Mark Twain on Masturbation
Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $3.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Sam Torode
-
By:
-
Mark Twain
-
Sam Torode
About this listen
One evening in Paris, 1879, Mark Twain rose to the podium and tackled the touchiest of subjects: masturbation. His remarks rubbed Victorian society the wrong way and were censored for over a century.
Here, at long last, is Twain's hilarious lecture on "The Science of Onanism". This book includes an introduction by Sam Torode, author of The Dirty Parts of the Bible.
©2016 Sam Torode (P)2024 Sam TorodeListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Meditations: An Emperor's Guide to Mastery
- By: Marcus Aurelius, Ancient Renewal, Sam Torode - translator
- Narrated by: Sam Torode
- Length: 2 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How to think clearly, act purposefully, overcome any obstacle, and find peace and happiness along the way. The Meditations is a collection of Marcus' personal journal entries. They were not intended for publication but to remind Marcus himself of his principles and priorities. As a result, they are intimate, direct, and extremely useful. This new edition is rendered in contemporary English, with a foreword by Sam Torode.
-
-
Stoic philosophy at its finest
- By Mac on 09-24-19
By: Marcus Aurelius, and others
-
The Screwtape Letters
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Joss Ackland
- Length: 3 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below". At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C. S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wise old devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging and humorous account of temptation - and triumph over it - ever written.
-
-
This is the Best Audio Screwtape, a Masterpiece
- By James on 08-22-12
By: C. S. Lewis
-
A Guide to the Good Life
- The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
- By: William B. Irvine
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life. In A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine plumbs the wisdom of Stoic philosophy, one of the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome, and shows how its insight and advice are still remarkably applicable to modern lives. In A Guide to the Good Life, Irvine offers a refreshing presentation of Stoicism, showing how this ancient philosophy can still direct us toward a better life.
-
-
A very readable introduction, needs more meat
- By David on 05-20-16
-
Plato's Republic
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Republic poses questions that endure: What is justice? What form of community fosters the best possible life for human beings? What is the nature and destiny of the soul? What form of education provides the best leaders for a good republic? What are the various forms of poetry and the other arts, and which ones should be fostered and which ones should be discouraged? How does knowing differ from believing?
-
-
BEWARE: shortened version
- By Dranu on 03-08-20
By: Plato
-
The Abolition of Man
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Douglas Gresham
- Length: 1 hr and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Both astonishing and prophetic, The Abolition of Man remains one of C. S. Lewis's most controversial works. Lewis sets out to persuade his audience of the ongoing importance and relevance of universal objective values, such as courage and honor, and the foundational necessity of natural law. He also makes a cogent case that a retreat from these pillars of our educational system, even if in the name of "scientism", would be catastrophic. National Review lists it as number seven on their "100 Best Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century".
-
-
Lewis the philosopher, not the theologian
- By Ian McKay on 05-11-17
By: C. S. Lewis
-
How to Be a Stoic
- Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life
- By: Massimo Pigliucci
- Narrated by: Peter Coleman
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal is more elusive. In How to Be a Stoic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci offers Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that inspired the great emperor Marcus Aurelius, as the best way to attain it. Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that teaches us to act depending on what is within our control and separate things worth getting upset about from those that are not.
-
-
Great book needs better narration
- By Caleb on 11-07-18
-
The Meditations: An Emperor's Guide to Mastery
- By: Marcus Aurelius, Ancient Renewal, Sam Torode - translator
- Narrated by: Sam Torode
- Length: 2 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How to think clearly, act purposefully, overcome any obstacle, and find peace and happiness along the way. The Meditations is a collection of Marcus' personal journal entries. They were not intended for publication but to remind Marcus himself of his principles and priorities. As a result, they are intimate, direct, and extremely useful. This new edition is rendered in contemporary English, with a foreword by Sam Torode.
-
-
Stoic philosophy at its finest
- By Mac on 09-24-19
By: Marcus Aurelius, and others
-
The Screwtape Letters
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Joss Ackland
- Length: 3 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below". At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C. S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wise old devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging and humorous account of temptation - and triumph over it - ever written.
