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Tag Archives: philosophy
An Antidote to Chaos
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos © 2018 Jordan Peterson 402 pages Life is pain. We can surrender to it — or we can make it meaningful. Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson here offers a prescription to those facing … Continue reading
The Architecture of Happiness
The Architecture of Happiness © 2006 Alain de Botton 280 pages I never thought much about the meaning of architecture until attending a lecture by James Howard Kunstler, given at my university in autumn 2008, entitled “Peak Oil and the … Continue reading
Stoicism and Western Buddhism
Stoicism and Western Buddhism: A Reflection on Two Philosophical Ways of Life © 2018 Patrick Ussher 88 pages We read philosophy in order to live philosophy. In Stoicism and Western Buddhism, Patrick Ussher explores the kindred beliefs and practices of … Continue reading
I Must Speak Out
I Must Speak Out: The Best of The Voluntaryist, 1982-1999 © 1999 Carl Watner 485 pages What distinguishes the State from an organized gang? Carl Watner argues in I Must Speak Out that nothing whatsoever does, except its subjects’ belief. … Continue reading
Stoic advice on overcoming anger
In the last couple of weeks I’ve read a few books on nonviolence communication and conflict management (How To Be Your Own Bodyguard; Verbal Judo (re-read); and How to Survive Aggressive People). Tonight, in a similar vein, I encountered a … Continue reading
Status Anxiety
Status Anxiety© 2004 Alain de Botton 306 pages Who said “comparison is the thief of joy”? If they hadn’t, Alain de Botton would, as here he argues that most of our misery comes from the constant comparison of ourselves to others … Continue reading
How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life
How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness© 2014 Russ Roberts269 pages\ An economist and a rabbi walk into a bar and co-author a work on the meaning of life. That’s not the … Continue reading
Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged© 1957 Ayn Rand1168 pages Sometimes the chains that bind us are made by our own hands. Dagny Taggart knew as a young girl that she wanted to grow up to be the master of her family’s railroad system. … Continue reading
Amsterdam
Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City© 2013 Russell Shorto369 pages In the early 14th century, a group of fisher-folk around the Amstel river came together with a dream: to build a place where people could smoke weed … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged art, bicycles, cities, history, Netherlands, philosophy, social history
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