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Seven Pleasures
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Book Synopsis Seven Pleasures by : Willard Spiegelman
Download or read book Seven Pleasures written by Willard Spiegelman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-04-27 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spiegelman takes a look at the possibilities for achieving ordinary happiness without recourse to either religion or drugs. In this erudite and frequently hilarious book of essays, he discusses seven activities that lead naturally and easily to a sense of well-being.
Book Synopsis Seven Pleasures by : Willard Spiegelman
Download or read book Seven Pleasures written by Willard Spiegelman and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2009-04-27 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to be happy? Americans have had an obsession with "the pursuit of happiness" ever since the Founding Fathers enshrined it—along with life and liberty—as our national birthright. Whether it means the accumulation of wealth or a more vaguely understood notion of self-fulfillment or self-actualization, happiness has been an inevitable, though elusive, goal. But it is hard to separate "real" happiness from the banal self-help version that embraces mindless positive thinking. And though we have two booming "happiness industries"—religion, with its promise of salvation, and psychopharmacology, with its promise of better living through chemistry—each comes with its own problems and complications. In Seven Pleasures, Willard Spiegelman takes a look at the possibilities for achieving ordinary secular happiness without recourse to either religion or drugs. In this erudite and frequently hilarious book of essays, he discusses seven activities that lead naturally and easily to a sense of well-being. One of these—dancing—requires a partner, and therefore provides a lesson in civility, or good citizenship, as one of its benefits. The other six—reading, walking, looking, listening, swimming, and writing—are things one performs alone. Seven Pleasures is a marvelously engaging guide to the pursuit of happiness, and all its accompanying delights.
Book Synopsis Wicked Pleasures by : Robert C. Solomon
Download or read book Wicked Pleasures written by Robert C. Solomon and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2000-12-20 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seven deadly sins have provided gossip, amusement, and the plots of morality plays for nearly fifteen hundred years. In Wicked Pleasures, well-known philosopher, business ethicist, and admitted sinner Robert C. Solomon brings together a varied group of contributors for a new look at the old catalogue of sins. Solomon introduces the sins as a group, noting their popularity and pervasiveness. From the formation of the canon by Pope Gregory the Great, the seven have survived the sermonizing of the Reformation, the Inquisition, the Enlightenment, the brief French reign of supreme reason, the apotheoses of capitalism, communism, secular humanism and postmodernism, the writings of numerous rabbis and evangelical moralists, two series in the New York Times, and several bad movies. Taking their cue from this remarkable history, the contributors, including Thomas Pynchon, allowed one sin apiece, provide a non-sermonizing and relatively light-hearted romp through the domain of the deadly seven.
Book Synopsis Seven Deadly Pleasures by : Michael Aronovitz
Download or read book Seven Deadly Pleasures written by Michael Aronovitz and published by Hippocampus Press Library of F. This book was released on 2009-08 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each of the seven tales that Michael Aronovitz brings together in his first collection of stories is a powerful, hard-hitting specimen of contemporary weird fiction. From "How Bria Died," which tells of a baleful entity lurking in the bowels of a placid-seeming high school, to "Quest for Sadness," with its searing analysis of an aberrant mind, to "The Legend of the Slither-Shifter," in which a babysitter discovers far more than she expected in an urban household, Aronovitz displays an enviable skill in the handling of supernatural conceptions. The capstone of the collection is a long novella, "Toll Booth," a richly complex tale of death and betrayal among teenagers. Michael Aronovitz is a new voice in horror fiction, but it is one that will be heard far and wide. "Seven Deadly Pleasures is a startlingly good collection. With the assuredness of a born storyteller, Aronovitz rips the bland surface off the everyday to reveal the rolling horrors that lie beneath. These stories are raw with emotion, and the true terror of life, but be careful as they drag you down into the darkness, because you won't return the same."-William Lashner, author of Blood and Bone "Seven Deadly Pleasures is scary smart-more than just monsters and ghosts, these stories are beautifully crafted pieces of writing that tap into the darkest places of the human psyche. Lovers of both beautiful writing and spine-tingling terror will fall in love with this collection."-Dr. Annalisa Castaldo, Widener University "What is impressive about Aronovitz's tales is their range of tone, mood, and substance. . . . His surehandedness in prose, in character portrayal, and in the pacing and development of the short story mark him as a veteran."-From S. T. Joshi's Foreword