-
-
This is the Best Audio Screwtape, a Masterpiece
- By James on 08-22-12
By: C. S. Lewis
-
A Guide to the Good Life
- The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
- By: William B. Irvine
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life. In A Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine plumbs the wisdom of Stoic philosophy, one of the most popular and successful schools of thought in ancient Rome, and shows how its insight and advice are still remarkably applicable to modern lives. In A Guide to the Good Life, Irvine offers a refreshing presentation of Stoicism, showing how this ancient philosophy can still direct us toward a better life.
-
-
A very readable introduction, needs more meat
- By David on 05-20-16
-
Plato's Republic
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Republic poses questions that endure: What is justice? What form of community fosters the best possible life for human beings? What is the nature and destiny of the soul? What form of education provides the best leaders for a good republic? What are the various forms of poetry and the other arts, and which ones should be fostered and which ones should be discouraged? How does knowing differ from believing?
-
-
BEWARE: shortened version
- By Dranu on 03-08-20
By: Plato
-
The Abolition of Man
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Douglas Gresham
- Length: 1 hr and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Both astonishing and prophetic, The Abolition of Man remains one of C. S. Lewis's most controversial works. Lewis sets out to persuade his audience of the ongoing importance and relevance of universal objective values, such as courage and honor, and the foundational necessity of natural law. He also makes a cogent case that a retreat from these pillars of our educational system, even if in the name of "scientism", would be catastrophic. National Review lists it as number seven on their "100 Best Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century".
-
-
Lewis the philosopher, not the theologian
- By Ian McKay on 05-11-17
By: C. S. Lewis
-
How to Be a Stoic
- Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life
- By: Massimo Pigliucci
- Narrated by: Peter Coleman
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal is more elusive. In How to Be a Stoic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci offers Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that inspired the great emperor Marcus Aurelius, as the best way to attain it. Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that teaches us to act depending on what is within our control and separate things worth getting upset about from those that are not.
-
-
Great book needs better narration
- By Caleb on 11-07-18
-
How to Live
- Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 13 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, perhaps the first recognizably modern individual. A nobleman, public official, and winegrower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before. He called them essays, meaning “attempts” or “tries.” He put whatever was in his head into them: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog’s ears twitched when it was dreaming, as well as the religious wars....
-
-
Interesting and in parts Inspired.
- By Darwin8u on 05-21-12
By: Sarah Bakewell
-
Nicomachean Ethics
- By: Aristotle, W. D. Ross - translator
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, said to be dedicated to Aristotle's son, Nicomachus, is widely regarded as one of the most important works in the history of Western philosophy. Addressing the question of how men should best live, Aristotle's treatise is not a mere philosophical meditation on the subject, but a practical examination that aims to provide a guide for living out its recommendations.
-
-
Important, If Dry
- By Katie on 11-29-14
By: Aristotle, and others
-
The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
-
-
Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
-
The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom)
- By: Friedrich Nietzsche
- Narrated by: Michael Lunts
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom) is one of Nietzsche's greatest books. His wonderfully fertile mind roams over mankind, his thoughts, his emotions, his behaviour and his weaknesses with remarkable clarity, with insight - but also with humour!In this work are 383 separate paragraphs, some short, some long, but all singular observations - the epitome of his famous aphoristic style. 'Morality is the herd instinct in the individual.'
-
-
I am now a full-fledged fan of Nietzsche
- By RS on 02-24-18
-
Status Anxiety
- By: Alain de Botton
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a book about an almost universal anxiety that is rarely mentioned: an anxiety about what others think of us, about whether we're judged a success or a failure, a winner or a loser. This is a book about status anxiety. Best-selling author Alain de Botton asks, with lucidity and charm, where our worries about status come from and what, if anything, we can do to surmount them.
-
-
False Advertising!
- By Jon on 08-02-07
By: Alain de Botton
-
Manual for Living
- By: Epictetus
- Narrated by: Jim Roberts
- Length: 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Epictetus was a Greek Stoic philosopher. This short "handbook", which was actually written down by one of his pupils, is a guide to daily living. It has been read by countless people over the centuries because of its sensibility and its easy application to daily living. Unlike some of his forefathers in philosophy, like Plato and Aristotle, he focuses on how to practically apply oneself on a philosophical level.
-
-
Did the Buddha know of stoics or visa versa?
