A landmark volume in science writing by one of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking’s book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin—and what made its start possible? Does time always flow forward? Is the universe unending—or are there boundaries? Are there other dimensions in space? What will happen when it all ends?

Told in language we all can understand A Brief History of Time plunges into the exotic realms of black holes and quarks, of antimatter and “arrows of time,” of the big bang and a bigger God—where the possibilities are wondrous and unexpected.

Why does God exist? How have the three dominant monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—shaped and altered the conception of God? How have these religions influenced each other?

In this stunningly intelligent book, Karen Armstrong, one of Britain’s foremost commentators on religious affairs, traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present.

From classical philosophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, Karen Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one superbly readable volume, destined to take its place as a classic.

With its unique combination of depth, clarity, and humor that has enchanted millions, this beloved classic by bestselling author Gary Zukav opens the fascinating world of quantum physics to readers with no mathematical or technical background.

“Wu Li” is the Chinese phrase for physics. It means “patterns of organic energy,” but it also means “nonsense,” “my way,” “I clutch my ideas,” and “enlightenment.” These captivating ideas frame Zukav’s evocative exploration of quantum mechanics and relativity theory.

Delightfully easy to read, The Dancing Wu Li Masters illuminates the compelling powers at the core of all we know.

Dhammapada means “the path of dharma,” the path of harmony and righteousness that anyone can follow to reach the highest good. The Dhammapada is a collection of verses, gathered probably from direct disciples who wanted to preserve what they had heard from the Buddha himself.

Easwaran’s comprehensive introduction to the Dhammapada gives an overview of the Buddha’s teachings that is penetrating, and clear – accessible for readers new to Buddhism, but also with fresh insights and practical applications for readers familiar with this text. Chapter introductions, notes and a Sanskrit glossary place individual verses into the context of the broader Buddhist canon.

This inspiring tale provides a step-by-step approach to living with greater courage, balance, abundance, and joy. A wonderfully crafted fable, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari tells the extraordinary story of Julian Mantle, a lawyer forced to confront the spiritual crisis of his out-of-balance life. On a life-changing odyssey to an ancient culture, he discovers powerful, wise, and practical lessons that teach us to:

Develop Joyful Thoughts

Follow Our Life’s Mission and Calling

Cultivate Self-Discipline and Act Courageously

Value Time as Our Most Important Commodity

Nourish Our Relationships

Live Fully, One Day at a Time.

The book draws from a variety of “spiritual traditions”, and has been described by one reviewer as “Buddhism mixed with mysticism and a few references to Jesus Christ, a sort of New Age re-working of Zen.”

It uses these traditions to describe a “belief system based on living in the present moment”. Its core message is that people’s emotional problems are rooted in their identification with their minds.

The author writes that an individual should be aware of their “present moment” instead of losing themselves in worry and anxiety about the past or future.

The revolutionary literary vision that sowed the seeds of Objectivism, Ayn Rand’s groundbreaking philosophy, and brought her immediate worldwide acclaim.

This modern classic is the story of intransigent young architect Howard Roark, whose integrity was as unyielding as granite…of Dominique Francon, the exquisitely beautiful woman who loved Roark passionately, but married his worst enemy…and of the fanatic denunciation unleashed by an enraged society against a great creator.

As fresh today as it was then, Rand’s provocative novel presents one of the most challenging ideas in all of fiction—that man’s ego is the fountainhead of human progress..

The Last Days of Socrates is a series of four dialogues by Plato which describe the trial and death of Socrates in 403 B.C. The trial of Socrates for heresy and the corruption of youth gives Plato the opportunity to develop and present his own philosophy of the responsibility of the individual for his actions and their effect on their community as well as his belief in the immortality of the soul.

In The Apology, Plato uses his dialogues to tell the story of the trial of Socrates as he energetically defends himself against the charges of heresy and corruption of youth. As Socrates tears into his accusers, he logically proves his point each man has responsibility for his own actions.

After his time in the camps Dostoevsky returned to write The House of the Dead. The novel incorporates several of the horrifying experiences he witnessed while in prison. He recalls the guards’ brutality and relish performing unspeakably cruel acts, the crimes that the convicted criminals committed, and the fact that blended amid these great brutes were good and decent individuals.

However, he is also astonished at the convicts’ abilities to commit murders without the slightest change in conscience. It was a stark contrast with his own heightened sensitivity. During this time in prison he began experiencing the epileptic seizures that would plague him for the rest of his life..

