Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers
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audiobook
(5)
How to Care About Animals
An Ancient Guide to Creatures Great and Small
by Porphyry
read by Peter Noble
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
An entertaining and enlightening anthology of classical Greek and Roman writings on animals-and our vital relationships with them.
“How to Care about Animals” is a fascinating menagerie of passages from classical literature about animals and the lives we share with them. Drawing on ancient writers from Aesop to Ovid, classicist and farmer M. D. Usher has gathered a healthy litter of selections that reveal some of the ways Greeks and Romans thought about everything from lions, bears, and wolves to birds, octopuses, and snails-and that might inspire us to rethink our own relationships with our fellow creatures. Presented in lively new translations, these pieces are filled with surprises-anticipating but also offering new perspectives on many of our current feelings and ideas about animals.
Here, Porphyry makes a compelling argument for vegetarianism and asserts that the just treatment of animals makes us better people; “Pliny the Elder” praises the virtuosity of songbirds and the virtuousness of elephants; Plutarch has one of Circe's pigs from the Odyssey make a serio-comic case for the dignity of the beasts of the field; Aristotle puts the study of animals on par with anthropology; we hear timeless Aesopian fables, including "The Hen That Laid the Golden Egg" and "The Fox and the Grapes"; and there is much, much more.
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(3)
How to Be Healthy
An Ancient Guide to Wellness
by Galen
read by Rick Adamson, Cindy Kay
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
The second-century Greek physician Galen-the most famous doctor in antiquity after Hippocrates-is a central figure in Western medicine. A talented doctor, surgeon, writer, philosopher, teacher, pharmacologist, and inventor, Galen attended the court of Marcus Aurelius, living through outbreaks of plague that devastated the Roman Empire. He also served as a physician for professional gladiators. In writings that provided the foundation of Western medicine up to the nineteenth century, Galen created a unified account of health and disease. In How to Be Healthy, practicing physician and classical historian Katherine Van Schaik presents a collection of Galen's enduring insights about how we can take care of our bodies and minds, prevent disease, and reach a healthy old age.
Although we now know that many of Galen's ideas about physiology are wrong, How to Be Healthy shows that much of his advice remains sound. In these selections from his writings, presented in fresh translations, Galen discusses the art of medicine, exercise and diet, the mind-body connection, the difficulty of applying general medical principles to individuals, and much more. Featuring an introduction and brief commentaries that connect ancient medical practices to modern ones, How to Be Healthy offers an entertaining and enlightening new perspective on the age-old pursuit of wellness.
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(9)
How to Stop a Conspiracy
An Ancient Guide to Saving a Republic
by Sallust
read by Michael Page
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
In 63 BC, frustrated by his failure to be elected leader of the Roman Republic, the aristocrat Catiline tried to topple its elected government. Backed by corrupt elites and poor, alienated Romans, he fled Rome while his associates plotted to burn the city and murder its leading politicians. The attempted coup culminated with the unmasking of the conspirators in the Senate, a stormy debate that led to their execution, and the defeat of Catiline and his legions in battle. In How to Stop a Conspiracy, Josiah Osgood presents a brisk, modern new translation of the definitive account of these events, Sallust's The War with Catiline.
In a taut, jaw-dropping narrative, Sallust combines juicy details about Catiline and his louche associates with highly quotable moral judgments and a wrenching description of the widespread social misery they exploited. Along the way, we get unforgettable portraits of the bitter and haunted Catiline, who was sympathetic to the plight of Romans yet willing to destroy Rome, his archenemy Cicero, who thwarts the conspiracy, and Julius Caesar, who defends the conspirators and is accused of being one of them. Complete with an introduction that discusses how The War with Catiline has shaped and continues to shape our understanding of how republics live and die, this volume makes Sallust's gripping history more accessible than ever before.
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(7)
How to Think About God
An Ancient Guide for Believers and Nonbelievers
by Marcus Tullis Ciccero
read by Shaun Grindell
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
A vivid and accessible new translation of Cicero's influential Stoic writings on the divine.
