Will I love The Gay Science?

This is the most readable philosophy book I know. Nietzsche wrote it in his brilliantly witty, epigrammatic style. Each episode is about a page long.

Concentrate on "Book Four." There, Nietzsche famously tells us that God is dead. Find out what he really means. (We criticize everything and can feel no true reverence.) Consequently, we seek convenience and flexibility over and over again. Stunningly, Nietzsche sets out four contrarian, incompatible good lives. (Philosophers have always sought to define one good life.)

If you read nothing else, read epigrams 290, 295, and 303: "The life of constant revision to perfect a… show more.

Alchemists pretended to have magic that could control nature until their immature discipline evolved into chemistry, a science that actually can do amazing things to improve our state. Nietzsche asks this SAT analogy question: chemistry is to alchemy, as what is to philosophy and religion? What could evolve from those pretenders that could actually be beneficial, using the same kind of tools but sharpened, honed, perfected? His answer: the joyous, frolicking wisdom he fills this book with. This is where he pronounces the death of God and the birth of humanity, as well as the Eternal Return of the… show more.