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: 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.

Soil and Sacrament

Author : Fred Bahnson
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451663307
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis Soil and Sacrament by : Fred Bahnson

Download or read book Soil and Sacrament written by Fred Bahnson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-08-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recounts the author's experiences founding a faith-based community garden in rural North Carolina, and emphasizes how growing one's own food can help readers reconnect with the land and divine faith.

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.

Amounting to Nothing

Author : Paul Quenon
Publisher : Paraclete Poetry
ISBN 13 : 9781640602014
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Amounting to Nothing by : Paul Quenon

Download or read book Amounting to Nothing written by Paul Quenon and published by Paraclete Poetry. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 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.

In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

Author : Bertrand Russell
Publisher : Unwin Hyman
ISBN 13 : 9780043040065
Total Pages : 174 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 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 Unwin Hyman. This book was released on 1976 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intolerance and bigotry lie at the heart of all human suffering. So claims Bertrand Russell at the outset of "In Praise of Idleness," a collection of essays in which he espouses the virtues of cool reflection and free enquiry; a voice of calm in a world of maddening unreason. With characteristic clarity and humour, Russell surveys the social and political consequences of his beliefs. From a devastating critique of the ancestry of fascism to a vehement defense of 'useless' knowledge, with consideration given to everything from insect pests to the human soul, " In Praise of Idleness " is a tour de force that only Bertrand Russell could perform.

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.

A Useless Man

Author : Sait Faik Abasiyanik
Publisher : Archipelago
ISBN 13 : 0914671081
Total Pages : 240 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 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sait Faik Abasiyanik was born in Adapazari in 1906 and died of cirrhosis in Istanbul in 1954. He wrote twelve books of short stories, two novels, and a book of poetry. His stories celebrate the natural world and trace the plight of iconic characters in society: ancient coffeehouse proprietors and priests, dream-addled fishermen adn poets of the Princes' Isles, lovers and wandering minstrels of another time. Many stories are loosely autobiographical and deal with Sait Faik's frustration with social convention, the relentless pace of westernization, and the slow but steady ethnic cleansing of his city. His fluid, limpid surfaces might seem to be in keeping with the restrictions that the architects of the new Republic placed on language and culture, but the truth lies in their dark, subversive undercurrents. Sait Faik donated his estate to the Daruşafaka foundation for orphans, and this foundation has since been committed to promoting his work. His former family home on Burgazada was recently restored, and now functions as a museum honoring his life and work. He is still greatly revered: Turkey's most prestigious short story award carries his name and nearly every Turk knows by heart a line or a story by Sait Faik.

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.

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:

How Things Really Work

Author : Bill Hobby
Publisher : Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin
ISBN 13 : 9780976669746
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (697 download)

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Book Synopsis How Things Really Work by : Bill Hobby

Download or read book How Things Really Work written by Bill Hobby and published by Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bill Hobby has spent most of his life in and around Texas government, including a record eighteen years as the state's lieutenant governor. His candid recollections about his days in office, as well as his take on what state government should and should not do are part of How Things Really Work: Lessons from a Life in Politics, published by the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. "Nostalgia is not my purpose," Hobby writes in the book's preface. "But I do hope to convey something of my admiration for the people that I had the honor to work with, the spirit of the times, and a sense of how things actually worked--at least in the legislative process." His no-holds-barred opinions about everything from partisan politics to efforts to rewrite the Texas Constitution to government wiretaps and the war on drugs are included, as are his memories of working with Texas politicians Ben Ramsey, Dolph Briscoe, Bill Clements, and Ann Richards. Hobby's years as lieutenant governor coincided with Texas's transition from a state dependent on oil and agriculture to one with a more diversified economy strengthened by the technology and health care industries. Through it all, Hobby emphasized the need for Texas to make education a priority. He enjoyed the nuts and bolts of the legislative process, especially appropriations and redistricting. "To help people, government has to work," he says. "Make the system work."

The Nearest Thing to Life

Author : James Wood
Publisher : Brandeis University Press
ISBN 13 : 1611687438
Total Pages : 64 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 64 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.

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.

Kierkegaard

Author : Stephen Backhouse
Publisher : Zondervan
ISBN 13 : 0310520894
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis Kierkegaard by : Stephen Backhouse

Download or read book Kierkegaard written by Stephen Backhouse and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible, expert introduction to one of the greatest minds of nineteenth century. Whether you're completely new to him, or if you're already familiar with his work, Kierkegaard: A Single Life presents a fresh understanding of his life and thought. Kierkegaard was a brilliant and enigmatic loner whose ideas permeated culture, shaped modern Christianity, and influenced people as diverse as Franz Kafka and Martin Luther King Jr. Though few people today have read his work, that lack of familiarity with the real Kierkegaard is changing with this biography by scholar Stephen Backhouse, who clearly presents the man's mind as well as the acute sensitivity behind Kierkegaard's books. Drawing on biographical material that has newly come to light, Kierkegaard: A Single Life introduces his many guises—the thinker, the lover, the recluse, the writer, the controversialist—in prose as compelling and fluid as a novel and pursues clarity to long-standing questions about him: What made this Danish theologian so controversial and influential? Why were so many people drawn to his books, even if they didn't understand what they were reading? Can his complicated relationship with the Church and religion be untangled? Or, for that matter, what about his complicated—at times almost paradoxical—relationship with every sphere of life from politics to poetry? To be considered everything from a great intellect to a dandy, from a martyr to a "false messiah" is no mean feat, and this biography sheds light on Søren Kierkegaard as he was with empathy and humor. Included is an appendix presenting an overview of each of Kierkegaard's works, for the scholar and lay reader alike.