- By David on 08-07-14
By: Epictetus
-
Human, All Too Human
- A Book for Free Spirits
- By: Friedrich Nietzsche
- Narrated by: Michael Lunts
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was with Human, All Too Human, first published in 1878, that Nietzsche developed the aphoristic style that so suited his challenging views and uncompromising style. The text is divided into three main sections: 'Of the First and Last Things', 'History of the Moral Feelings' and 'The Religious Life'.
-
-
Thrilling Nietzsche
- By Cakes Green on 06-12-17
-
Socrates
- A Man for Our Times
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed historian and best-selling author Paul Johnson’s books have been translated into dozens of languages. In Socrates: A Man for Our Times, Johnson draws from little-known resources to construct a fascinating account of one of history’s greatest thinkers. Socrates transcended class limitations in Athens during the fifth century B.C. to develop ideas that still shape the way we think about the human body and soul, including the workings of the human mind.
-
-
Plat-Soc-Paul
- By Megasaurus on 11-17-12
By: Paul Johnson
-
The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
- By: Henry Louis Mencken
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mention the name of Friedrich Nietzsche almost anywhere and you are apt to receive a strong emotional response, either negatively or positively. Few persons will say they have no opinion. And for good reason. Employing some of the most withering attacks and scathing criticism conceivable against, among other things, Christianity, education, government, Wagner, and the judicial systems of his day, Nietzsche was a one-man wrecking ball of European society in the latter half of the 19th century.
-
-
strenuous
- By Tim on 12-12-09
-
Kierkegaard
- A Single Life
- By: Stephen Backhouse
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An accessible, expert introduction to one of the greatest minds of 19th century. Whether you're completely new to him, or if you're already familiar with his work, Kierkegaard: A Single Life presents a fresh understanding of his life and thought. Kierkegaard was a brilliant and enigmatic loner whose ideas permeated culture, shaped modern Christianity, and influenced people as diverse as Franz Kafka and Martin Luther King Jr. Though few people today have read his work, that lack of familiarity with the real Kierkegaard is changing with this biography by scholar Stephen Backhouse.
-
-
Great!
- By Will on 07-11-17
-
Plato at the Googleplex
- Why Philosophy Won't Go Away
- By: Rebecca Goldstein
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Is philosophy obsolete? Are the ancient questions still relevant in the age of cosmology and neuroscience, not to mention crowd-sourcing and cable news? The acclaimed philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein provides a dazzlingly original plunge into the drama of philosophy, revealing its hidden role in today’s debates on religion, morality, politics, and science.
-
-
Was looking forward to it, can't bear it
- By ARG on 04-08-14
-
The Wave in the Mind
- Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination
- By: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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 stories. 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 the arts of writing and reading.
-
-
Honest and deeply beautiful
- By Lex on 07-13-19
Related to this topic
-
The Wisdom of Life, Counsels and Maxims
- By: Arthur Schopenhauer
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.' Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was one of the most influential philosophers of the 19th century because his humanistic, atheistic, if pessimistic views chimed with a new secularism that was emerging from a Western society dominated by religion. Despite his rather forbidding image (and a few outdated views), he is one of the most approachable German philosophers, and this is certainly evident in these two key works, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims.
-
-
depressingly hopeful
- By Sebastian huerta on 06-22-17
-
The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
-
-
Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
-
Socrates
- A Man for Our Times
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed historian and best-selling author Paul Johnson’s books have been translated into dozens of languages. In Socrates: A Man for Our Times, Johnson draws from little-known resources to construct a fascinating account of one of history’s greatest thinkers. Socrates transcended class limitations in Athens during the fifth century B.C. to develop ideas that still shape the way we think about the human body and soul, including the workings of the human mind.
-
-
Plat-Soc-Paul
- By Megasaurus on 11-17-12
By: Paul Johnson
-
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
- By: Charles Darwin
- Narrated by: Greg Wagland
- Length: 2 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This work, unsurprisingly, offers invaluable insights into the life and times of Charles Darwin, his personality and the formative influences that made him what he was, for here we have his own words and ‘voice’ at the close of a prodigiously productive career. He tells of his childhood, his student days at Edinburgh and Cambridge, his love of beetles, shooting and geology and of his grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood. He talks at some length about his meetings with the great scientific men of the age, his attitudes to his critics, to religion and of his theories of evolution.