Dedicated as few men have been to the life of reason, Bertrand Russell has always been concerned with the basic questions to which religion also addresses itself—questions about man’s place in the universe and the nature of the good life, questions that involve life after death, morality, freedom, education, and sexual ethics.

He brings to his treatment of these questions the same courage, scrupulous logic, and lofty wisdom for which his other work as philosopher, writer, and teacher has been famous. These qualities make the essays included in this book perhaps the most graceful and moving presentation of the freethinker’s position since the days of Hume and Voltaire.

One of the caches of codices and manuscripts discovered in Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Thomas, unlike the canonical gospels, does not contain a narrative recording Christ’s life and prophecies. Instead it is a collection of his teachings–what he actually said. These 114 logia, or sayings, were collected by Judas Didymus Thomas, whom some claim to be Jesus’s closest disciple.

No sooner was this gospel uncovered from the sands of Upper Egypt than scholars and theologians began to bury it anew in a host of conflicting interpretations and polemics. While some say it is a hodgepodge from the canonical gospels, for others it is the source text from which all the gospel writers drew their material and inspiration.

Based on newly released personal letters of Einstein, this book explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk—a struggling father in a difficult marriage who couldn’t get a teaching job or a doctorate—became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos, the locksmith of the mysteries of the atom, and the universe.

His success came from questioning conventional wisdom and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane. This led him to embrace a morality and politics based on respect for free minds, free spirits, and free individuals.

In this comprehensive and practical guide, the secrets of the ancient science of Tantra become available to a contemporary audience. Confined to small, hidden mystery schools for centuries, and often misunderstood and misinterpreted today.

Tantra is not just a collection of techniques to enhance sexual experience. As Osho shows in these pages, it is a complete science of self-realization, based on the cumulative wisdom of centuries of exploration into the meaning of life and consciousness.

Tantra―the very word means “technique”―is a set of powerful, transformative tools that can be used to bring new meaning and joy to every aspect of our daily lives.

A preeminent scientist — and the world’s most prominent atheist — asserts the irrationality of belief in God and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11.

With rigor and wit, Dawkins examines God in all his forms, from the sex-obsessed tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign (but still illogical) Celestial Watchmaker favored by some Enlightenment thinkers.

He eviscerates the major arguments for religion and demonstrates the supreme improbability of a supreme being. He shows how religion fuels war, foments bigotry, and abuses children, buttressing his points with historical and contemporary evidence.

Perhaps no figure in biblical scholarship has been the subject of more controversy and debate than Mary Magdalene. Also known as Miriam of Magdala, Mary Magdalene was considered by the apostle John to be the founder of Christianity because she was the first witness to the Resurrection.

In most theological studies she has been depicted as a reformed prostitute, the redeemed sinner who exemplifies Christ’s mercy. Today’s reader can ponder her role in the gospels of Philip, Thomas, Peter, and Bartholomew–the collection of what have come to be known as the Gnostic gospels rejected by the early Christian church. Mary’s own gospel is among these, but until now it has remained unknown to the public at large.

In a bold and moving book that is sure to spark heated debate, the novelist and cultural critic James Carroll maps the profoundly troubling two-thousand-year course of the Church’s battle against Judaism and faces the crisis of faith it has provoked in his own life as a Catholic.

More than a chronicle of religion, this dark history is the central tragedy of Western civilization, its fault lines reaching deep into our culture. The Church’s failure to protest the Holocaust — the infamous “silence” of Pius XII — is only part of the story: the death camps, Carroll shows, are the culmination of a long, entrenched tradition of anti-Judaism..

Five hundred years ago Michelangelo began work on a painting that became one of the most famous pieces of art in the world—the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Every year millions of people come to see Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling, which is the largest fresco painting on earth in the holiest of Christianity’s chapels; yet there is not one single Christian image in this vast, magnificent artwork.

The Sistine Secrets tells the fascinating story of how Michelangelo embedded messages of brotherhood, tolerance, and freethinking in his painting to encourage “fellow travelers” to challenge the repressive Roman Catholic Church of his time.

Is evolution fact or fancy? Is natural selection an unsupported hypothesis or a confirmed mechanism of evolutionary change? These were the courageous questions that professor of law Phillip Johnson originally took up in 1991.