Most ancient Romans were deeply religious and their world was overflowing with gods-from Jupiter, Minerva, and Mars to countless local divinities, household gods, and ancestral spirits. One of the most influential Roman perspectives on religion came from a nonreligious belief system that is finding new adherents even today: Stoicism. How did the Stoics think about religion? In How to Think about God, Philip Freeman presents vivid new translations of Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods and The Dream of Scipio. In these brief works, Cicero offers a Stoic view of belief, divinity, and human immortality, giving eloquent expression to the religious ideas of one of the most popular schools of Roman and Greek philosophy.
On the Nature of the Gods and The Dream of Scipio are Cicero's best-known and most important writings on religion, and they have profoundly shaped Christian and non-Christian thought for more than two thousand years, influencing such luminaries as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, and Thomas Jefferson. These works reveal many of the religious aspects of Stoicism, including an understanding of the universe as a materialistic yet continuous and living whole in which both the gods and a supreme God are essential elements.
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(7)
How to Innovate
An Ancient Guide to Creative Thinking
by Aristotle
read by Shaun Grindell
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
What we can learn about fostering innovation and creative thinking from some of the most inventive people of all times - the ancient Greeks.
When it comes to innovation and creative thinking, we are still catching up with the ancient Greeks. Between 800 and 300 BCE, they changed the world with astonishing inventions - democracy, the alphabet, philosophy, logic, rhetoric, mathematical proof, rational medicine, coins, architectural canons, drama, lifelike sculpture, and competitive athletics. None of this happened by accident. Recognizing the power of the new and trying to understand and promote the conditions that make it possible, the Greeks were the first to write about innovation and even the first to record a word for forging something new. In short, the Greeks "invented" innovation itself - and they still have a great deal to teach us about it.
How to Innovate is an engaging and entertaining introduction to key ideas about - and examples of - innovation and creative thinking from ancient Greece. Armand D'Angour provides lively new translations of selections from Aristotle, Diodorus, and Athenaeus. These writings illuminate and illustrate timeless principles of creating something new - borrowing or adapting existing ideas or things, cross-fertilizing disparate elements, or criticizing and disrupting current conditions.
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(3)
How to Be a Farmer
An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land
by M. D. Usher
read by Tom Perkins
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
Whether you farm or garden, live in the country or long to move there, or simply enjoy an occasional rural retreat, you will be delighted by this cornucopia of writings about living and working on the land, harvested from the fertile fields of ancient Greek and Roman literature. An inspiring antidote to the digital age, How to Be a Farmer evokes the beauty and bounty of nature with a rich mixture of philosophy, practical advice, history, and humor. Together, these timeless reflections on what the Greeks called boukolika and the Romans res rusticate provide an entertaining and enlightening guide to a more meaningful and sustainable way of life.
In fresh translations by M. D. Usher, Hesiod praises the dignity of labor, Plato describes the rustic simplicity of his ideal republic, Varro dedicates a farming manual to his wife, Fundania, and Vergil idealizes farmers as residents of the Golden Age. In other selections, Horace extols the joys of simple living at his cherished country farm, Pliny the Elder explains why all culture stems from agriculture, Columella praises donkeys and tells how to choose a ram or a dog, Musonius Rufus argues that farming is the best livelihood for a philosopher, and there is much more. Proof that farming is ultimately a state of mind we should all cultivate, How to Be a Farmer will charm anyone who loves nature or its fruits.
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(6)
How to Keep an Open Mind
An Ancient Guide to Thinking Like a Skeptic
by Sextus Empiricus
read by Tom Parks
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
How ancient skepticism can help you attain tranquility by learning to suspend judgment
Along with Stoicism and Epicureanism, Skepticism is one of the three major schools of ancient Greek philosophy that claim to offer a way of living as well as thinking. How to Keep an Open Mind provides an unmatched introduction to skepticism by presenting a fresh, modern translation of key passages from the writings of Sextus Empiricus, the only Greek skeptic whose works have survived.
