"What is real and what is noble, as well as what is deranged and wrong, can often be stated briefly. Nietzsche was famous for his succinct aphorisms and epigrams. Aquinas in one of his responses could manage to state clearly what he held to be true. Ultimately, all of our thought needs to be so refined and concentrated that we can see the point. So these are "brief" essays and they are largely of a philosophical "hue." They touch on things worth thinking...

D. Graham Burnett recovers the strange story of Maurice v. Judd, an 1818 trial that pitted the new sciences of taxonomy against the then-popular--and biblically sanctioned--view that the whale was a fish. The immediate dispute was mundane: whether whale oil was fish oil and therefore subject to state inspection. But the trial fueled a sensational public debate in which nothing less than the order of nature--and how we know it--was at stake. Burnett...

From world-renowned historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari, the New York Times bestselling author of Sapiens, comes an exciting, brand-new audiobook for middle-grade listeners that looks at the early history of humankind.

Even though we’ll never outrun a hungry lion or outswim an angry shark, humans are pretty impressive—and we’re the most dominant species on the planet. So how exactly did we become...

"In June 2023, Russia destroys the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine and commits an unprecedented ecocide. In response, French philosopher and filmmaker Bernard-Henri Lévy returns to Ukraine to capture Ukraine's deep humanity despite the dire conditions, and a civilian resilience and resistance unlike any other. In Glory to the Heroes, Lévy, along with his codirector Marc Roussel, spends the summer in eastern Ukraine recording for the world a passionate...

A tender-souled boy reeling from the death of his best friend struggles to fit into a world that wants him to grow up tough and unfeeling. It's the last few months of eighth grade, and Isaiah feels lost. He thought his summer was going to be him and his boys Drew and Darius, hanging out, doing wheelies, watching martial arts movies, and breaking tons of Guiness World Records before high school. But now, more and more, Drew seems to be fading from...