This great classic is still unrivalled for its clear, detailed presentation of thousands of fundamental features of the human figure. Every element of the body (such as the overhang of the upper lip; the puckering at the corners of the mouth; the...
"Charles Van Doren has laid a feast before all of us that is irresistible." --Mortimer J. Adler
This engaging love letter to reading follows the great authors and classics that transformed the world--from Aristotle and Herodotus in ancient Greece to...
Footbinding for women on China was a curious, painful custom that deformed the foot and kept it from growing more than a few inches in length. This practice may have begun in the tenth century as a whim of the Imperial court; by the twelfth century,...
Deep down, most people think that happiness comes from having or doing something. Here, in Alan Watts's groundbreaking second book (originally published in 1940), he offers a more challenging thesis: authentic happiness comes from embracing life as...
The news is everywhere. We can’t stop constantly checking it on our computer screens, but what is this doing to our minds?
We are never really taught how to make sense of the torrent of news we face every day, writes Alain de Botton...
Latin poetry begins where almost all poetry begins—in the rude ceremonial of a primitive people placating an unknown and dreaded spiritual world. The earliest fragments are priestly incantations. In one of these fragments the Salii placate...
In Victorian England, with the country swept up in the Industrial Revolution, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, close to William Morris Arts and Crafts movement, yearned for a return to bygone values. Wishing to revive the pure and noble forms of...