This is a succinct, gripping novel about memory and its unreliability. It looks at the power of the narratives we construct to explain our lives and ourselves to ourselves.
Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2011
Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life.
Now Tony is in middle age. He's had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He's certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer's letter is…
This book made me feel better about how much I value time alone. It highlights the minority status of introverts, and points out the bias in our culture that equates being alone with loneliness. A delightful, empowering read!
The Buddha. Rene Descartes. Emily Dickinson. Greta Garbo. Bobby Fischer. J. D. Salinger: Loners, all,along with as many as 25 percent of the world's population. Loners keep to themselves, and like it that way. Yet in the press, in films, in folklore, and nearly everywhere one looks, loners are tagged as losers and psychopaths, perverts and pity cases, ogres and mad bombers, elitists and wicked witches. Too often, loners buy into those messages and strive to change, making themselves miserable in the process by hiding their true nature,and hiding from it. Loners as a group deserve to be reassessed,to claim…
Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest as well as a paleontologist. He does an amazing job reconciling scientific and spiritual perspectives. He introduces the “noosphere,” a sphere of human consciousness that emerges from the biosphere of our planet. It is part of nature. Legal, educational, research, technological, and philosophical systems are all part of the noosphere, which emerges over time from the interaction of human minds. It reminded me of Jung’s unus mundus and its archetypes. It also evoked the internet!
Visionary theologian and evolutionary theorist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect, and his great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile religion with the scientific theory of evolution. In this timeless book, which contains the quintessence of his thought, Teilhard argues that just as living organisms sprung from inorganic matter and evolved into ever more complex thinking beings, humans are evolving toward an "omega point"—defined by Teilhard as a convergence with the Divine.
A guide to thinking about thinking, this book will help you change your relationship to troubling thoughts. It guides you through identifying obsessive thinking, and letting go of your struggles with these thoughts by experiencing them more clearly as just thoughts. It offers ways to connect more fully with what is real and of value in your life.