While content in daily life to go along with things as they appear to be, Sextus advocated-and provided a set of techniques to achieve-a radical suspension of judgment about the way things really are, believing that such nonjudging can be useful for challenging the unfounded dogmatism of others and may help one achieve a state of calm and tranquility. In an introduction, Richard Bett makes the case that the most important lesson we can draw from Sextus's brand of skepticism today may be an ability to see what can be said on the other side of any issue, leading to a greater open-mindedness.
How to Keep an Open Mind offers a compelling antidote to the closed-minded dogmatism of today's polarized world.
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(6)
How to Drink
A Classical Guide to the Art of Imbibing
by Vincent Obsopoeus
read by Roger Clark
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
A spirited new translation of a forgotten classic, shot through with timeless wisdom
Is there an art to drinking alcohol? Can drinking ever be a virtue? The Renaissance humanist and neoclassical poet Vincent Obsopoeus (ca. 1498-1539) thought so. In the winelands of sixteenth-century Germany, he witnessed the birth of a poisonous new culture of bingeing, hazing, peer pressure, and competitive drinking. Alarmed, and inspired by the Roman poet Ovid's Art of Love, he wrote The Art of Drinking (De Arte Bibendi) (1536), a how-to manual for drinking with pleasure and discrimination. In How to Drink, Michael Fontaine offers the first proper English translation of Obsopoeus's text, rendering his poetry into spirited, contemporary prose and uncorking a forgotten classic that will appeal to drinkers of all kinds and (legal) ages.
Arguing that moderation, not abstinence, is the key to lasting sobriety, and that drinking can be a virtue if it is done with rules and limits, Obsopoeus teaches us how to manage our drinking, how to win friends at social gatherings, and how to give a proper toast. But he also says that drinking to excess on occasion is okay-and he even tells us how to win drinking games, citing extensive personal experience.
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(20)
How to Be a Leader
An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership
by Plutarch
read by Matthew Waterson
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
The ancient biographer and essayist Plutarch thought deeply about the leadership qualities of the eminent Greeks and Romans he profiled in his famous-and massive-Lives, including politicians and generals such as Pericles, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony. Luckily for us, Plutarch distilled what he learned about wise leadership in a handful of essays, which are filled with essential lessons for experienced and aspiring leaders in any field today.
In "To an Uneducated Leader," "How to Be a Good Leader," and "Should an Old Man Engage in Politics?" Plutarch explains the characteristics of successful leaders, from being guided by reason and exercising self-control to being free from envy and the love of power, illustrating his points with memorable examples drawn from legendary Greco-Roman lives. He also explains how to train for leadership, persuade and deal with colleagues, manage one's career, and much more.
Writing at the height of the Roman Empire, Plutarch suggested that people should pursue positions of leadership only if they are motivated by "judgment and reason"-not "rashly inspired by the vain pursuit of glory, a sense of rivalry, or a lack of other meaningful activities." His wise counsel remains as relevant as ever.
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(16)
How to Tell a Story
An Ancient Guide to the Art of Storytelling for Writers and Readers
by Aristotle
read by Gareth Richards
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
An inviting and accessible new translation of Aristotle's complete Poetics - the first and best introduction to the art of writing and understanding stories
Aristotle's Poetics is the most important book ever written for writers and readers of stories - whether novels, short fiction, plays, screenplays, or nonfiction. Aristotle was the first to identify the keys to plot, character, audience perception, tragic pleasure, and dozens of other critical points of good storytelling. Despite being written more than 2,000 years ago, the Poetics remains essential reading for anyone who wants to learn how to write a captivating story - or understand how such stories work and achieve their psychological effects. Yet for all its influence, the Poetics is too little read because it comes down to us in a form that is often difficult to follow, and even the best translations are geared more to specialists than to general readers who simply want to grasp Aristotle's profound and practical insights. In How to Tell a Story, Philip Freeman presents the most accessible translation of the Poetics yet produced, making this indispensable book more engaging and useful than ever before.
