Bent Northrop Memorial Library

"The son of a musician, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) tried at first to enter a monastery before engaging the skills that made him the foremost scientist of his day. Though he never left Italy, his inventions and discoveries were heralded around the world. Most sensationally, his telescopes allowed him to reveal a new reality in the heavens and to reinforce the astounding argument that the Earth moves around the Sun. For this belief, he was brought...

One of the greatest books I have ever read. It explains the processes of the mind on a level so clear that anyone should be able to understand the basic concepts which lie within the great depth that is our own mind (and you will find if you are well trained that it is the same thing as the mind of others!). Highly advanced meditation practices are included, and transcendental states of mind are within reach for anyone who chooses to study using this...

Join Ursula K. Le Guin as she explores a broad array of subjects, ranging from Tolstoy, Twain, and Tolkien to women's shoes, beauty, and family life. With her customary wit, intelligence, and literary craftsmanship, she offers a diverse and highly engaging set of readings. The Wave in the Mind includes some of Le Guin's finest literary criticism, rare autobiographical writings, performance art pieces, and, most centrally, her reflections on...

From the team that brought you The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, a daily devotional of Stoic meditations—an instant Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestseller.
Why have history's greatest minds—from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson, along with today's top performers from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities—embraced the wisdom...

An unabridged republication of nineteenth-century essayist Henry David Thoreau's reflections on the natural world, written during a two year period when he lived alone in a cabin on the shores of Walden Pond.

Originally published on the eve of the 1848 European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the worldview Marx and Engels developed during their hectic intellectual and political collaboration. Formulating the principles of dialectical materialism, they believed that labor creates wealth, hence capitalism is exploitive and antithetical to freedom. This new edition includes an extensive introduction by Gareth Stedman...

Biographia Literaria or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions, is an autobiography in discourse by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The work was originally intended as a mere preface to a collected volume of his poems, explaining and justifying his own style and practice in poetry. The work grew to a literary autobiography, including, together with many facts concerning his education and studies and his early literary adventures, an extended...

"Changing the world means changing the story, the names, and the language with which we describe it. Calling things by their true names cuts through the lies that excuse, disguise, avoid, or encourage inaction, indifference, obliviousness in the face of injustice and violence. In this powerful and wide-ranging collection, Solnit turns her attention to battles over meaning, place, language, and belonging at the heart of the defining crises of our time....

Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of...

A groundbreaking investigation into the origins of morality, which turns out to be the basis for religion and politics. The book explains the American culture wars and refutes the "New Atheists."