In Praise Of The Useless Life

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In Praise of the Useless Life

Author : Paul Quenon
Publisher : Ave Maria Press
ISBN 13 : 1594717605
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (947 download)

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Book Synopsis In Praise of the Useless Life by : Paul Quenon

Download or read book In Praise of the Useless Life written by Paul Quenon and published by Ave Maria Press. This book was released on 2018-04-13 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of two 2019 Catholic Press Association Awards: Memoir (First Place) and Cover Design (Second Place). Monastic life and its counter-cultural wisdom come alive in the stories and lessons of Br. Paul Quenon, O.C.S.O., during his more than five decades as a Trappist at the Abbey of Gethsemani. He served as a novice under Thomas Merton and he also welcomed some of the monastery's more well-known visitors, including Sr. Helen Prejean and Seamus Heaney, to Merton's hermitage. In Praise of the Useless Life includes Quenon's quiet reflections on what it means to live each day with careful attentiveness. The humble peace and simplicity of the monastery and of Quenon's daily life are beautifully portrayed in this memoir. Whether it be through the daily routine of the monastery, his love of the outdoors no matter the season, or his lively and interesting conversations with visitors (reciting Emily Dickinson with Pico Iyer, discussing Merton and poetry with Czeslaw Milosz), Quenon's gentle musings display his love for the beauty in his vocation and the people he’s encountered along the way. Inspired by his novice master Merton, the poet and photographer’s stories remind us that the beauty of life can best be seen in the "uselessness" of daily life—having a quiet chat with a friend, spending time in contemplation—in our vocations, and in the memories we make along the way.

The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge

Author : Abraham Flexner
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691174768
Total Pages : 104 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge by : Abraham Flexner

Download or read book The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge written by Abraham Flexner and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A short, provocative book about why "useless" science often leads to humanity's greatest technological breakthroughs A forty-year tightening of funding for scientific research has meant that resources are increasingly directed toward applied or practical outcomes, with the intent of creating products of immediate value. In such a scenario, it makes sense to focus on the most identifiable and urgent problems, right? Actually, it doesn't. In his classic essay "The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge," Abraham Flexner, the founding director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the man who helped bring Albert Einstein to the United States, describes a great paradox of scientific research. The search for answers to deep questions, motivated solely by curiosity and without concern for applications, often leads not only to the greatest scientific discoveries but also to the most revolutionary technological breakthroughs. In short, no quantum mechanics, no computer chips. This brief book includes Flexner's timeless 1939 essay alongside a new companion essay by Robbert Dijkgraaf, the Institute's current director, in which he shows that Flexner's defense of the value of "the unobstructed pursuit of useless knowledge" may be even more relevant today than it was in the early twentieth century. Dijkgraaf describes how basic research has led to major transformations in the past century and explains why it is an essential precondition of innovation and the first step in social and cultural change. He makes the case that society can achieve deeper understanding and practical progress today and tomorrow only by truly valuing and substantially funding the curiosity-driven "pursuit of useless knowledge" in both the sciences and the humanities.

In Praise of Idleness, and Other Essays

Author : Bertrand Russell
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis In Praise of Idleness, and Other Essays by : Bertrand Russell

Download or read book In Praise of Idleness, and Other Essays written by Bertrand Russell and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 1972 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Conquistador of the Useless

Author : Joshua Isard
Publisher : Cinco Puntos Press
ISBN 13 : 1935955543
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (359 download)

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Book Synopsis Conquistador of the Useless by : Joshua Isard

Download or read book Conquistador of the Useless written by Joshua Isard and published by Cinco Puntos Press. This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Average suburban middle manager Nathan's life starts to unravel around him as his wife goes baby crazy, his friend wants to climb Everest, and he lends a copy of "Cat's Cradle" to a local teenage girl.

