Unhurried Thoughts at My Funeral

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Morris Berman

This book offers no formula for success, as it is traditionally defined, and no promise that you can shape your destiny by the power of your mind. Goals such as these, in the view of the author, only reflect the spiritual emptiness of contemporary American life. What the book does offer is one man's meditation of the meaning of his life to date, and an opportunity for the reader to reflect on the meaning of his or her own life in turn. Success, i.e., living in reality, demands an awareness of the depth and complexity of that life: a coming to terms with it as it actually exists, with all its strange contradictions and surprising twists of fate. Spinning Straw Into Gold is thus not a feel-good book. Rather, it is a search-your-soul and ponder-your-being book. For those who have the courage to allow it to stimulate true reflection, it may be rewarding in unexpected ways. It is for those who seek richness in reality, rather than in the pipe dreams of mass society, that this book is written.--Back cover.

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Hela Ouardi

Médine, juin 632. Sous le soleil accablant de l'Arabie, le temps semble s'être arrêté : le Prophète de l'islam a rendu son dernier souffle. Autour de lui, les fidèles de la nouvelle religion, plongés dans la sidération, tremblent à l'idée que la Fin du monde soit proche. Mais où sont passés ses Compagnons? Quelle est cette étrange maladie qui l'a terrassé en quelques semaines? Et pourquoi l'enterrement n'a-t-il pas lieu? Au fil de ce récit au jour le jour de l'événement le plus mystérieux dans l'histoire de l'islam, Hela Ouardi, universitaire tunisienne, explore et confronte les sources sunnites et shiites les plus anciennes. Celles-ci nous révèlent un autre visage du Prophète, celui d'un homme menacé de toutes parts, affaibli par les rivalités internes et par les ennemis nés de ses conquêtes. Tout est entrepris pour qu'il ne laisse aucune directive claire sur sa succession. Ses Compagnons s'engagent dans une lutte pour le pouvoir et son clan se déchire, ouvrant la voie à des guerres meurtrières qui ensanglantent encore notre monde aujourd'hui. Une reconstitution chronologique inédite, où Hela Ouardi oppose aux mémoires idéologisées le portrait d'un homme rendu à son historicité et à sa dimension tragique. [4e de couverture]

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von Billy Graham. [Übers.: R. Dumath

This book has been written not for the theologians and philosophers but for the man in the street. My purpose is to give him a clear understanding of a new way of life that was presented by an unknown Galilean two thousand years ago. I have endeavored to present it in the language of the common man, that "the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." I have tried to avoid those controversial subjects that have so often divided great segments of the Christian Church from each other but, on the other hand, I have not bargained, parlayed, or compromised my concept of the Christian faith. My object is not to get you to a particular denomination or church but to get you to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to encourage, strengthen, and build up the Christian in the most holy faith. - Preface.

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Irving Singer

Philosophical thinking has traditionally decreed that the human condition is split into two realms of being: nature and spirit - the one physical and psychological; the other an inherently transcendent dimension that exceeds the natural. Irving Singer finds this distinction unacceptable. Preceded by The Creation of Value and The Pursuit of Love, this final book in Singer's Meaning in Life trilogy argues that separating nature and the life of spirit not only precludes an understanding of how consciousness, awareness of value, and the pursuit of ideal possibilities originate in nature but also masks the discovery of how experience can be both meaningful and a source of happiness. Studying the interaction between nature and spirit, Singer examines the ways in which we may resolve our sense of being divided and thereby overcome the suffering in life. He speculates about concepts of happiness, play, acceptance of mere existence, and the need to live in unity with nature.