Book Synopsis Seven Sins for a Life Worth Living by : Roger Housden
Download or read book Seven Sins for a Life Worth Living written by Roger Housden and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2005-12-06 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Conventional wisdom,” says Roger Housden, “tells us that nobody goes to heaven for having a good time.” Seven Sins for a Life Worth Living, then, is a refreshing, liberating, and decidedly welcome dose of unconventional wisdom that awakens us to the simple delights and transformative joys of the world around us. With elegance, gentle humor, and remarkable openness, Housden takes us along as he recalls his personal journey toward an appreciation of what he calls the Seven Pleasures: The Pleasure of All Five Senses, The Pleasure of Being Foolish,The Pleasure of Not Knowing, The Pleasure of Not Being Perfect, The Pleasure of Doing Nothing Useful, The Pleasure of Being Ordinary, and The Pleasure of Coming Home. Housden writes, for instance, of submitting to the ultimate folly of falling in love, of celebrating our imperfections, of coming to understand the virtues of the Slow Food movement while enjoying an all-afternoon lunch in a small French village, and of discovering in a Saharan cave that, however extraordinary our surroundings, “we are human, a glorious nothing much to speak of”—and learning to be at peace with the notion. Such pleasures may be suspect in today’s achievement-driven, tightly scheduled, relent-lessly self-improving, conspicuously consumptive culture, but surely the greater sin lies in letting them slip away moment by precious moment. “The purpose of this book,” says Housden, “is to inspire you to lighten up and fall in love with the world and all that is in it.” Reading it is a pleasure indeed. “When you die,God and the angels will hold you accountablefor all the pleasures you were allowed in life that you denied yourself.” Roger Housden, author of the bestselling Ten Poems series, presents a joyously affirmative, warmly personal, and spiritually illuminating meditation on the virtues of opening ourselves up to pleasures like being foolish, not being perfect, and doing nothing useful, the pleasure of not knowing, and even (would you believe it?) the pleasure of being ordinary.
Book Synopsis The Seven Sources of Pleasure in Life by : Luciano L'Abate
Download or read book The Seven Sources of Pleasure in Life written by Luciano L'Abate and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Prolific author Luciano L'Abate, PhD, ABEPP, examines at all kinds of pleasures, investigating where we find them, why they appeal to us, and what benefits they provide in terms of both mental and physical health."--Publisher description.
Download or read book ENYA written by Chilly Gonzales and published by Rough Trade Books. This book was released on 2020-11-18 with total page 55 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chilly Gonzales is one of the most exciting, original, hard-to-pin-down musicians of our time. Filling halls worldwide at the piano in his slippers and a bathrobe—in any one night he can be dissecting the musicology of an Oasis hit, giving a sublime solo recital, and displaying his lyrical dexterity as a rapper. In his book about Enya, he asks: Does music have to be smart or does it just have to go to the heart? In dazzling, erudite prose Gonzales delves beyond her innumerable gold discs and millions of fans to excavate his own enthusiasm for Enya's singular music as well as the mysterious musician herself, and along the way uncovers new truths about the nature of music, fame, success and the artistic endeavour.
Book Synopsis The Sixteen Pleasures by : Robert Hellenga
Download or read book The Sixteen Pleasures written by Robert Hellenga and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Art and poetry, mystery and desire collide in this sensual and “elegantly moving” literary romance set in the cobbled streets and painted halls of Florence, Italy (New Yorker). Margot Harrington, an American volunteer in Florence, is an expert at book conservancy. While struggling to save a waterlogged convent library, she comes across a fabulous volume of 16 erotic drawings by Giulio Romano, accompanying 16 steamy sonnets by Pietro Aretino. When first published over 4 centuries ago, the Vatican ordered all copies destroyed. This one—now unique—volume has survived. The abbess prevails upon Margot to save the order’s finances by selling the magnificently illustrated erotica discreetly—meaning without the bishop’s knowledge. Margot’s other clandestine project is a middle-aged Italian who is boldly attempting radical measures to save endangered frescoes. She is 29 and available; he, older and married. He shares her sense of mission and soon her bed in this daring story of spiritual longing and earthly desire.
