The Tyranny of Architecture is a full philosophical defense of veganism, one that defends the practice in a way fundamentally unique among such arguments. It makes the case that in a human society built on artificial constructs, the only demonstrable ethics not part of an imagined community is that of respecting the right to life and contentment, construed for farmed animals as adequate food, space, and other basic amenities, along with the right not to be tortured and killed for the unnecessary whims of humans existing mentally within a subset of artificial constructs that do not include those nonhuman animals.

A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.

Die Wise does not offer seven steps for coping with death. It does not suggest ways to make dying easier. It pours no honey to make the medicine go down. Instead, with lyrical prose, deep wisdom, and stories from his two decades of working with dying people and their families, Stephen Jenkinson places death at the center of the page and asks us to behold it in all its painful beauty. Die Wise teaches the skills of dying, skills that have to be learned in the course of living deeply and well. Die Wise is for those who will fail to live forever. Dying well, Jenkinson writes, is a right and responsibility of everyone. It is not a lifestyle option. It is a moral, political, and spiritual obligation each person owes their ancestors and their heirs. Die Wise dreams such a dream, and plots such an uprising. How we die, how we care for dying people, and how we carry our dead: this work makes our capacity for a village-mindedness, or breaks it. Table of Contents The Ordeal of a Managed Death Stealing Meaning from Dying The Tyrant Hope The Quality of Life Yes, But Not Like This The Work So Who Are the Dying to You? Dying Facing Home What Dying Asks of Us All Kids Ah, My Friend the Enemy

"What corporations fear most are consumers who ask questions. Naomi Klein offers us the arguments with which to take on the superbrands." Billy Bragg from the bookjacket.

Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.

A bold vision of liberal humanism for navigating today’s complex world of growing identity politics and rising nationalism Collective identities such as race, nationality, religion, gender, and sexuality clamor for recognition and respect, sometimes at the expense of other things we value. To what extent do they constrain our freedom, and to what extent do they enable our individuality? Is diversity of value in itself? Has the rhetoric of human rights been overstretched? Kwame Anthony Appiah draws on thinkers through the ages and across the globe to explore such questions, developing an account of ethics that connects moral obligations with collective allegiances and that takes aim at clichés and received ideas about identity. This classic book takes seriously both the claims of individuality—the task of making a life—and the claims of identity, these large and often abstract social categories through which we define ourselves.

The story of Jonah is sacred to all three Abrahamic faiths and remains a recognizable legend even in the most secularized corners of the West. And yet the maritime prophet's story has been trivialized as a quaint children's tale, his character has been blasted by unsympathetic commentators, and even his alleged tomb has now been destroyed by Islamic State militants who, in 2014, took the city of Mosul on the Nineveh Plains. Now that Nineveh is once again in the grip of tyrannical violence and communities across the West and the Middle East are deep in a time of discord and soul-searching, we might do well to recover the story of Jonah, a guiding light, who marches into the very heart of empire and confronts it with the radical politics of the kingdom of God, even as his own certainties are shaken to the core. ""David Blower has written a marvelous reflection on what may be the Bible's most subversive and misunderstood story. Not only are his insights incisive and needed, his writing is a delight to read."" --Brian D. McLaren, author/speaker/activist ""I picked it up, started to read it and couldn't stop. . . . It's an irresistible, fanciful, terrifying book: brilliant, beautiful, and colourful, but brutal, awful, and confronting. . . . This is The Gospel According To Jonah for today."" --Dave Andrews, Author of Plan Be, and Christi-Anarchy ""Elegaic in its writing and prophetic in its message, Blower's study brings the ancient Biblical myth of Jonah back to life with fresh relevance for our times, especially so with Jonah's city so much in the news, and for the same reasons as before: that to say, Nineveh, or Mosul in northern Iraq."" --Alastair McIntosh, Professor, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, author of Soil and Soul and Spiritual Activism ""Identifying the empire--not the big fish--as the real beast in the book, this powerful and poetic re-telling of the Jonah story brings a familiar tale to life in fresh ways, and invites readers to face the challenge of engaging creatively and vulnerably with the powers that be."" --Stuart Murray Williams, Author of The Naked Anabaptist, Multi-Voiced Church and Church After Christendom ""I'm still recovering from the prophetic body blow of Blower's first book, Kingdom vs. Empire, but here he is again, ready for round two. His latest is about as unsettling as it gets. I've been following David's work for some time now. I know how he operates, but he still catches me off guard. So put down whatever you're reading, pick up this book, and brace yourself!"" --Tim Nash, Nomad Podcast ""David Benjamin Blower brings us a renewed song of hope--in the shape of Jonah wrapped up in a whale. This is a work of imagination and erudition as well as an elegy that speaks of a way of being that for so long has eluded concerned Christians. At last God has given us a prophet who dares to tell us like it is. Listen up--let Jonah help us to see our task as Christians in troubled times. Read and listen to David Benjamin Blower if you dare--but with assurance that grace is so much in abundance our fretfulness will be transformed into passion."" --Ann Morisy, author of Beyond the Good Samaritan and Journeying Out David Benjamin Blower is a writer, musician, and theological agitator from Birmingham, UK. He is a prolific recording artist and the author of Kingdom vs. Empire (2013).