-
-
Darwin about himself
- By Terry Yancey on 05-23-17
By: Charles Darwin
-
Plato's Phaedrus
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 2 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Phaedrus lures Socrates outside the walls of Athens, where he seldom goes, by promising to share a new work by his friend and mentor, Lysias, a famous writer of speeches. This dialogue provides a powerful example of the dialectical writing that Plato uses to manifest ideas that are essential to human existence and to living a good life. Phaedrus shows how oral and written forms of language relate to each other and to philosophy.
-
-
six pages (Hackett Complete Works edition) missing
- By S. Lee on 01-17-19
By: Plato
-
The Infidel and the Professor
- David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought
- By: Dennis C. Rasmussen
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship of two towering Enlightenment thinkers that had great consequences for modern thought. David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime, he was attacked as "the Great Infidel" for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism.
-
-
a thoroughly enjoyable account of friendship
- By henryj on 02-21-20
-
The Wisdom of Life, Counsels and Maxims
- By: Arthur Schopenhauer
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.' Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was one of the most influential philosophers of the 19th century because his humanistic, atheistic, if pessimistic views chimed with a new secularism that was emerging from a Western society dominated by religion. Despite his rather forbidding image (and a few outdated views), he is one of the most approachable German philosophers, and this is certainly evident in these two key works, The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims.
-
-
depressingly hopeful
- By Sebastian huerta on 06-22-17
-
The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
-
-
Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
-
Socrates
- A Man for Our Times
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed historian and best-selling author Paul Johnson’s books have been translated into dozens of languages. In Socrates: A Man for Our Times, Johnson draws from little-known resources to construct a fascinating account of one of history’s greatest thinkers. Socrates transcended class limitations in Athens during the fifth century B.C. to develop ideas that still shape the way we think about the human body and soul, including the workings of the human mind.
-
-
Plat-Soc-Paul
- By Megasaurus on 11-17-12
By: Paul Johnson
-
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
- By: Charles Darwin
- Narrated by: Greg Wagland
- Length: 2 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This work, unsurprisingly, offers invaluable insights into the life and times of Charles Darwin, his personality and the formative influences that made him what he was, for here we have his own words and ‘voice’ at the close of a prodigiously productive career. He tells of his childhood, his student days at Edinburgh and Cambridge, his love of beetles, shooting and geology and of his grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood. He talks at some length about his meetings with the great scientific men of the age, his attitudes to his critics, to religion and of his theories of evolution.
-
-
Darwin about himself
- By Terry Yancey on 05-23-17
By: Charles Darwin
-
Plato's Phaedrus
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 2 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Phaedrus lures Socrates outside the walls of Athens, where he seldom goes, by promising to share a new work by his friend and mentor, Lysias, a famous writer of speeches. This dialogue provides a powerful example of the dialectical writing that Plato uses to manifest ideas that are essential to human existence and to living a good life. Phaedrus shows how oral and written forms of language relate to each other and to philosophy.
-
-
six pages (Hackett Complete Works edition) missing
- By S. Lee on 01-17-19
By: Plato
-
The Infidel and the Professor
- David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought
- By: Dennis C. Rasmussen
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship of two towering Enlightenment thinkers that had great consequences for modern thought. David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime, he was attacked as "the Great Infidel" for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism.
-
-
a thoroughly enjoyable account of friendship
- By henryj on 02-21-20
-
How to Speak and Write Correctly
- By: Joseph Devlin
- Narrated by: Shawn Grisden
- Length: 4 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book has no pretension about it whatever -- it is neither a Manual of Rhetoric, expatiating on the dogmas of style, nor a Grammar full of arbitrary rules and exceptions. It is merely an effort to help ordinary, everyday people to express themselves in ordinary, everyday language, in a proper manner.
By: Joseph Devlin
-
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
- By: Balthasar Gracian
- Narrated by: Keira Grace
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Art of Worldly Wisdom was written in 1647. It is a collection of 300 maxims on various topics, each elaborated with a commentary. The sayings offer advice and guidance on how to live well, advance socially, and be a better person.
-
-
Terrible Narration
- By John P. Owens on 08-31-22
-
Cultural Amnesia
- Notes in the Margin of My Time
- By: Clive James
- Narrated by: Clive James
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Charlie Chaplin, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, both public memoir and personal record - and provides an essential field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.
