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The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness by Arthur C. BrooksIf you struggle to discern life's meaning, you're not alone. Millions today describe a growing sense of emptiness, a lack of purpose and significance. And there's a reason: Rapid cultural, economic, and technological changes have rewired our brains, reducing their ability to perceive depth and purpose. In The Meaning of Your Life, Arthur C. Brooks shows you how to push back against these changes and find the meaning you need to live a happy, fulfilling life. Relying on cutting-edge science, he offers practical, evidence-based strategies for breaking free of the powerful trends and personal habits that dull your focus. Drawing on the great philosophers and the world's faith traditions, he shows how everyone can approach life's most important and mysterious questions and provides a blueprint that will help even the most skeptical person find a life of spiritual transcendence, passionate love, and true calling.
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London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden KeefeA spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld that lies beneath London's glittering surface. In November 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain's spy agency, captured video of a young man jump into the Thames river. In a quiet London neighborhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried about her son, Zac, who had told her that he had gone to stay with a friend. Days later, two officers relayed the dreadful news: her son was dead. In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband struggled to understand what had happened to Zac. As they would soon discover, however, there was a lot they did not know about their son. Only after his death did they learn that he had adopted a fictitious alter-ego: Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch and heir to a great fortune. As the Brettlers set about investigating their son's death, they were pulled into a more dangerous London than the one they'd always known, and came to believe that something much more nefarious than a suicide had claimed Zac's life. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death and a powerful narrative driven by suspense and staggering revelations. But it is also an intimate and deeply poignant inquiry into the nature of parental love and the challenges of being a parent today.
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The Oracle's Daughter: The Rise and Fall of an American Cult by Harrison HillA gripping chronicle of the rise and fall of a woman-led cult, and the enduring allure of extremism across America's turbulent religious history. One night in 1999, Sarah Green crept out of her house, retrieved a backpack from its hiding place, and ran for her life. She was escaping not only the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps, a paramilitary religious cult operating out of the New Mexico desert, but also the punishments and cruelty of the cult's leader, her mother. In The Oracle's Daughter, Harrison Hill traces the fascinating beginnings and violent end of ACMTC, from its early days as an outgrowth of the 1960s counterculture to its descent into conspiracy-fueled abuse. The Oracle's Daughter illuminates the porous boundary between the fringe and the mainstream, and shows how much more vulnerable we are to extremism than we might like to think.
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Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life by Alex MayyasiMillions of listeners trust Planet Money, the world’s leading economics podcast, to explain the mysterious inner workings of the global economy and the forces that affect nearly every decision we make. Through expert research and delightful stories the Planet Money hosts help everyone see the world like an economist.
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How Black Music Took Over the World by Melvin GibbsWhy do Bob Marley, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, and Nina Simone move us the way they do? What drives the worried notes of the Delta blues? As Melvin Gibbs shows in How Black Music Took Over the World, it is the musical inheritance of Africa. Beginning with two rhythmic building blocks he calls the cell and the frame, Gibbs shows how those tools can transport listeners to a realm where sounds become vehicles for human movement. Gibbs's vantage is unique. A world-class musician fluent in many genres, Gibbs is as comfortable in an old-school Times Square record shop as he is breaking down mathematics and music theory with university professors. Imbued with his own journey and a sharp eye for the sins and triumphs of history, How Black Music Took Over the World is an unforgettable revelation of one of humanity's greatest achievements.
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Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found by Andrew Graham-DixonThis revelatory biography persuasively addresses the two great unresolved questions about Vermeer? Why did he paint his pictures, and what do they mean? Graham-Dixon’s biography is full of revelations. It upends Vermeer's enigmatic reputation and depicts him instead as a pioneer of the early Enlightenment, a pacifist who was deeply affected by the wars and religious conflicts of the Dutch Republic and allied to a radical movement driven underground by persecution. In Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found, Dixon does what countless art historians and scholars before him failed to: he brings Johannes Vermeer out of the shadows and into the light.
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More than fifteen years after Parks and Recreation premiered, it has become a streaming and pop culture staple. It's beloved for its jokes, characters, and expressions--the show even created a now widely observed holiday, Galentine's Day. How did it all happen and how did the show transform from a ratings disappointment into a cult classic? Pop culture historian Jennifer Keishin Armstrong reveals all this and more in the definitive history of the show, which is as full of humor, optimism, and heart as Parks and Recreation itself. |
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Nightfaring: In Search of the Disappearing Darkness by Megan Eaves-EgenesA heartfelt exploration of the night on Earth, following a travel journalist and dark sky advocate around the globe as she seeks out dark places in our ever-brightening world. People, plants and animals all depend on the natural night--both its darkness and its starlight--for so much, from regulating our sleep cycles to providing the inspiration for myths and legends across the millennia. But darkness is disappearing, and with it, our view of the stars. As the dark becomes ever more elusive, it is a critical moment to stop, look up, and consider what we lose with the disappearing stars. Blending travel and nature writing with history and self-discovery, Megan writes of how the stars have helped her chart the course of her own life, just as they've guided humankind for as long as we've slept beneath them.
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