His relentless pursuit to follow the evidence wherever it leads remains as relevant today as then. The facts and the logic of the arguments that purport to establish a theory of evolution based on Darwinian principles, says Johnson, continue to draw their strength from faith–faith in philosophical naturalism.

In this edition Johnson responds to critics of the first edition and maintains that scientists have put the cart before the horse, regarding as scientific fact what really should be regarded as a yet unproved hypothesis.

Moving from the Paleolithic age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the great lengths to which humankind has gone in order to experience a sacred reality that it called by many names, such as God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao.

Focusing especially on Christianity but including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Chinese spiritualities, Armstrong examines the diminished impulse toward religion in our own time, when a significant number of people either want nothing to do with God or question the efficacy of faith.

Why has God become unbelievable? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors?..

A classic Chinese text dating from the 6th century BC, the “Tao Te Ching” or “Book of the Way” consists of 81 short poems that unfold the spiritual nature of Taoism, one of the ancient Chinese religions. In describing the universal life force implicit in all things, this work shows readers a path that teaches contentment and balance.

The simple language of Lao Tzu’s manual on the art of living, essentially encourages being humble, temperate, and considerate in the face of life’s predicaments. The wisdom of being a part of the Tao leads to a serenity of spirit that improves all aspects of human life, from the demands of work and family, to the dealing with life’s joys and difficulties..

In this boldest book since rescuing the Bible from fundamentalism, Bishop John Shelby Spong offers a compelling view of the Gospels as thoroughly Jewish texts. Spong powerfully argues that many of the key Gospel accounts of events in the life of Jesus; from the stories of his birth to his physical resurrection; are not literally true.

 He offers convincing evidence that the Gospels are a collection of Jewish midrashic stories written to convey the significance of Jesus. This remarkable discovery brings us closer to how Jesus was really understood in his day and should be in ours.

Walden by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau is a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance.

First published in 1854, it details Thoreau’s experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts.

The book compresses the time into a single calendar year and uses passages of four seasons to symbolize human development. By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through personal introspection..

The Analects are a collection of Confucius’s sayings brought together by his pupils shortly after his death in 497 BC. Together they express a philosophy, or a moral code, by which Confucius, one of the most humane thinkers of all time, believed everyone should live.

Upholding the ideals of wisdom, self-knowledge, courage and love of one’s fellow man, he argued that the pursuit of virtue should be every individual’s supreme goal. And, while following the Way, or the truth, might not result in immediate or material gain, Confucius showed that it could nevertheless bring its own powerful and lasting spiritual rewards.

A Bengali poet and mystic, Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) had long been loved and admired in India, but it was not until the publication of his own English translation of more than a hundred of his Bengali poems in 1913 that he achieved international fame — and a Nobel Prize.

Comprised of moving, heartfelt prose poems reminiscent of Blake and Gibran — many almost biblical in their rhythms, phrasings, and images — Gitanjali (Song Offerings) was inspired by medieval Indian lyrics of devotion in which the principal subject is love, through some poems detail the internal conflict between spiritual longings and earthly desires, and others depict images drawn from nature..

Yoga focuses on meditation, pose, breath, and overall control over the mind and body. In this practice comes the road to enlightenment, and understanding of karma and reincarnation, and the explanation of the external mind-images in comparison to the true self and eternal wisdom that connects everything.

It is through continued practice and dedication in meditation and the other methods of seeing beyond the external that the sacred text expands spiritual knowledge. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is one of the main sources of inspiration for these practices.

In his highly acclaimed style, historian Paul Johnson masterfully disentangles centuries of scarce sources to offer a riveting account of Socrates, who is often hailed as the most important thinker of all time.

Johnson provides a compelling picture of Athens in the fifth century BCE, and of the people Socrates reciprocally delighted in, as well as many enlightening and intimate analyses of specific aspects of his personality.

Enchantingly portraying “the sheer power of Socrates’s mind, and its unique combination of steel, subtlety, and frivolity,” Paul Johnson captures the vast and intriguing life of a man who did nothing less than supply the basic apparatus of the human mind.

The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate.

This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.

When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter “Y2K to March 2004,” what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world’s two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization? And with this “flattening” of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?

This is a truly wonderful collection of the spiritual poetry of the great Persian poet Jelaluddin Rumi (1207 – 1273). American poet Coleman Barks, working with translations from the Persian by John Moyne, A. J. Arberry, and Reynold Nicholson, gives us Rumi’s startling images and ecstatic outpourings with a contemporary cadence and import.