-
-
Very enjoyable and well narrated
- By Larbi on 05-18-08
By: Clive James
-
The Screwtape Letters
- By: C. S. Lewis
- Narrated by: Joss Ackland
- Length: 3 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below". At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C. S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wise old devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging and humorous account of temptation - and triumph over it - ever written.
-
-
This is the Best Audio Screwtape, a Masterpiece
- By James on 08-22-12
By: C. S. Lewis
-
The Life of Samuel Johnson
- By: James Boswell
- Narrated by: David Timson
- Length: 51 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.
-
-
Wonderful!
- By Tad Davis on 02-02-18
By: James Boswell
-
Angels and Ages
- A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Written 200 years after Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln shared a birthday on February 12, 1809, this insightful account sheds new light on two men who changed the way we think about the meaning of life and death. Award-winning journalist Adam Gopnik's unique perspective, combined with previously unexplored stories and figures, reveals two men planted firmly at the roots of modern views and liberal values.
-
-
Connecting Darwin and Lincoln
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Adam Gopnik
-
The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom)
- By: Friedrich Nietzsche
- Narrated by: Michael Lunts
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom) is one of Nietzsche's greatest books. His wonderfully fertile mind roams over mankind, his thoughts, his emotions, his behaviour and his weaknesses with remarkable clarity, with insight - but also with humour!In this work are 383 separate paragraphs, some short, some long, but all singular observations - the epitome of his famous aphoristic style. 'Morality is the herd instinct in the individual.'
-
-
I am now a full-fledged fan of Nietzsche
- By RS on 02-24-18
-
Plato's Republic
- By: Plato
- Narrated by: Ray Childs
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Republic poses questions that endure: What is justice? What form of community fosters the best possible life for human beings? What is the nature and destiny of the soul? What form of education provides the best leaders for a good republic? What are the various forms of poetry and the other arts, and which ones should be fostered and which ones should be discouraged? How does knowing differ from believing?
-
-
BEWARE: shortened version
- By Dranu on 03-08-20
By: Plato
-
A Wicked Company
- The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment
- By: Philipp Blom
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The flourishing of radical philosophy in Baron Thierry Holbach’s Paris salon from the 1750s to the 1770s stands as a seminal event in Western history. Holbach’s house was an international epicenter of revolutionary ideas and intellectual daring, bringing together such original minds as Denis Diderot, Laurence Sterne, David Hume, Adam Smith, Ferdinando Galiani, Horace Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, Guillaume Raynal, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In A Wicked Company, acclaimed historian Philipp Blom retraces the fortunes of this exceptional group of friends.
-
-
Excellent Book on Radical Enlightenment
- By EJJ on 02-15-15
By: Philipp Blom
-
From Superman to Man
- By: J.A. Rogers
- Narrated by: Hal Saunders
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J.A., Roger's novel, first published in 1917 is a polemic against the ignorance behind racism. The plot is based around a debate between a Pullman porter and a racist politician. The author deals with racism and bigotry in an exemplary way.
-
-
Truth vs Lies
- By Vahojeh on 09-05-19
By: J.A. Rogers
-
Kierkegaard
- A Single Life
- By: Stephen Backhouse
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An accessible, expert introduction to one of the greatest minds of 19th century. Whether you're completely new to him, or if you're already familiar with his work, Kierkegaard: A Single Life presents a fresh understanding of his life and thought. Kierkegaard was a brilliant and enigmatic loner whose ideas permeated culture, shaped modern Christianity, and influenced people as diverse as Franz Kafka and Martin Luther King Jr. Though few people today have read his work, that lack of familiarity with the real Kierkegaard is changing with this biography by scholar Stephen Backhouse.
-
-
Great!
- By Will on 07-11-17
-
How to Live on 24 Hours a Day
- By: Arnold Bennett
- Narrated by: Eric Brooks
- Length: 1 hr and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This classic personal time-management book, originally published in 1908, has inspired generations of men and women to live deliberate lives. Not just another collection of timesaving tips, this book is more of a challenge to leave behind mundane everyday concerns, focus on pursuing one's true desires, and live the fullest possible life. Reflection, concentration, and study techniques make it easier to accomplish more truly rewarding undertakings than anyone ever dreamed possible.
-
-
Well written, well read.
- By Lauren on 02-21-12
By: Arnold Bennett