Non-fiction audiobooks page 13

Of The Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo: “If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how everything before my time was standing on its head, he should begin reading me in this book. That which is called ‘Idols’ on the title-page is simply the old truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain English, The Twilight of the Idols means that the old truth is on its last legs.”

Certain it is that, for a rapid survey of the whole of Nietzsche’s doctrine, no book, save perhaps the section entitled “Of Old and New Tables” in Thus Spake Zarathustra, could be of more real value than The Twilight of the Idols. Here ...

The Riddle of the Universe is the philosophical work of Ernst Haeckel, eminent biologist, in which he explores the meaning of life, the nature of reality, and the connection between physiology and thought.

Famous Men of Modern Times is a series of biographical sketches written for the purpose of making the study of history lively and interesting by giving insight into the men who lived during this time. Summary by Laura Caldwell

Epictetus (Greek: Επίκτητος; c.55–c.135) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. The name given by his parents, if one was given, is not known – the word epiktetos in Greek simply means “acquired.”

Epictetus spent his youth as a slave in Rome to Epaphroditos, a very wealthy freedman of Nero. Even as a slave, Epictetus used his time productively, studying Stoic Philosophy under Musonius Rufus. He was eventually freed and lived a relatively hard life in ill health in Rome.

So far as is known, Epictetus himself wrote nothing. All that we have of his work was transcribed by his pupil Arrian. The main work is The Discourses, four books of which have been preserved (out of an original...

Returning from the horrors of World War I James Hall and Charles Nordhoff follow a dream to tour the South Pacific. They later co authored “Mutiny on the Bounty”. This is a love story. A travelogue and an adventure rolled into one. This book just went into the public domain, so enjoy an early 20th Century look at paradise.

Thomas Troward was a divisional Judge in British-administered India. His avocation was the study of comparative religion. Influences on his thinking, as well as his later writing, included the teachings of Christ, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. After his retirement from the judiciary in 1896, Troward set out to apply logic and a judicial weighing of evidence in the study of matters of cause and effect.

The philosopher William James characterized Troward’s Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science as "far and away the ablest statement of philosophy I have met, beautiful in its sustained clearness of thought and style, a really classic statement."

According to Alcoholics Anonym...

George Hamilton was the surgeon assigned to the frigate Pandora. The British Admiralty ordered the ship to the Pacific to arrest the Bounty mutineers and bring them back to England for trial. The commander, Captain Edward Edwards, also was ordered to chart the passage between Australia and New Guinea. While Edwards managed to arrest the mutineers still on Tahiti, he sank the Pandora on a reef near Australia. Hamilton tells this story and also the story of the crew’s fate after the Pandora sank.

Chronicles the life of Richard II, born in 1367 in Bordeaux, France, who later wore the crown of King of England.

Edward Granville Browne (1862 – 1926), born in Stouts Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, England, was a British orientalist who published numerous articles and books of academic value, mainly in the areas of history and literature. His works are respected for their scholarship, uniqueness, and style. He published in areas which few other Western scholars had explored to any sufficient degree. He used a language and style that showed high respect for everybody, even toward those he personally did not view in positive light. In A Year Amongst the Persians (1893) he wrote a sympathetic portrayal of a Persian society which few Westerners had ever seen, including a frank account of the effects of op...

In seinen 17 Malerbriefen geht Wilhelm Ostwald in leicht verständlicher Weise auf die Physikalischen (Optik) und Chemischen (Pigmente, Bindemittel) Seiten der malerischen Techniken ein. Er bespricht das Pastell, Aquarell, Guasch, Fresco, Tempera und die Ölmalerei; erklärt die Wirkung von Lichtbrechung und Reflektion einzelner Farben im Zusammenspiel mit den unterschiedlichen Bindemitteln und den verschiedenen Malgründen. Nebenbei gibt er auch noch einige Rezepte zur einfachen Herstellen eigener Farben preis. Abschließend wird noch die Physiologische Seite der Malerischen Techniken angesprochen, indem auf die Darstellung subjektiver Erscheinungen (Blendwirkungen, Nachbilder) eingegangen wi...