In Praise of Shadows

Author : Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
Publisher : ببلومانيا للنشر والتوزيع
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 59 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis In Praise of Shadows by : Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

Download or read book In Praise of Shadows written by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki and published by ببلومانيا للنشر والتوزيع. This book was released on 2024-03-21 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Praise of Shadows" (陰翳礼讃, "In'ei Raisan" in Japanese) is an essay written by the renowned Japanese author Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. It was first published in 1933. The essay explores Tanizaki's aesthetic philosophy, particularly his appreciation for traditional Japanese culture and the beauty of shadows, darkness, and subtlety. Tanizaki reflects on the contrast between Western and Japanese aesthetics, emphasizing the preference for darkness and shadows in traditional Japanese architecture, interior design, and cultural practices. He celebrates the aesthetic qualities of dimly lit spaces, muted colors, and natural materials, arguing that they evoke a sense of mystery, depth, and tranquility that is lacking in the bright, artificial illumination favored in the West. Throughout the essay, Tanizaki discusses various aspects of Japanese culture, such as the tea ceremony, lacquerware, architecture, and literature, to illustrate his points about the beauty of shadows and the importance of preserving traditional craftsmanship and sensibilities in the face of modernization. "In Praise of Shadows" is not only a meditation on aesthetics but also a reflection on the cultural identity and values of Japan. It has been widely praised for its eloquent prose, thought-provoking ideas, and insightful observations about the interplay between light and shadow in shaping human perception and experience. The essay continues to be studied and admired for its enduring relevance and its exploration of the timeless qualities of beauty and elegance.

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

Author : Yiyun Li
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0399589112
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (995 download)

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Book Synopsis Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by : Yiyun Li

Download or read book Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life written by Yiyun Li and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her first memoir, award-winning novelist Yiyun Li offers a journey of recovery through literature: a letter from a writer to like-minded readers. “A meditation on the fact that literature itself lives and gives life.”—Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead “What a long way it is from one life to another, yet why write if not for that distance?” Startlingly original and shining with quiet wisdom, this is a luminous account of a life lived with books. Written over two years while the author battled suicidal depression, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life is a painful and yet richly affirming examination of what makes life worth living. Yiyun Li grew up in China and has spent her adult life as an immigrant in a country not her own. She has been a scientist, an author, a mother, a daughter—and through it all she has been sustained by a profound connection with the writers and books she loves. From William Trevor and Katherine Mansfield to Søren Kierkegaard and Philip Larkin, Dear Friend is a journey through the deepest themes that bind these writers together. Interweaving personal experiences with a wide-ranging homage to her most cherished literary influences, Yiyun Li confronts the two most essential questions of her identity: Why write? And why live? Praise for Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life “Li has stared in the face of much that is beautiful and ugly and treacherous and illuminating—and from her experience she has produced a nourishing exploration of the will to live willfully.”—The Washington Post “Li’s transformation into a writer . . . is nothing short of astonishing.’”—The New York Times Book Review “An arrestingly lucid, intellectually vital series of contemplations on art, identity, and depression.”—The Boston Globe “Li is an exemplary storyteller and this account of her journey back to equilibrium, assisted by her closest companion, literature, is as powerful as any of her award-winning fiction, with the dark fixture of her Beijing past at its centre.”—Financial Times “Every writer is a reader first, and Dear Friend is Li’s haunted, luminous love letter to the words that shaped her. . . . Her own prose is both lovely and opaque, fitfully illuminating a radiant landscape of the personal and profound.”—Entertainment Weekly “Yiyun Li’s prose is lean and intense, and her ideas about books and writing are wholly original.”—San Francisco Chronicle

My Life, My Love, My Legacy

Author : Coretta Scott King
Publisher : Henry Holt
ISBN 13 : 1627795987
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (277 download)

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Book Synopsis My Life, My Love, My Legacy by : Coretta Scott King

Download or read book My Life, My Love, My Legacy written by Coretta Scott King and published by Henry Holt. This book was released on 2017-01-17 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in 1927 to daringly enterprising parents in the Deep South, Coretta Scott had always felt called to a special purpose. While enrolled as one of the first black scholarship students recruited to Antioch College, she became politically and socially active and committed to the peace movement. As a graduate student at the New England Conservatory of Music, determined to pursue her own career as a concert singer, she met Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister insistent that his wife stay home with the children. But in love and devoted to shared Christian beliefs as well as shared racial and economic justice goals, she married Dr. King, and events promptly thrust her into a maelstrom of history throughout which she was a strategic partner, a standard bearer, and so much more. As a widow and single mother of four, she worked tirelessly to found and develop The King Center as a citadel for world peace, lobbied for fifteen years for the US national holiday in honor of her husband, championed for women's, workers' and gay rights and was a powerful international voice for nonviolence, freedom and human dignity.

The Books in My Life

Author : Henry Miller
Publisher : New Directions Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780811201087
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis The Books in My Life by : Henry Miller

Download or read book The Books in My Life written by Henry Miller and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 1969 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this unique work, Henry Miller gives an utterly candid and self-revealing account of the reading he did during his formative years.