Book Synopsis The Seven Sources of Pleasure in Life by : Luciano L'Abate
Download or read book The Seven Sources of Pleasure in Life written by Luciano L'Abate and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines a seemingly simple and absolutely essential topic: learning how to enjoy every aspect of your life on a daily basis. All of us look for happiness, well-being, and positivity throughout our lives, but for most people these goals are abstract and the processes established to achieve them ambiguous. The Seven Sources of Pleasure in Life: Making Way for the Upside in the Midst of Modern Demands focuses attention upon the concrete, specific, and everyday sources of pleasure that are within the grasp of almost everyone. Prolific author Luciano L'Abate, PhD, ABEPP, examines at all kinds of pleasures, investigating where we find them, why they appeal to us, and what benefits they provide in terms of both mental and physical health. He explains how to increase our sensitivity to everyday opportunities for pleasure, and then gives tangible techniques to focus upon these moments in order to fully experience them. The author employs personal memories from his childhood in Italy, more recent stories from his travels abroad, and the findings of most recent scientific research on the benefits of pleasure-seeking to further illustrate his points.
Download or read book Still Writing written by Dani Shapiro and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This national bestseller from celebrated novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro is an intimate and eloquent companion to living a creative life. Through a blend of memoir, meditation on the artistic process, and advice on craft, Shapiro offers her gift to writers everywhere: a guide of hard-won wisdom and advice for staying the course. In the ten years since the first edition, Still Writing has become a mainstay of creative writing classes as well as a lodestar for writers just starting out, and above all, an indispensable almanac for modern writers.
Download or read book Small Pleasures written by Clare Chambers and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the best tradition of Tessa Hadley, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ann Patchett—an astonishing, keenly observed period piece about an ordinary British woman in the 1950s whose dutiful life takes a sudden turn into a pitched battle between propriety and unexpected passion. "With wit and dry humor...quietly affecting in unexpected ways. Chambers' language is beautiful, achieving what only the most skilled writers can: big pleasure wrought from small details."--The New York Times LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 1957: Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper in the southeast suburbs of London. Clever but with limited career opportunities and on the brink of forty, Jean lives a dreary existence that includes caring for her demanding widowed mother, who rarely leaves the house. It’s a small life with little joy and no likelihood of escape. That all changes when a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth. Jean seizes onto the bizarre story and sets out to discover whether Gretchen is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys, including Gretchen’s gentle and thoughtful husband Howard, who mostly believes his wife, and their quirky and charming daughter Margaret, who becomes a sort of surrogate child for Jean. Gretchen, too, becomes a much-needed friend in an otherwise empty social life. Jean cannot bring herself to discard what seems like her one chance at happiness, even as the story that she is researching starts to send dark ripples across all their lives…with unimaginable consequences. Both a mystery and a love story, Small Pleasures is a literary tour-de-force in the style of The Remains of the Day, about conflict between personal fulfillment and duty; a novel that celebrates the beauty and potential for joy in all things plain and unfashionable.
Book Synopsis Midnight Pleasures by : Eloisa James
Download or read book Midnight Pleasures written by Eloisa James and published by Dell Publishing Company. This book was released on 2009 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now available in these specially priced editions, these two classic romances by "New York Times"-bestselling author James are sure to delight her legions of devoted fans. Reissue.