How to Be

Author : Judith Valente
Publisher : Red Wheel/Weiser
ISBN 13 : 1642970344
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (429 download)

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Book Synopsis How to Be by : Judith Valente

Download or read book How to Be written by Judith Valente and published by Red Wheel/Weiser. This book was released on 2021 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The spiritual seeker's guide to living with authenticity and integrity in troubled times. This book is a dialogue between two spiritual seekers--one a Trappist monk and the other a married professional woman. It is two people "stuttering to articulate life's universal questions from diverse contexts and perspectives." Brother Paul writes as one steeped in silence and the daily rhythms of the ancient prayer practices of monasticism. Judith Valente writes as a professional woman attempting to bring a sense of prayer and contemplation to a scattered life in the secular world. Valente uses the story of Brother Paul's interview for a PBS documentary as a jumping-off point: When asked the purpose of the Trappist life in the modern world, he said that it is "to show you don't need a purpose." The purpose of life, he said, is life. "You're to live your life." How to Be offers a window into two people living their lives on purpose (or not) and struggling to come to terms with the big issues everyone faces: faith, mortality, mystery, prayer, work. It is a book that provides insight and inspiration for those walking the spiritual path--particularly for those interested in the contemplative path.

Man of Dialogue

Author : Gregory K. Hillis
Publisher : Liturgical Press
ISBN 13 : 0814684602
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (146 download)

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Book Synopsis Man of Dialogue by : Gregory K. Hillis

Download or read book Man of Dialogue written by Gregory K. Hillis and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Catholic was Thomas Merton? Since his death in 1968, Merton’s Catholic identity has been regularly questioned, both by those who doubt the authenticity of his Catholicism given his commitment to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue and by those who admire Merton as a thinker but see him as an aberration who rebelled against his Catholicism to articulate ideas that went against the church. In this book, Gregory K. Hillis illustrates that Merton’s thought was intertwined with his identity as a Catholic priest and emerged out of a thorough immersion in the church’s liturgical, theological, and spiritual tradition. In addition to providing a substantive introduction to Merton’s life and thought, this book illustrates that Merton was fundamentally shaped by his identity as a Roman Catholic.

Lives Other Than My Own

Author : Emmanuel Carrère
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
ISBN 13 : 1429973285
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis Lives Other Than My Own by : Emmanuel Carrère

Download or read book Lives Other Than My Own written by Emmanuel Carrère and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed award-winning author Emmanuel Carrère, Lives Other Than My Own: A Memoir is an act of generous imagination that unflinchingly records devastating loss and, equally vividly, the wealth of human solace that follows in its wake. Selected by the New York Times as one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years In Sri Lanka, a tsunami sweeps a child out to sea, her grand-father helpless against the onrushing water. In France, a young woman succumbs to illness, leaving her husband and small children bereft. Present at both events, Emmanuel Carrère sets out to tell the story of two families—shattered and ultimately restored. What he accomplishes is nothing short of a literary miracle: a heartrending narrative of endless love, a meditation on courage and decency in the face of adversity, an intimate and reverent look at the extraordinary beauty and nobility of ordinary lives. Precise, sober, and suspenseful, as full of twists and turns as any novel, Lives Other Than My Own confronts terrifying catastrophes to illuminate the astonishing richness of human connection: a grandfather who thought he had found paradise—too soon—and now devotes himself to helping his neighbors rebuild their village; a husband so in love with his ailing wife that he carries her in his arms like a knight does his princess; and finally, Carrère himself, longtime chronicler of the tormented self, who unexpectedly finds consolation and even joy as he immerses himself in the lives of others. “Moving...Carrère’s prose is precise and measured...Through interviews with friends and relatives of both families, he creates powerful portraits that celebrate ordinary lives.”—The New Yorker “You begin this memoir thinking it will be about one thing, and it turns into something else altogether—a book at once more ordinary and more extraordinary than any first impressions might allow.”—The New York Times

Love People, Use Things

Author : Joshua Fields Millburn
Publisher : Celadon Books
ISBN 13 : 1250236495
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Love People, Use Things by : Joshua Fields Millburn

Download or read book Love People, Use Things written by Joshua Fields Millburn and published by Celadon Books. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** "The Minimalists show you how to disconnect from our conditioned material state and reconnect to our true essence: love people and use things. This is not a book about how to live with less, but about how to live more deeply and more fully." —Jay Shetty, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Like a Monk AS SEEN ON THE NETFLIX DOCUMENTARIES MINIMALISM & LESS IS NOW How might your life be better with less? Imagine a life with less: less stuff, less clutter, less stress and debt and discontent—a life with fewer distractions. Now, imagine a life with more: more time, more meaningful relationships, more growth and contribution and contentment—a life of passion, unencumbered by the trappings of the chaotic world around you. What you’re imagining is an intentional life. And to get there, you’ll have to let go of some clutter that’s in the way. In Love People, Use Things, Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus move past simple decluttering to show how minimalism makes room to reevaluate and heal the seven essential relationships in our lives: stuff, truth, self, money, values, creativity, and people. They use their own experiences—and those of the people they have met along the minimalist journey—to provide a template for how to live a fuller, more meaningful life. Because once you have less, you can make room for the right kind of more.