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(8)
How to Flourish
An Ancient Guide to a Happy Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers
by Aristotle
read by Hannibal Hills
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is one of the greatest guides to human flourishing ever written, but its length and style have left many readers languishing. How to Flourish is a colloquial new translation by Susan Sauve Meyer that makes Aristotle's timeless insights about how to lead a good life more engaging and accessible than ever before.
For Aristotle, flourishing involves becoming a good person through practice, and having a life of the mind. To that end, he draws vivid portraits of virtuous and vicious characters and offers sound practical advice about everything from eating and drinking to managing money, controlling anger, getting along with others, and telling jokes. He also distinguishes different kinds of wisdom that are essential to flourishing and offers an unusual perspective on how to appreciate our place in the universe and our relation to the divine.
Omitting Aristotle's digressions and repetitions and overly technical passages, How to Flourish provides connecting commentary that allows listeners to follow the continuous line of his thought. The result is an inviting and lively version of an essential work about how to flourish and lead a good life.
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(1)
How to Make Money
An Ancient Guide to Wealth Management (series: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
by Pliny
read by James Cameron Stewart
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
Ancient Romans liked money. But how did they make a living and sometimes even become rich? The Roman economy was dominated by agriculture, but it was surprisingly modern in many ways: the Romans had companies with CEOs, shareholders, and detailed contracts regulated by meticulous laws; systems of banking and taxation; and a wide range of occupations, from merchant and doctor to architect and teacher. The Romans also enjoyed a relatively open society, where some could start from the bottom, work, invest, and grow rich. How to Make Money gathers a wide variety of ancient writings that show how Romans thought about, made, invested, spent, lost, and gave away money.
The Roman elite idealized farming and service to the state but treated many other occupations with suspicion or contempt, from money lending to wage labor. But whatever their attitudes, pecunia made the Roman world go round. In the Satyricon, Trimalchio brags about his wealth. Seneca accumulated a fortune-but taught that money can't buy happiness. Eumachia inherited a brick factory from her father, married well, and turned to philanthropy after she was widowed. How to Make Money also takes up some of the most troubling aspects of the Roman economy, slavery and prostitution, which the elite deemed unrespectable but often profited from.
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(32)
How to Have a Life
An Ancient Guide to Using Our Time Wisely
by Seneca
read by Esther Wane
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
A vibrant new translation of Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life," a pointed reminder to make the most of our time
Who doesn't worry sometimes that smart phones, the Internet, and TV are robbing us of time and preventing us from having a life? How can we make the most of our time on earth? In the first century AD, the Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger offered one of the most famous answers to that question in his essay "On the Shortness of Life"-a work that has more to teach us today than ever before. In How to Have a Life, James Romm presents a vibrant new translation of Seneca's brilliant essay, plus two Senecan letters on the same theme, complete with an inviting introduction.
With devastating satiric wit, skillfully captured in this translation, Seneca lampoons the ways we squander our time and fail to realize how precious it is. We don't allow people to steal our money, yet we allow them to plunder our time, or else we give it away ourselves in useless, idle pursuits. Seneca also describes how we can make better use of our brief days and years. In the process, he argues, we can make our lives longer, or even everlasting, because to live a real life is to attain a kind of immortality.
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(2)
How to Lose Yourself
An Ancient Guide To Letting Go
by The Buddha and His Followers
read by Mike Carnes
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
Inviting new translations of classical Buddhist texts about why the self is an illusion-and why giving it up can free us from suffering
From self-realization and self-promotion to self-help and the selfie, the modern world encourages us to be self-obsessed. We are even told that finding ourselves is the key to happiness. Better to lose yourself! More than 2,500 years ago, the Buddha argued that the self is an illusion-and that our belief in it is the cause of most, if not all, of our suffering. How to Lose Yourself presents lively, accessible, and expert new translations of ancient Buddhist writings about the central, unique, and powerful Buddhist teaching of "no-self."
