Philosophy

In this magnificent and often surprising collection of essays Barthes explores the myths of mass culture. Taking subjects as diverse as wrestling, films, plastic and cars, Barthes elegantly deciphers the symbols and signs embedded deep in familiar...

Little known fact: Buddhist Monks are amazing at cleaning and tidying. In this one-of-a-kind guide to cleaning your home, Buddhist monk Shoukei Matsumoto reveals how to make your home as spotless as it is tranquil and peaceful. For Buddhist monks...

Relax, unwind and soak up the wisdom of the sloth with the slowest page turner you’ll ever read. From tidying and Hygge, to living Lagom, the endless pressure to be happier, live better, sleep soundly, and eat mindfully can be exhausting. But this...

Once upon a time Martians and Venusians met, fell in love, and had happy relationships together because they respected and accepted their differences. Then they came to Earth and amnesia set in: they forgot they were from different planets. Based on...

This book is not just for leaders aspiring to better themselves; it's for anyone looking to improve their interpersonal skills, career path, and maybe even the world.Finally in paperback: the New York Times bestseller by the acclaimed, bestselling author...

Vladimir Lenin created this hugely significant Marxist text to explain fully the inevitable flaws and destructive power of Capitalism: that it would lead unavoidably to imperialism, monopolies and colonialism. He prophesied that those third world...

In this fascinating document, one of Japan's best known-and controversial-writers created what might be termed a new literary form. It is new because it combines elements of many existing types of writing, yet in the end fits into none of them.   At...

'I shall imagine myself as if I had no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, no senses at all'Descartes was prepared to go to any lengths in his search for certainty – even to deny those things that seemed most self-evident. In...

Beloved and contemplated by philosophers, architects, writers, and literary theorists alike, Bachelard's lyrical, landmark work examines the places in which we place our conscious and unconscious thoughts and guides us through a stream of cerebral...

Written after Nietzsche had ended his friendship with Richard Wagner and had been forced to leave academic life through ill health, Human, All Too Human (1878) can be read as a monument to his personal crisis. It also marks the point when he matured as a...

A collection of simple - and surprisingly relevant - tools from great thinkers throughout history.  Focusing on important ideas from Western and Eastern philosophy, sociology, psychotherapy, art, architecture, and literature, this collection of wisdom...

Niccolo Machiavelli's brutally uncompromising manual of statecraft, The Prince is translated and edited with an introduction by Tim Parks in Penguin Classics.As a diplomat in turbulent fifteenth-century Florence, Niccolo Machiavelli knew how quickly...

The perfect books for the true book lover, Penguin's Great Ideas series features twelve more groundbreaking works by some of history's most prodigious thinkers. Each volume is beautifully packaged with a unique type-driven design that highlights the...

A classic work on grief, A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis’s honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. Written after his wife’s tragic death as a way of surviving the “mad midnight moments,” A Grief...

A witty introduction to the mind of Goethe, in a new translation for the first time in 150 yearsA Penguin ClassicBy the end of the nineteenth century, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the world's most celebrated poet, novelist, critic and thinker. Today...

Selected as a Book of the Year in The Times Literary Supplement'This lucid and riveting new biography at once rescuses Kierkegaard from the scholars and shows why he is such an intriguing and useful figure' -- ObserverSøren Kierkegaard, one of the most...

The second volume of a political treatise that changed the worldA vital cornerstone to Marx’s overall theory of economics, the second volume of Capital considers in depth the nature of commodity and the market-place bourgeois society. This immensely...

Diderot's The Nun (La Religieuse) is the seemingly true story of a young girl forced by her parents to enter a convent and take holy orders. A novel mingling mysticism, madness, sadistic cruelty and nascent sexuality, it gives a scathing...

How did the dynamic economic system we know as capitalism develop among the peasants and lords of feudal Europe?In The Origin of Capitalism, a now-classic work of history, Ellen Meiksins Wood offers readers a clear and accessible introduction to the...

'A gem of a book. Inspiring and timely. Everyone should read it' Independent.'The Rule of Law' is a phrase much used but little examined. The idea of the rule of law as the foundation of modern states and civilisations has recently become even more...