Showing results by narrator "Nicholas Bell" in All Categories

Aside from love, few actvities seem to promise us as much happiness as going traveling: taking off for somewhere else, somewhere far from home, a place with more interesting weather, customs, and landscapes. But although we are inundated with advice on where to travel, few people seem to talk about why we should go and how we can become more fulfilled by doing so.

Brought to you by Penguin. The fourth Jackson Brodie novel: literary crime from the prizewinning number-one bestselling author of Big Sky and Transcription. A day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a shocking impulse purchase. That one moment of madness is all it...

In this simple, beautifully written book, David Michie opens the door to the core teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. With wry, self-deprecating humour, he shows us how he began to incorporate Buddhist practices into his daily life. He explains how he came to understand the difference between the temporary pleasures of ordinary life, and the profound sense of well-being and heart-felt serenity that comes from connecting with our inner nature.

In ancient Greece or Rome, philosophers were seen as natural authorities on the most pressing questions. However, since then, the idea of finding wisdom from philosophy has come to seem bizarre. Enter a university department today and ask to study wisdom, and you will politely but firmly be shown the door. The Consolations of Philosophy sets out to refute the notion that good philosophy must be irrelevant and gathers together six great philosophers who were convinced of the power of philosophical insight to work a practical effect on our lives.

In the years following the death of Jesus Christ, John the Apostle, now a frail, blind old man, lives in forced exile on the desolate island of Patmos with a small group of his disciples. It is against this turbulent background and inspired by Jesus's radical message of love and forgiveness that John comes to dictate his Gospel.

Ed is having a hard time - at work, in his love life and, well, generally. Then he meets an unlikely Buddhist - who drinks and smokes and talks his kind of language. Bit by bit, things begin to change...Ed doesn't always take Geoff's advice. Or, when he does he lapses at the crucial moment. His path to understanding is not a straight one, especially as life keeps throwing more and more 'stuff' at him.

For anyone who ever wondered what Marcel Proust had in mind when he wrote the one-and-a-quarter-million words of In Search of Lost Time (while bedridden no less), Alain de Botton has the answer. For, in this stylish, erudite and frequently hilarious book, de Botton dips deeply into Proust’s life and work - his fiction, letter, and conversations – and distils from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful.

The world is full of problems and conflicts. So why can we not solve them? According to Edward de Bono, world thinking cannot solve world problems because world thinking is itself the problem. And this is getting worse: we are so accustomed to readily available information online that we search immediately for the answers rather than thinking about them. Our minds function like trying to drive a car using only one wheel.

In 1787 Lieutenant Thomas Rooke sets sail from Portsmouth with the First Fleet and its cargo of convicts, destined for New South Wales. As a young officer and a man of science, the shy and quiet Rooke is full of anticipation about the natural wonders he might discover in this strange land on the other side of the world. After the fleet arrives in Port Jackson, Rooke sets up camp on a rocky and isolated point, and starts his work of astronomy and navigation.

Devised by Dr Pierre Dukan, a French medical doctor who has spent his career helping people to lose weight permanently, The Dukan Diet is the culmination of 35 years clinical experience. Without any of the usual marketing hype, The Dukan Diet swept across France, championed by the people who had successfully lost weight following the diet. It is now estimated that the Dukan community numbers over 5 million people in France.

In Enlightenment to Go, David Michie provides a lively and accessible guide to ‘the best of’ Shantideva. Sharing his enthusiasm for Shantideva’s radical insights, life-changing psychological tools and transcendent wisdom, he draws on a wide variety of scientific sources – from mindfulness training to cognitive behaviour therapy, from neuropsychology to quantum physics – to show how Shantideva’s Guide is as relevant as ever.

They were young, they were Australian, they were Army engineers and they were the first allied soldiers to risk their lives in the darkness of the Vietcong tunnels of South Vietnam. Staring death squarely in the face every day, not only did they follow their enemy down into these unknown underground labyrinths, but matched the Vietcong’s jungle warfare skills and defused thousands of their clever booby traps. Off duty, it was a different story....

We all worry about what others think of us. We all long to succeed and fear failure. We all suffer - to a greater or lesser degree, usually privately and with embarrassment - from status anxiety. For the first time, Alain de Botton gives a name to his universal condition and sets out to investigate both its origins and possible solutions. He looks at history, philosophy, economics, art, and politics - and reveals the many ingenious ways that great minds have overcome their worries. The result is a book that is not only entertaining and thought-provoking - but genuinely wise and helpful as well.

Stress is a constant presence in our everyday lives - more than ever before, we're working harder, juggling more responsibilies and taking less time for ourselves. David Michie, the bestselling author of Buddhism for Busy People, offers a series of meditations designed to take those moments in life that seem unbearably stressful, and gives you the calmness and peace of mind to take control of the situation, and of yourself.

Thousands of depressed little towns dot the vast plain where Cristiano Zena lives with his hard-drinking father, Rino. Unfocused urban sprawl with no centre to look to and nothing to look forward to. Rino Zena and his cronies, Danilo and Quattro Formaggi, are planning a ram raid on an ATM, using a converted tractor. The wary, adoring Cristiano sits in on their meetings, watching their half-baked plans unravel, and thinks about the unattainable Fabiana Ponticelli. He has no idea that something very, very bad is about to happen.

We are never really taught how to make sense of the torrent of news we face every day, writes Alain de Botton (author of the best-selling The Architecture of Happiness), but this has a huge impact on our sense of what matters and of how we should lead our lives. In his dazzling new book, de Botton takes twenty-five archetypal news stories - including an airplane crash, a murder, a celebrity interview and a political scandal - and submits them to unusually intense analysis with a view to helping us navigate our news-soaked age.

In The Romantic Movement, Alain de Botton explores the progress of a love affair from first meeting to breaking up, intercut with musings on the nature of art of love. The relationship between Alice, an advertising executive, and Eric, a banker, is examined at every stage, supplemented by quizzes and commentary by a chorus of great philosophers, from Descartes to Plato to Aretha Franklin. The Romantic Movement will charm listeners and lovers alike with wit, insight, and intelligence.

On a hot day in July, the body of a 16-year-old girl is pulled from the river Main near Frankfurt. She has been brutally attacked and murdered, but no one seems to miss her and no one seems to know who she is. Investigations lead to a rural children's home in the mountains, and to a TV presenter whose research took her too close to the wrong people. As investigators Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein dig deeper, they uncover a pit of evil and cruelty in the midst of a middle class idyll.

Alain de Botton was given unprecedented, unrestricted access to wander around Heathrow, one of the world’s biggest airports, having been appointed its Writer-in-Residence. He spoke with everyone from airline staff and senior executives to travellers passing through, and based on these conversations he produced this extraordinary account of life at an airport and what it says about modern existence.

One of the great, but often unmentioned, causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment: the kind of walls, chairs, buildings, and streets we’re surrounded by. And yet a concern for architecture and design is too often described as frivolous, even self-indulgent. The Architecture of Happiness starts from the idea that where we are heavily influences who we can be - and argues that it is architecture’s task to stand as an eloquent reminder of our full potential.