in a culture besotted with fantasy, celebrity and glamour. Yet, with characteristic wit and earthiness, Michael Foley - author of the bestselling The Age of Absurdity - draws on the works of writers, thinkers and artists who have celebrated and examined the ordinary life, and encourages us to delight in the complexities of the everyday. With astute observation, Foley brings fresh insights to such things as the banality of everyday speech, the madness and weirdness of snobbery, love and sex, and the strangeness of the everyday environment, such as the office. It is all more fascinating, comical and mysterious than you think. Intelligent, funny and entertaining, Foley shows us how to find contentment and satisfaction by embracing the ordinary things in life. 'A convincing argument for the beauty of the seemingly banal… ' Scotsman
Download or read book The United States of Absurdity written by Dave Anthony and published by Ten Speed Press. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The creators of the podcast The Dollop present illustrated profiles of the weird, outrageous, NSFW, and downright absurd tales from American history that you weren't taught in school. The United States of Absurdity presents short, informative, and hilarious stories of the most outlandish (but true) people, events, and more from United States history. Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds cover the weird stories you didn't learn in history class, such as 10-Cent Beer Night, the Jackson Cheese, and the Kentucky Meat Shower, accompanied by full-page illustrations that bring each historical "milestone" to life in full-color.
Download or read book Girl Logic written by Iliza Shlesinger and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From breakout stand-up comedian Iliza Shlesinger comes a subversively funny collection of essays and observations on the secret genius of irrational behavior. Have you ever been pissed because you're not pretty enough, and then gotten even more pissed that someone didn't find you as pretty as you think you are? Have you ever obsessed over the size of your thighs while eating dessert, all the while saying you'll work out extra tomorrow? Or spent endless hours wondering why you have to bear the brunt of other people's insecurities? I mean, after all, I'm pretty great. Why cope with insecurities I don't already have? That last one's just me? All right, then. But if the rest sounds familiar, you are experiencing Girl Logic: a characteristically female way of thinking that appears contradictory and circuitous but is actually a complicated and highly evolved way of looking at the world. You end up considering every repercussion of every choice (about dating, career, clothes, lunch) before making a move toward what you really want. And why do we attempt these mental hurdles? Well, that's what this book is all about. The fact is, whether you're obsessing over his last text or the most important meeting of your career, your Girl Logic serves a purpose: It helps push you, question what you want, and clarify what will make you a happier, better person. Girl Logic can be every confident woman's secret weapon, and this book shows you how to wield it.
Download or read book Meaning in the Age of Absurdity written by Amitai Rosengart and published by Amitai Rosengart. This book was released on 2024-03-06 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Meaning in the Age of Absurdity” (2024) is written as a guide for people searching to understand the crisis seen all over western society. In this thought provoking third book, the author presents a new philosophical theory unravelling the roots of this crisis, exploring its manifestations across personal, social and political spheres. Addressing and analysing profound social topics, their source, and their effects. It is a mind opening and indispensable tool for those navigating the challenges of the contemporary world, allowing its readers to engage with the recent social development seen all over western culture.
Download or read book Amazing Cows written by Sandra Boynton and published by Workman Publishing. This book was released on 2010-11-18 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Sandra Boynton—as it could only come from Boynton—an inventive exuberant jumble of a book for the young reader. Amazing Cows is a picture book, a storybook, a book of fun and games—it’s all those things in one. Plus it even includes a startling recording of Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero Completely Unraveled for Orchestra and Kazoos” performed by Sandra Boynton & The Highly Irritating Orchestra, for download. (Running time is 17:14, but seems MUCH longer.) A work of pure obsession, Amazing Cows celebrates cows and offbeat cowness with a miscellany of cow stories, cow poems, cow jokes, and other bovine ephemera. Along the way, expect lively guest appearances by ducks, pigs, and excessive numbers of chickens. There’s a song: "It Had to Be Moo." A game: "Find the Hidden Cows." Famous Barnyard Composers (surely you’ve heard of Wolfgang Amadeus Moozart and Johann Sebastian Bockbockbock). Knock-knock jokes, a cow myth, and an Amazing Cow comic-book adventure: "Trouble on Zebblor 7." Cow fashion. Cow Limericks. How to Speak Cow. Plus so much mooer. Amazing Cows is full-color, 96 pages long, and packed with the kind of silly fun that young readers adore, especially when they can read it to themselves—and then read it to their parents, and then to their little brothers, and then to the family dog. Or the family cow.
Download or read book The Age of Absurdity written by and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Myth of Sisyphus And Other Essays written by Albert Camus and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.
Download or read book Tenth of December written by George Saunders and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-01-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prize-winning, New York Times bestselling short story collection from the internationally bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo 'The best book you'll read this year' New York Times 'Dazzlingly surreal stories about a failing America' Sunday Times WINNER OF THE 2014 FOLIO PRIZE AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2013 George Saunders's most wryly hilarious and disturbing collection yet, Tenth of December illuminates human experience and explores figures lost in a labyrinth of troubling preoccupations. A family member recollects a backyard pole dressed for all occasions; Jeff faces horrifying ultimatums and the prospect of Darkenfloxx(TM) in some unusual drug trials; and Al Roosten hides his own internal monologue behind a winning smile that he hopes will make him popular. With dark visions of the future riffing against ghosts of the past and the ever-settling present, this collection sings with astonishing charm and intensity.