Download or read book Automatic Pleasures written by Nic Costa and published by D'Aleman Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book has stood the test of time. Copies of the first edition have over the years regularly sold for many times the cover price. The full color book is once more in print. Since its original publication it has been cited in many academic papers and has since become the definitive work on the subject. It caused embarrassment to the huge American coin machine industry when it was first published in 1988- they were busy celebrating the centenary of the Juke Box in that year as an American invention whereas the book revealed that it was actually an earlier British invention. It awoke huge interest in Japan by giving them long sought answers as to the origins of the Pachinko machine (which at the time was consuming as much as a quarter of the gross domestic product in Japan). As a direct result of the book a new museum was established in the Japanese city of Kobe and for a short while the author became a national celebrity there. The book established many new facts and destroyed many of the myths that had arisen in the gaming industry during the 20th century. Originally an ancient Greek invention, the advent of the coin machine in the 19th century heralded a Victorian revolution which sought to establish a fully automated society. The visionaries of the past are the direct forbears of the all pervasive computer industries -without the gaming and coin machine industries it is doubtful as to whether today's computer dominated age would have ever happened. Most important of all, it is fun to read!
Book Synopsis Deadly Pleasures by : Martin Edwards
Download or read book Deadly Pleasures written by Martin Edwards and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To celebrate the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Jubilee, a collection of original stories from distinguished members of the CWA especially commissioned for this volume An eclectic collection of short stories from the following members of the CWA: SIMON BRETT ANN CLEEVES LIZA CODY LINDSEY DAVIS MARTIN EDWARDS RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS CHRISTOPHER FOWLER JOHN HARVEY DAVID HEWSON ALISON JOSEPH PETER LOVESEY CLAIRE McGOWAN MICHAEL RIDPATH PETER ROBINSON CATH STAINCLIFFE ANDREW TAYLOR CHARLES TODD MARGARET YORKE
Book Synopsis Layla's Happiness by : Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie
Download or read book Layla's Happiness written by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2020-05-25 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seven-year-old Layla loves life! So she keeps a happiness book. What is happiness for her? For you? Spirited and observant, Layla’s a child who’s been given room to grow, making happiness both thoughtful and intimate. It’s her dad talking about growing-up in South Carolina; her mom reading poetry; her best friend Juan, the community garden, and so much more. Written by poet Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie and illustrated by Ashleigh Corrin, this is a story of flourishing within family and community.
Download or read book Lust written by Simon Blackburn and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-02-12 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lust, says Simon Blackburn, is furtive, headlong, always sizing up opportunities. It is a trail of clothing in the hallway, the trashy cousin of love. But be that as it may, the aim of this delightful book is to rescue lust "from the denunciations of old men of the deserts, to deliver it from the pallid and envious confessor and the stocks and pillories of the Puritans, to drag it from the category of sin to that of virtue." Blackburn, author of such popular philosophy books as Think and Being Good, here offers a sharp-edged probe into the heart of lust, blending together insight from some of the world's greatest thinkers on sex, human nature, and our common cultural foibles. Blackburn takes a wide ranging, historical approach, discussing lust as viewed by Aristophanes and Plato, lust in the light of the Stoic mistrust of emotion, and the Christian fear of the flesh that catapulted lust to the level of deadly sin. He describes how philosophical pessimists like Schopenhauer and Sartre contributed to our thinking about lust and explores the false starts in understanding lust represented by Freud, Kinsey, and modern "evolutionary psychology." But most important, Blackburn reminds us that lust is also life-affirming, invigorating, fun. He points to the work of David Hume (Blackburn's favorite philosopher) who saw lust not only as a sensual delight but also "a joy of the mind." Written by one of the most eminent living philosophers, attractively illustrated and colorfully packaged, Lust is a book that anyone would lust over.
Book Synopsis The Existential Pleasures of Engineering by : Samuel C. Florman
Download or read book The Existential Pleasures of Engineering written by Samuel C. Florman and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 1996-02-15 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans have always sought to change their environment--building houses, monuments, temples, and roads. In the process, they have remade the fabric of the world into newly functional objects that are also works of art to be admired. In this second edition of his popular Existential Pleasures of Engineering, Samuel Florman explores how engineers think and feel about their profession. A deeply insightful and refreshingly unique text, this book corrects the myth that engineering is cold and passionless. Indeed, Florman celebrates engineering not only crucial and fundamental but also vital and alive; he views it as a response to some of our deepest impulses, an endeavor rich in spiritual and sensual rewards. Opposing the "anti-technology" stance, Florman gives readers a practical, creative, and even amusing philosophy of engineering that boasts of pride in his craft.