For seven centuries, Rumi’s poetry and teaching stories have enchanted, inspired, and enlightened Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists alike. His output is impressive — he composed 3500 odes, 2000 quatrains, and an epic six-volume poem titled Mathnawi. In this watershed work, Coleman Barks presents the best of his translations collected from over a decade of focusing on the poet’s work..

A candid recreation of one of the most influential lives of recent times, Mohandas finally answers questions long asked about the timid youth from India’s west coast who became a century’s conscience and led his nation to liberty.

What was Gandhi like in his daily life and in his closest relationships? In his face-offs with an Empire, with his own bitterly divided people, with his adversaries, his family and his greatest confrontation with himself? Answering these and other questions, and releasing the true Gandhi from his shroud of fame and myth, Mohandas, authored by a practiced biographer who is also Gandhi s grandson, does more than tell a story.

Considered to be one of the most important philosophical works of all time, the History of Western Philosophy is a dazzlingly unique exploration of the ideologies of significant philosophers throughout the ages—from Plato and Aristotle through to Spinoza, Kant and the twentieth century.

Written by a man who changed the history of philosophy himself, this is an account that has never been rivaled since its first publication over sixty years ago.

Since its first publication in 1945, Lord Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy is still unparalleled in its comprehensiveness, its clarity, its erudition, its grace, and its wit. In seventy-six chapters he traces philosophy from the rise of Greek civilization to the emergence of logical analysis in the twentieth century.

Richard Bach is kind and gentle and stubborn as rocks about his writing. His books are visions of why we’re here and where we’re going, ideas that change lives, and he hides them behind titles so modest that nobody can tell what they’re about:

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Illusions

One

These are not life-changing titles.

“If a reader is meant to find my books,” he insists, “she’ll find them wherever they’re hidden.”

It is estimated that the origins of the “Bhagavad-gita”, a 700 verse Hindu scripture which is part of the larger “Mahabharata” was originally composed as early as the 9th century BC. Ascribed to the Sage Vyasa, the “Bhagavad-gita” is a classic work of Hindu scripture which relates the story of Prince Arjuna who is faced with a decision with serious moral consequence, whether or not to go to war.

With the armies arrayed on the battlefield, Arjuna in a moment of hesitation is counseled by Vishnu, the Supreme God, who takes the form of Krishna wearing the disguise of a charioteer. This work along with its larger counterpart the “Mahabharata” has been described as one of the most important works of scripture ever composed.

In the ancient wisdom texts called the Upanishads, illumined sages share flashes of insight, the results of their investigation into consciousness itself. In extraordinary visions, they have direct experience of a transcendent Reality which is the essence, or Self, of each created being. They teach that each of us, each Self, is eternal, deathless, one with the power that created the universe.

Easwaran’s best-selling translation is reliable and readable. It includes an overview of the cultural and historical setting, with chapter introductions, notes, and a Sanskrit glossary. But it is Easwaran’s understanding of the wisdom of the Upanishads that makes this edition truly outstanding.

The book tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with daily squabbles over food. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself, learning everything he can about flying, until finally his unwillingness to conform results in his expulsion.

An outcast, he continues to learn, becoming increasingly pleased with his abilities as he leads a peaceful and happy life. One day, Jonathan meets two gulls who take him to a “higher plane of existence” in which there is no heaven but a better world found through perfection of knowledge.

There he meets another seagull who loves to fly. He discovers that his sheer tenacity and desire to learn make him “pretty well a one-in-a-million bird.”

Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who formulates a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money.

Before the killing, Raskolnikov believes that with the money he could liberate himself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds. However, once it is done he finds himself racked with confusion, paranoia, and disgust for what he has done.

His moral justifications disintegrate completely as he struggles with guilt and horror and confronts the real-world consequences of his deed.

Malcolm describes the main subject of his book as “thin-slicing”: our ability to use limited information from a very narrow period of experience to come to a conclusion. This idea suggests that spontaneous decisions are often as good as—or even better than—carefully planned and considered ones.

To reinforce his ideas, Gladwell draws from a wide range of examples from science and medicine (including malpractice suits), sales and advertising, gambling, speed dating (and predicting divorce), tennis, military war games, and the movies and popular music..