Showing titles in Consciousness & Thought

Joseph Campbell famously compared mythology to a kangaroo pouch for the human mind and spirit: “a womb with a view.” In Myths to Live By, he examines all of the ways in which myth supports and guides us, giving our lives meaning. Love and war, science and religion, East and West, inner space and outer space - Campbell shows how the myths we live by can reconcile all of these pairs of opposites and bring a sense of the whole.

Brought to you by Penguin. What is the best way to age well and live longer? For decades, millions of people have tried to crack the secret of time and how to withstand it. The question affects the way we eat, treatments we invest in, and expensive packages sold by online gurus offering magical...

The modern world can be a complicated, frenzied, and noisy place, filled with too many options, products, ideas and opinions. That explains why what many of us long for is simplicity: a life that can be more pared down, peaceful, and focused on the essentials. But finding simplicity is not always easy; it isn’t just a case of emptying out our closets or trimming back commitments in our diaries. True simplicity requires that we understand the roots of our distractions – and develop a canny respect for the stubborn reasons why things can grow complex and overwhelming.

'What is so appealing about the ideas in this book is that we could pivot coffee from being the driving force behind excessive hours and a poor work-life balance into being a drink that lets us contemplate meaning and purpose in a different way.' James Hoffmann, author of the Sunday Times...

True power is living the realization that you are your own healer, hero, and leader. Inward is a collection of poetry, quotes, and prose that explores the movement from self-love to unconditional love, the power of letting go, and the wisdom that comes when we truly try to know ourselves. It serves as a reminder to the listener that healing, transformation, and freedom are possible.

Inside this brilliant three-in-one book collection, you’ll uncover a wealth of philosophical insights about truth, faith, and the universe around us. Drawing on the arguments and musings of the famed philosopher, David Hume, this book reveals his ideas on the questions that define our very existence. Brought to life in this collection for a modern audience David Hume’s work has stood the test of time to resonate with people across the ages.

Jay Garfield, a leading expert on Buddhist philosophy, offers a brief and radically clear account of an idea that at first might seem frightening but that promises to liberate us and improve our lives, our relationships, and the world. Drawing on Indian and East Asian Buddhism, Daoism, Western philosophy, and cognitive neuroscience, Garfield shows why it is perfectly natural to think you have a self—and why it actually makes no sense at all and is even dangerous. Most importantly, he explains why shedding the illusion that you have a self can make you a better person.

“A faithful translation is rare; a translation which preserves intact the original text is very rare; a perfect translation of Montaigne appears impossible. Yet Donald Frame has realized this feat. One does not seem to be reading a translation, so smooth and easy is the style; at each moment...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Silence by Erling Kagge, read by Atli Gunnarsson. Behind a cacophony of traffic noise, iPhone alerts and our ever-spinning thoughts, an elusive notion - silence - lies in wait. But what really is silence? Where can it be found? And why is it more...

Discover Your Spiritual Potential in the Non-Physical Dimensions You're resting on your couch, when suddenly you realize that you're looking at yourself… from beyond your physical body. If you've ever had an out-of-body experience (or OBE), you know it can be a memorable—even...

Unforbidden Pleasures is the dazzling new release from Adam Phillips, author of Missing Out and Going Sane. Adam Phillips takes Oscar Wilde as a springboard for a deep dive into the meanings and importance of the unforbidden, from the fall of our 'first parents', Adam and Eve, to the work of the great 20th-century psychoanalytic thinkers.

'Brilliant. Searching and profound' E.H. Carr, Times Literary Supplement 'When reading Isaiah Berlin we breathe an altogether different air' New York Review of Books 'Beautifully written' W. H. Auden, New Yorker 'Ingenious. Exactly what good critical writing should be' Max Beloff, Guardian The...

The creation of the microprocessor launched the digital age. The key technology allowing unprecedented integration, and the design of the world’s first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, were the achievement of Federico Faggin. In Silicon, internationally recognized inventor and entrepreneur Federico Faggin chronicles his “four lives”: his formative years in war-torn Northern Italy, his pioneering work in American microelectronics, his successful career as a high-tech entrepreneur, and his more recent explorations into the mysteries of consciousness.

We live in truly overwhelming times. The climate crisis, the pandemic, AI advances, conspiracy theories, political polarization, and the rest has left many of us in a state of "spiritual PTSD", feeling disconnected from one another, our values, and our joy. In this radical spiritual guidebook, New York Times best-selling author Sarah Wilson puts on her backpack and spends three years hiking around the world—in Jordan, Cornwall, the Lake District, the Australian Outback, Japan, the Sierra Nevada, and beyond—to find a path through it all.

The concept of self-care is, in fact, thousands of years old. This buzzword is rooted in a 2,500-year old Chinese philosophy. Yang sheng means to nourish life fostering your own health and wellbeing by nurturing body, mind and spirit. In this book, Katie Brindle teaches readers how to harness...

A Brief History of Everything is an altogether friendly and accessible account of men and women's place in a universe of sex, soul, and spirit, written by an author of whom New York Times reporter Tony Schwartz says: "No one has described the path to wisdom better than Ken Wilber." Wilber...

'Mind blowingly brilliant' PHILIPPA PERRY 'Few other writers have such passion for granular detail, intellectual heft and boundless curiosity' THE TIMES 'As suspenseful and pacy as an episode of peak-era ER' GUARDIAN A near-fatal health emergency leads to this powerful reflection on death—and...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Love for Imperfect Things by Haemin Sunim, read by Raymond Lee. No one is perfect. But that doesn't stop us from imagining ourselves smarter, funnier, richer, or thinner, and how much happier we would then be. Love for Imperfect Things, by the...

Abraham H. Maslow was one of the foremost spokespersons of humanistic psychology. In The Farthest Reaches of Human Nature, an extension of his classic Toward a Psychology of Being, Maslow explores the complexities of human nature by using both the empirical methods of science and the aesthetics of philosophical inquiry. With essays on biology, synergy, creativity, cognition, self-actualization, and the hierarchy of needs, this posthumous work is a wide-ranging synthesis of Maslow's inspiring and influential ideas.

On those long nights when your mind is racing and the clock slowly ticks its way to dawn, sleep seems unattainable and precious. The three sessions on this audiobook offer time-honoured skills from the yoga tradition that will help you to enjoy a natural, nourishing night’s sleep. In the first session you learn to calm your mind and relax your body using a deep breathing technique with visualisations. The second session is a deep relaxation practice known as yoga nidra, or psychic sleep. It is used here as a self-hypnosis strategy for inducing sleep.