Download or read book How To written by Randall Munroe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “How To will make you laugh as you learn…With How To, you can't help but appreciate the glorious complexity of our universe and the amazing breadth of humanity's effort to comprehend it. If you want some lightweight edification, you won't go wrong with How To.” —CNET “[How To] has science and jokes in it, so 10/10 can recommend.” —Simone Giertz The world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, the bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer, and What If? 2, coming September 13, 2022 For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally complex, excessive, and inadvisable that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole. Bestselling author and cartoonist Randall Munroe explains how to predict the weather by analyzing the pixels of your Facebook photos. He teaches you how to tell if you're a baby boomer or a 90's kid by measuring the radioactivity of your teeth. He offers tips for taking a selfie with a telescope, crossing a river by boiling it, and powering your house by destroying the fabric of space-time. And if you want to get rid of the book once you're done with it, he walks you through your options for proper disposal, including dissolving it in the ocean, converting it to a vapor, using tectonic plates to subduct it into the Earth's mantle, or launching it into the Sun. By exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn't just make things difficult for himself and his readers. As he did so brilliantly in What If?, Munroe invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible. Full of clever infographics and fun illustrations, How To is a delightfully mind-bending way to better understand the science and technology underlying the things we do every day.
Download or read book Whiteout Conditions written by Tariq Shah and published by Two Dollar Radio. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Ant is borderline obsessed with funerals, likening the events to weddings as gatherings he looks forward to. Yet, when a childhood friend passes, Ant’s veneer starts to crumble. Weirdly funny, Whiteout Conditions tracks Ant and his friend Vince as they make their way through Chicogoland’s suburbs, which, in Shah’s telling, are as harrowing as any arctic climate." —Wendy J. Fox, BuzzFeed '15 Small Press Books To Kick Off Your 2020 Reading Season' Ant is back in Chicago for a funeral, and he typically enjoys funerals. Since most of his family has passed away, he finds himself attracted to their endearing qualities: the hyperbolic language, the stoner altar boy, seeing friends in suits for the first time. That is, until the tragic death of Ray — Ant’s childhood friend, Vince's teenage cousin. Ray was the younger third-wheel that Ant and Vince were stuck babysitting while in high school, and his sudden death makes national news. In the depths of a brutal Midwest winter, Ant rides with Vince through the falling snow to Ray’s funeral, an event that has been accruing a sense of consequence. With a poet’s sensibility, Shah navigates the murky responsibilities of adulthood, grief, toxic masculinity, and the tragedy of revenge in this haunting Midwestern noir.
Download or read book The Age of Em written by Robin Hanson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robots may one day rule the world, but what is a robot-ruled Earth like? Many think that the first truly smart robots will be brain emulations or "ems." Robin Hanson draws on decades of expertise in economics, physics, and computer science to paint a detailed picture of this next great era in human (and machine) evolution - the age of em.
Download or read book The Brittle Age written by René Char and published by Counterpath Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry. Bilingual Edition. Translated from the French by Gustaf Sobin. When Gustaf Sobin arrived in France at the age of twenty-seven in 1963, he befriended the poet Rene Char, who, as Sobin writes, "taught me my trade." "Rene Char taught me, first, to read particulars: that the meticulously observed detail, drawn from nature, could provide the key to the deepest reaches of the imaginary. One and the other, the visible and the invisible, were but the interface of a single, singular, vibratory surface: that of the poem itself." THE BRITTLE AGE AND RETURNING UPLAND are two volumes from Char's work of the mid to late 1960s that Sobin chose to translate in full. Here, side by side with Char's French text, it is possible to see Sobin building his poetic vocabulary within and as a result of the practice of his mentor, "scrupulously tracking the very trajectories of desire, [leading] one onto the sonorous landscapes of the revelatory."
Download or read book You Look So Much Better in Person written by Al Roker and published by Legacy Lit. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today coanchor Al Roker presents an entertaining guide to achieving a life of happiness and success through the power of "yes!" These days, the road to success can feel jampacked with scheduling, networking, nonstop hustle, and flat-out absurdity. And no one knows that better than Al Roker—beloved cohost of The Today Show, weatherperson extraordinaire, and the man we all secretly wish we could turn to for wisdom and wisecracks in our everyday lives. From his college days as a polyester suit-clad weather forecaster in Syracuse to battling and buttering up the "Butter Man" during the legendary Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Al has learned worthwhile lessons over a long, successful career. And now, for the first time, Al is ready to unleash savvy advice on how to embrace happiness and the power of saying "yes," alongside a host of humorous tips and tricks about how to succeed in life. In You Look So Much Better in Person, Al teaches us how we can weather the storm of life, no matter how torrential the downpour, and shares anecdotes from his own treasure trove of memories in the spotlight. And it hasn't always been easy—believe it or not, even Al has been yelled at by his boss, suffered an emotional breakdown at work, and been told he'd be better suited in another position. Within these pages, he looks back on his own career and shares valuable "Altruisms" that can be applied to our own endeavors, such as how to: Navigate the special hell that is socializing Craft the perfect comeback line during a confrontation—and know when to use it Get up early and actually make the most of your time Cry at work without freaking people out And much, much more! Packed to the brim with cackle-inducing and cringeworthy behind-the-scenes insights and observations from over four decades in the media, this book reminds us all that long-term success in our personal lives and our careers is just within reach. You Look So Much Better in Person will leave you laughing out loud, inspired, and comforted during life's best and worst moments.
