Search results for ""author daniel klein""

Our society worships at the fountain of youth. Each year, we try to delay the arrival of old age, using everything at our disposal, from extreme exercise and botox to pilates and cosmetic dentistry. But in the process, are we missing out on a distinct and extraordinarily valuable stage of life? Asking whether it is better to be forever young or to grin toothlessly and live an authentic old age, bestselling author Daniel Klein journeys to the Greek island of Hydra. There he draws on the lives of octogenarian Greek locals, as well as philosophers ranging from Epicurus to Sartre, to discover the secrets of ageing happily. An escapist travel memoir, a droll meditation, and an optimistic guide to living well, this is a delightful jaunt through the terrain of old age, led by a witty and uniquely perceptive modern-day sage.

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“Every time I find the meaning of life, they change it.” The words of Reinhold Niebuhr provide the title and set the tone for what is a wryly humorous look at some of the great philosophical pronouncements on the most important question we can face. Daniel Klein’s philosophical journey began fifty years ago with just this conundrum; he began an undergraduate degree in philosophy at Harvard University to glean some clue as to what the answer could be. Now in his seventies, Klein looks back at the wise words of the great philosophers and considers how his own life has measured up. Told with the same brilliantly dry sense of humour that made Travels with Epicurus a Sunday Times bestseller, Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It is a pithy, dry, and eminently readable commentary on one of the most profound subjects there is.

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In this joyous introduction to the major debates in Western philosophy, we see how cartoons can shed light and humour on life’s Big Questions. Topics such as gender, morality and the meaning of life are examined here with a razor wit and eye. Open this book (if it actually exists) and meet philosophers interrogating the world: De Beauvoir on a building site. Kant in a snowglobe. Machiavelli on a tennis court. This is philosophy as you’ve never seen it before.

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Here’s an accusation – Sherlock Holmes never deduced anything. When it comes to language, it all depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is. And one for the existentialists – you haven’t lived until you think about death all the time. Daniel Klein and Thomas Cathcart take philosophy to task with flair and gusto in this wise and hilarious treasure of a book. Lively, original, and powerfully informative, Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar... is an irreverent crash course through the great thinkers and traditions. It’s philosophy for everyone, from the curious layperson to the professor who’s seen it all. Klein and Cathcart have the knack of getting to the core of an issue in a crystal clear line, meaning there’s more room for jokes – good jokes, clever jokes, jokes that’ll have you laughing so hard the people nearby will shoot you strange looks. It’s the philosophy class you wish you’d had and finally, it all makes sense!

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