Why spiritual and supernatural yearnings, even investigations into the occult, flourished in the era of rationalist philosophy.In The Dark Side of the Enlightenment, John V. Fleming shows how the impulses of the European Enlightenment—generally associated with great strides in the liberation of human thought from superstition and traditional religion—were challenged by tenacious religious ideas or channeled into the “darker” pursuits of the esoteric and the occult. His eng...

The books altered the course of history; the lives behind them have the dark fascination of fiction.The subject of The Anti-Communist Manifestos is four influential books that informed the great political struggle known as the Cold War: Darkness at Noon (1940), by Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian journalist and polymath intellectual; Out of the Night (1941), by Jan Valtin, a German sailor and labor agitator; I Chose Freedom (1946), b...

This is a powerful and a thrilling narrative history revealing the roots of modern science in the medieval world. The adjective 'medieval' has become a synonym for brutality and uncivilized behavior. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution. In "God's Philosophers", James Hannam debunks many of the myths about the Middle Ages, showing that medieval people did not think the earth is flat, nor did Columbus 'prove' that...

Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has been a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He has been both a socialist opposed to the war in Vietnam and a supporter of the U.S. war against Islamic extremism in Iraq. He has been both a foreign correspondent in some of the world's most dangerous places and a legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and literature. He is a fervent atheist, raised as a Christian, by a mother whose Jewish her...

**Finalist for the 2014 Man Booker Prize“J is a snarling, effervescent, and ambitious philosophical work of fiction that poses unsettling questions about our sense of history, and our self-satisfied orthodoxies. Jacobson’s triumph is to craft a novel that is poignant as well as troubling from the debris.” —Independent (UK)**Man Booker Prize–winner Howard Jacobson’s brilliant and profound new novel, J, “invites comparison with George Orwell’s 1...

On June 8, 2010, while on a book tour for his bestselling memoir, Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens was stricken in his New York hotel room with excruciating pain in his chest and thorax. As he would later write in the first of a series of award-winning columns for Vanity Fair, he suddenly found himself being deported "from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady." Over the next eighteen months, until his death in Houston on December 15, 20...

“[A] tale of power, perseverance and passion . . . a great story in the hands of a master storyteller.”—The Wall Street JournalThe Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure German princess who became one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history. Born into a minor noble fa...

From the New York Times bestselling author of The End of Faith, a thought-provoking, “brilliant and witty” (Oliver Sacks) look at the notion of free will—and the implications that it is an illusion.A belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagini...

A provocative, personally curated anthology of the most influential writings on atheism, from the New York Times bestselling author of God Is Not Great**.**The Portable Atheist is an entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages—with never-before-published pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERINTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERIn this seminal text on atheism and the contentious debate over science and religion, renowned scientist Richard Dawkins examines the irrationality of believing in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society.From the sex-obsessed tyrant in the Old Testament to the more benign Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers, Dawkins rigorously analyzes God in all his forms, eviscerating the m...

**#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Experience the book that started the Quiet Movement and revolutionized how the world sees introverts—and how introverts see themselves—by offering validation, inclusion, and inspiration“Superbly researched, deeply insightful, and a fascinating read, Quiet is an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to understand the gifts of the introverted half of the population.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project**

1 The Wonderful Wizard of OzDorothy and her little dog, Toto, get swept into the Land of Oz by a cyclone. She meets a living Scarecrow, a man made entirely of tin, and a Cowardly Lion while trying to get to the Emerald City to see the great Wizard. Also reprinted by various publishers under the names The New Wizard of Oz and The Wizard of Oz with occasional minor changes in the text. It was originally written as a one-shot book.2 The Marvelous Land of Oz 1904A little...