Let Me Off at the Top

Author : Ron Burgundy
Publisher : Doubleday Canada
ISBN 13 : 0385682190
Total Pages : 174 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (856 download)

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Book Synopsis Let Me Off at the Top by : Ron Burgundy

Download or read book Let Me Off at the Top written by Ron Burgundy and published by Doubleday Canada. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The autobiography every true American has been waiting for: a shockingly candid and raw confessional from a national treasure. From his humble beginnings in a desolate Iowa coal mining town, his years at Our Lady Queen of Chewbacca High School to his odds-defying climb to the dizzying heights of becoming America’s most trusted and beloved television News Anchor, Ron Burgundy pulls no punches in Let Me Off at the Top! In his very own words Burgundy reveals his most private thoughts, his triumphs and his disappointments. His life reads like an adventure story complete with knock down fights, beautiful women and double-fisted excitement on every page. He has hunted jackalopes with Bobby Kennedy and Peter Lawford, had more than his share of his amorous exploits, and formed the greatest on-air team in the history of televised news. Along the way, he hobnobbed with people you wish you knew and some you honestly wish you didn't -- celebrities, presidents, presidents' wives, celebrities' wives, dogs, and, of course Veronica Corningstone, the love of his life. Walter Cronkite, Barbra Streisand, Katie Couric, the list goes on. Who didn’t Mr. Burgundy, or “Ron” as he is known to his friends, rub elbows with in the course of his colorful and often criminal life? This may well be the most thrilling book ever written, by a man of great physical, moral and spiritual strength and not surprisingly a great literary talent as well. This book deserves a real shot at a Pulitzer Prize. In fact if it doesn’t win one then we will finally have proof that the Pulitzer is rigged. Ron Burgundy has taken the time to write a book. We owe it to him, as honest Americans, to read it.

A Little Life

Author : Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0804172706
Total Pages : 833 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis A Little Life by : Hanya Yanagihara

Download or read book A Little Life written by Hanya Yanagihara and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Useful Work Versus Useless Toil

Author : William Morris
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 32 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (31 download)

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Book Synopsis Useful Work Versus Useless Toil by : William Morris

Download or read book Useful Work Versus Useless Toil written by William Morris and published by . This book was released on 1891 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Republic of Imagination

Author : Azar Nafisi
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698170334
Total Pages : 269 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (981 download)

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Book Synopsis The Republic of Imagination by : Azar Nafisi

Download or read book The Republic of Imagination written by Azar Nafisi and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-10-21 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller The author of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran returns with the next chapter of her life in books—a passionate and deeply moving hymn to America Ten years ago, Azar Nafisi electrified readers with her multimillion-copy bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, which told the story of how, against the backdrop of morality squads and executions, she taught The Great Gatsby and other classics of English and American literature to her eager students in Iran. In this electrifying follow-up, she argues that fiction is just as threatened—and just as invaluable—in America today. Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination. Nafisi invites committed readers everywhere to join her as citizens of what she calls the Republic of Imagination, a country with no borders and few restrictions, where the only passport to entry is a free mind and a willingness to dream.

Books for Living

Author : Will Schwalbe
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0804172757
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis Books for Living by : Will Schwalbe

Download or read book Books for Living written by Will Schwalbe and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the beloved New York Times best-selling The End of Your Life Book Club, an inspiring and magical exploration of the power of books to shape our lives in an era of constant connectivity. "[A] gift, and one that keeps giving.” —USA Today For Will Schwalbe, reading is a way to entertain himself but also to make sense of the world, and to find the answers to life’s questions big and small. In each chapter, he discusses a particular book and how it relates to concerns we all share. These books span centuries and genres—from Stuart Little to The Girl on the Train, from David Copperfield to Wonder, from Giovanni's Room to Rebecca, and from 1984 to Gifts from the Sea. Throughout, Schwalbe tells stories from his life and focuses on the way certain books can help us honor those we've loved and lost, and also figure out how to live each day more fully.

