Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word is the first history of the world's great tongues, gloriously celebrating the wonder of words that binds communities together and makes possible both the living of a common history and the telling of it. From the uncanny resilience of Chinese through twenty centuries of invasions to the engaging self-regard of Greek and to the struggles that gave birth to the languages of modern Europe, these epic achievements and more are brilliantly explored, as are the fascinating failures of once "universal" languages. A splendid ...

"Csikszentmihalyi arrives at an insight that many of us can intuitively grasp, despite our insistent (and culturally supported) denial of this truth. That is, it is not what happens to us that determines our happiness, but the manner in which we make sense of that reality. . . . T he manner in which Csikszentmihalyi integrates research on consciousness, personal psychology and spirituality is i lluminating." --Los Angeles Times Book Review The bestselling classic that holds the key to unlocking meaning, creativity, peak performance, and true happiness. ...

In a world that’s increasingly chaotic and uncertain, Create your own calm sets kids on a path to becoming emotionally resilient and helps them to take practical, positive steps towards being calm and happy.

"A modern classic of courage and excitement." -- The New Yorker Soon to be a Major Motion Picture Starring Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek Henri Charrière, nicknamed "Papillon," for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, he became obsessed with one goal: escape . After planning and executing a series of treacherous yet failed attempts over many years, he was eventually sent to the notorious prison, Devil's Island, a ...

"A most important book that will change the way many of us look at animals--and, ultimately, at ourselves." -- Chicago Tribune Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of "speciesism"--our systematic disregard of nonhuman animals--inspiring a worldwide movement to transform our attitudes to animals and eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them. In Animal Liberation , author Peter Singer exposes the chilling realities of today's "factory farms" and product-testing procedures--destroying ...

Since his death in 1971, friends and band members have produced several biographies describing various aspects of Jim Morrison's life and carreer. Now James Riordan and Jerry Prochnicky examine with insightful clarity the entire story of Morrison's roots, his early family life, the intellectual foundations of his music, his wild days with the Doors, his private life, and the mystery that still surrounds his death.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize "The book is a form of meditation, written with headlong urgency, about seeing. . . . There is an ambition about [Dillard's] book that I like. . . . It is the ambition to feel." -- Eudora Welty, New York Times Book Review Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is the story of a dramatic year in Virginia's Roanoke Valley, where Annie Dillard set out to chronicle incidents of "beauty tangled in a rapture with violence." Dillard's personal narrative highlights one year's exploration on foot in the Virginia region through which Tinker ...