Drawn from three important Buddhist traditions, these essential Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese writings provide a rich sampling of the ways Buddhist philosophers have understood the idea that we are selfless persons-and why this insight is so therapeutic. When we let go of the self, we are awakened to the presence of all things as they truly are, and we let go of the anxiety, fear, greed, and hatred that are the source of all suffering.
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How to Do the Right Thing
An Ancient Guide to Treating People Fairly
by Seneca
read by Mike Chamberlain
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
How ancient Stoicism can help teach us to treat others-and ourselves-more fairly and mercifully
There are times when we've all felt that we haven't been treated as we deserve-that we've been misjudged, shortchanged, or given a raw deal. And, at one time or another, other people have probably felt that we've treated them just as unfairly. How to Do the Right Thing draws on the principles of ancient Stoicism as articulated by the Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca to help listeners better navigate one of the most important practical questions of daily life-how to do right by others.
Starting from the virtue of magnanimity-the opposite of small-mindedness-How to Do the Right Thing draws together lessons from Seneca's writings that stress the importance of calm and clear thinking, of judging oneself fairly before judging others, and of cutting people slack, with a bias toward mercy-all delivered in crisp and lively new translations.
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(1)
How to Eat
An Ancient Guide For Healthy Living
by Various Authors
read by Abigail Reno
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
Today, we're stuffed with dietary recommendations from every direction. Social media, advertising, food packaging, diet books, doctors-all have advice on what, how much, and when to eat. This would have been no surprise to ancient Greeks and Romans. Their doctors were intensely interested in food, offered highly prescriptive dietary advice, and developed detailed systems to categorize foods and their health effects. How to Eat is a delectable anthology of Greco-Roman writings on how to eat, exercise, sleep, bathe, and manage your sex life for optimal health. It also gathers ancient opinions on specific foods of all sorts, from how to deploy onions to cure baldness and cabbage to get sober to whether lentils are healthy and why arugula increases your sex drive.
With lively new translations by Claire Bubb, How to Eat features voices from medicine, philosophy, natural history, agriculture, and cooking, including Hippocrates, Pliny the Elder, Galen, Seneca, Plutarch, and Cato.
While medicine and science have obviously changed enormously since the classical world, and some Greco-Roman beliefs about diet now appear hilariously off the mark, How to Eat reveals that much of their advice still resonates-and all of it is fascinating.
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(9)
How to Tell a Joke
An Ancient Guide to the Art of Humor
by Marcus Tullis Ciccero
read by Roger Clark
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
Can jokes win a hostile room, a hopeless argument, or even an election? You bet they can, according to Cicero, and he knew what he was talking about. One of Rome's greatest politicians, speakers, and lawyers, Cicero was also reputedly one of antiquity's funniest people. After he was elected commander-in-chief and head of state, his enemies even started calling him "the stand-up Consul." How to Tell a Joke provides a lively new translation of Cicero's essential writing on humor alongside that of the later Roman orator and educator Quintilian. The result is a timeless practical guide to how a well-timed joke can win over any audience.
As powerful as jokes can be, they are also hugely risky. The line between a witty joke and an offensive one isn't always clear. Cross it and you'll look like a clown, or worse. Here, Cicero and Quintilian explore every aspect of telling jokes-while avoiding costly mistakes. Presenting the sections on humor in Cicero's On the Ideal Orator and Quintilian's On the Orator's Education, How to Tell a Joke examines the risks and rewards of humor and analyzes basic types that listeners can use to write their own jokes.
Filled with insight, wit, and examples, including more than a few lawyer jokes, How to Tell a Joke will appeal to anyone interested in humor or the art of public speaking.