The Nearest Thing to Life

Author : James Wood
Publisher : Brandeis University Press
ISBN 13 : 1611687438
Total Pages : 94 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (116 download)

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Book Synopsis The Nearest Thing to Life by : James Wood

Download or read book The Nearest Thing to Life written by James Wood and published by Brandeis University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this remarkable blend of memoir and criticism, James Wood, noted contributor to the New Yorker, has written a master class on the connections between fiction and life. He argues that, of all the arts, fiction has a unique ability to describe the shape of our lives and to rescue the texture of those lives from death and historical oblivion. The act of reading is understood here as the most sacred and personal of activities, and there are brilliant discussions of individual works - among others, Chekhov's story "The Kiss," W.G. Sebald's The Emigrants, and Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower. Wood reveals his own intimate relationship with the written word: we see the development of a provincial boy growing up in a charged Christian environment, the secret joy of his childhood reading, the links he makes between reading and blasphemy, or between literature and music. The final section discusses fiction in the context of exile and homelessness. The Nearest Thing to LifeÊis not simply a brief, tightly argued book by a man commonly regarded as our finest living critic - it is also an exhilarating personal account that reflects on, and embodies, the fruitful conspiracy between reader and writer (and critic), and asks us to reconsider everything that is at stake when we read and write fiction.

Amounting to Nothing

Author : Paul Quenon, OCSO
Publisher : Paraclete Press
ISBN 13 : 1640602380
Total Pages : 90 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (46 download)

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Book Synopsis Amounting to Nothing by : Paul Quenon, OCSO

Download or read book Amounting to Nothing written by Paul Quenon, OCSO and published by Paraclete Press. This book was released on 2018-04-01 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 60 years at Gethsemani Abbey, Br. Paul follows up his recent memoir, In Praise of the Useless Life, with a poetic collection that shows how to do just that – by writing poetry. Amounting to Nothing is both practical and metaphysical, a puzzling over the ultimate things of life, and a descending on the Benedictine ladder of humility to the earthly creatures surrounding a Kentucky monastery. This is less an exploration in self-knowledge than a forgetting of self in the wonders of everything. Quenon treads bare footed on the margins of mortality and immortality, with wit, thought, and hope.

A Useless Man

Author : Sait Faik Abasiyanik
Publisher : Archipelago
ISBN 13 : 0914671081
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (146 download)

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Book Synopsis A Useless Man by : Sait Faik Abasiyanik

Download or read book A Useless Man written by Sait Faik Abasiyanik and published by Archipelago. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With all the wit and brilliance of Chekhov, a distinctive collection of lyrical stories from Sait Faik Abasıyanık, “Turkey’s greatest short story writer” (The Guardian) Sait Faik Abasıyanık’s fiction traces the interior lives of strangers in his native Istanbul: ancient coffeehouse proprietors, priests, dream-addled fishermen, poets of the Princes’ Isles, lovers and wandering minstrels of another time. The stories in A Useless Man are shaped by Sait Faik’s political autobiography – his resistance to social convention, the relentless pace of westernization, and the ethnic cleansing of his city – as he conjures the varied textures of life in Istanbul and its surrounding islands. The calm surface of these stories might seem to signal deference to the new Republic’s restrictions on language and culture, but Abasıyanık’s prose is crafted deceptively, with dark, subversive undercurrents. “Reading these stories by Sait Faik feels like finding the secret doors inside of poems,” Rivka Galchen wrote. Beautifully translated by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe, A Useless Man is the most comprehensive collection of Sait Faik’s stories in English to date.

Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys

Author : D. A. Powell
Publisher : Graywolf Press
ISBN 13 : 9781555976958
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (769 download)

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Book Synopsis Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys by : D. A. Powell

Download or read book Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys written by D. A. Powell and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2014-11-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, now in paperback D. A. Powell's fifth book of poetry, Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys, explores the darker side of divisions and developments, the interstitial spaces of boonies, backstage, bathhouse, and bar. With witty banter, emotional resolve, and powerful lyricism, this collection demonstrates Powell's exhilarating range.