In June of 1842, Edgar Allan Poe took up his pen to broach a delicate subject with an old friend. “Have I offended you by any of my evil deeds?” he asked. “If so, how? Time was when you could spare a few minutes occasionally for communion with a friend.”
by Jill Murphy "The children were having breakfast..."
Mrs. Large determines to have just five minutes' peace from the mess and confusion of her beloved children. She fixes herself a tray, runs a tub of lovely warm water, fills it with bubble bath, and hopes for those precious moments alone before facing the day's activities. The "activities'' follow her to the bathroom, where, one by one, they present her with their special talents of playing the recorder, reading aloud, and dumping favorite toys from the toy box into the tub with her.
In Plato in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Plato's life and ideas and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes selections from Plato's work, a brief list of suggested reading for those who wish to delve deeper, and chronologies that place Plato within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy.
In an age when philosophers had scarcely glimpsed the horizons of the mind, a boy named Aristocles decided to forgo his ambitions as a wrestler. Adopting the nickname Plato, he embarked instead on a life in philosophy. In 387 B.C. he founded the Academy, the world's first university, and taught his students that all we see is not reality but merely a reproduction of the true source. And in his famous Republic he described the politics of "the highest form of state."
Witold Gombrowicz “A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes"
Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969), novelist, essayist, and playwright, was one of the most important Polish writers of the twentieth century. A candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, he was described by Milan Kundera as “one of the great novelists of our century” and by John Updike as “one of the profoundest of the late moderns.”
Gombrowicz’s works were considered scandalous and subversive by the ruling powers in Poland and were banned for nearly forty years. He spent his last years in France teaching philosophy; this book is a series of reflections based on his lectures. Gombrowicz discusses Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Heidegger in six “one-hour” essays and addresses Marxism in a shorter “fifteen-minute” piece. The text—a small literary gem full of sardonic wit, brilliant insights, and provocative criticism—constructs the philosophical lineage of his work.
Added by: Maria | Karma: 3098.81 | Audiobooks | 28 April 2008
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Probably the easiest introduction to existentialism you'll ever find, Sartre in 90 Minutes manages to produce an intellectually credible, and slyly humorous, summary of Jean Paul Sartre's life and work.