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(6)
How to Get Over a Breakup
An Ancient Guide to Moving On
by Ovid
read by B. J. Harrison
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
Breakups are the worst. On one scale devised by psychiatrists, only a spouse's death was ranked as more stressful than a marital split. Is there any treatment for a breakup? The ancient Roman poet Ovid thought so. Having become famous for teaching the art of seduction in The Art of Love, he then wrote Remedies for Love (Remedia Amoris), which presents thirty-eight frank and witty strategies for coping with unrequited love, falling out of love, ending a relationship, and healing a broken heart. How to Get Over a Breakup presents an unabashedly modern prose translation of Ovid's lighthearted and provocative work, complete with a lively introduction.
Ovid's advice, which he illustrates with ingenious interpretations of classical mythology, ranges from the practical, psychologically astute, and profound to the ironic, deliberately offensive, and bizarre. Some advice is conventional, such as staying busy, not spending time alone, and avoiding places associated with an ex. Some is off-color, such as having sex until you're sick of it. And some is simply and delightfully weird, such as becoming a lawyer and not eating arugula.
Whether his advice is good or bad, entertaining or outrageous, “How to Get Over a Breakup” reveals an Ovid who sounds startlingly modern.
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How to Be Queer
An Ancient Guide to Sexuality (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
by Sarah Nooter
read by Paul Boehmer
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
The idea of sexual fluidity may seem new, but it is at least as old as the ancient Greeks, who wrote about queer experiences with remarkable frankness, wit, and insight. “How to Be Queer” is an infatuating collection of these writings about desire, love, and lust between men, between women, and between humans and gods, in lucid and lively new translations.
“How to Be Queer” starts with Homer's Iliad and moves through lyric poetry, tragedy, comedy, philosophy, and biography, drawing on a wide range of authors, including Sappho, Plato, Anacreon, Pindar, Theognis, Aristophanes, and Xenophon. It features both beautiful poetry and thought-provoking prose, emotional outpourings, and humorous anecdotes. From Homer's story of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, one of the most intense between men in world literature, to Sappho's lyrics on the pleasures and pains of loving women, these writings show the many meanings of what the Greeks called eros.
Complete with brief introductions to the selections, “How to Be Queer” reveals what the Greeks knew long ago, that the erotic and queer are a source of life and a cause for celebration.
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How to Say No
An Ancient Guide to the Art of Cynicism
by Diogenes
read by Liam Gerrard
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
The Cynics were ancient Greek philosophers who stood athwart the flood of society's material excess, unexamined conventions, and even norms of politeness and thundered "No!" Diogenes, the most famous Cynic, wasn't shy about literally extending his middle finger to the world. When asked why he was called Diogenes the Dog, he replied "because I fawn on those who give, I bark at those who don't, and I bite scoundrels." How to Say No is a delightful collection of brief ancient writings about Cynicism that captures all the outrageousness, wit, and wisdom of its remarkable cast of characters-from Diogenes in the fourth century BCE to the column-stander Symeon Stylites in late antiquity.
With their "less is more" approach to life, the Cynics speak urgently to our world of climate change, economic uncertainty, and psychic malaise. Although the Cynics weren't writers, their memorable utterances and behavior were recorded by their admirers and detractors, and M. D. Usher offers fresh new translations of appealing selections from this body of writing-ranging from street sermons and repartee to biography and snapshots of Cynics in action.
Complete with introductions to the volume, this lively book demonstrates why the Cynics still retain their power to surprise us and make us laugh-and to make us think and question how we live.
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How to Give
An Ancient Guide to Giving and Receiving
by Seneca
read by James Cameron Stewart
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
Timeless wisdom on generosity and gratitude from the great Stoic philosopher Seneca
To give and receive well may be the most human thing you can do-but it is also the closest you can come to divinity. So argues the great Roman Stoic thinker Seneca in his longest and most searching moral treatise, "On Benefits" (De Beneficiis). James Romm's splendid new translation of essential selections from this work conveys the heart of Seneca's argument that generosity and gratitude are among the most important of all virtues.
For Seneca, the impulse to give to others lies at the very foundation of society; without it, we are helpless creatures, worse than wild beasts. But generosity did not arise randomly or by chance. Seneca sees it as part of our desire to emulate the gods, whose creation of the earth and heavens stands as the greatest gift of all. Seneca's soaring prose captures his wonder at that gift, and expresses a profound sense of gratitude that will inspire today's audiences.
Complete with an enlightening introduction, How to Give is a timeless guide to the profound significance of true generosity.
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How to Focus
An Ancient Guide to Wellness
by John Cassian
read by Mike Cooper
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
Distraction isn't a new problem. We're also not the first to complain about how hard it is to concentrate. Early Christian monks beat us to it. They had given up everything to focus on God, yet they still struggled to keep the demons of distraction at bay. But rather than surrender to the meandering of their minds, they developed powerful strategies to improve their attention and engagement. How to Focus is an inviting collection of their strikingly relatable insights and advice-frank, funny, sympathetic, and psychologically sophisticated.
This wisdom is drawn from John Cassian's “Collationes”, one of the most influential manuals for monks from late antiquity. “The Collationes” follow Cassian and his friend Germanus as they travel around Egypt, asking a series of sage monks how they can make their minds stronger. In response, these monks offer a range of techniques for increasing focus, including setting goals, training the body, managing the memory, using mantras, taking breaks, consulting others and, most of all, being honest about yourself. As Cassian and Germanus eventually realize, we can't escape distraction, but we can learn how to confront it and, eventually, to concentrate.
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How to Grieve
An Ancient Guide to the Lost Art of Consolation
by Marcus Tullius Cicero
read by Gareth Richards
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
An engaging new translation of a timeless masterpiece about coping with the death of a loved one
In 45 BCE, the Roman statesman Cicero fell to pieces when his beloved daughter, Tullia, died from complications of childbirth. But from the depths of despair, Cicero fought his way back. In an effort to cope with his loss, he wrote a consolation speech-not for others, as had always been done, but for himself. And it worked. Cicero's Consolation was something new in literature, equal parts philosophy and motivational speech. Drawing on the full range of Greek philosophy and Roman history, Cicero convinced himself that death and loss are part of life, and that if others have survived them, we can, too; resilience, endurance, and fortitude are the way forward.
Lost in antiquity, Cicero's Consolation was recreated in the Renaissance from hints in Cicero's other writings and the Greek and Latin consolatory tradition. The resulting masterpiece-translated here for the first time in 250 years-is infused throughout with Cicero's thought and spirit.
Complete with an inviting introduction, Michael Fontaine's engaging translation makes this searching exploration of grief available to readers once again.
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How to Be a Bad Emperor
An Ancient Guide to Truly Terrible Leaders
by Suetonius
read by P. J. Ochlan
Part of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series
If recent history has taught us anything, it's that sometimes the best guide to leadership is the negative example. But that insight is hardly new. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Suetonius wrote Lives of the Caesars, perhaps the greatest negative leadership book of all time. He was ideally suited to write about terrible political leaders; after all, he was also the author of Famous Prostitutes and Words of Insult, both sadly lost. In How to Be a Bad Emperor, Josiah Osgood provides crisp new translations of Suetonius's briskly paced, darkly comic biographies of the Roman emperors Julius Caesar, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. Entertaining and shocking, the stories of these ancient anti-role models show how power inflames leaders' worst tendencies, causing almost incalculable damage.
How to Be a Bad Emperor is both a gleeful romp through some of the nastiest bits of Roman history and a perceptive account of leadership gone monstrously awry. We meet Caesar, using his aunt's funeral to brag about his descent from gods and kings-and hiding his bald head with a comb-over and a laurel crown; Tiberius, neglecting public affairs in favor of wine, perverse sex, tortures, and executions; the insomniac sadist Caligula, flaunting his skill at cruel put-downs; and the matricidal Nero, indulging his mania for public performance.
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