ninanbooks

Stolen Focus

A magician shows the author a magic trick. He will hold out playing cards one at a time and the author must, without seeing them, sort them into two piles by colour – red or black. How can he possibly get them all right? To his surprise, he doesn’t make a single mistake. The magicianContinue reading “Stolen Focus”

Life is Hard

This is a thoughtful, personal and wise book that tackles the human experiences of infirmity, loneliness, grief, failure, injustice, absurdity and hope through a philosophical lens. Setiya draws on the great philosophers of the ages, not always siding with them, pitting them against each other, questioning their assumptions and the social context which informed theirContinue reading “Life is Hard”

How Animals Grieve

We either don’t know or don’t care about the rich inner lives of the creatures we share this planet with. Yet, from people who share their homes with pets to researchers, wildlife conservationists, zoologists, and everyone who works with animals have no doubt that the range of emotions in varied species is diverse and constant.Continue reading “How Animals Grieve”

The Grieving Brain

“Grieving requires the difficult task of throwing out the map we have used to navigate our lives together and transforming our relationship with this person who has died.” Why is it so difficult for us to comprehend that a person is gone forever? Why do some people adapt better than others? How can we rebuildContinue reading “The Grieving Brain”

The Keys to Kindness

There is more kindness than we think there is in the world and we can all find ways to be more kind. This is a gentle book that sets out to help us understand what kindness is, how we define it in different contexts, what it does for us and how to help make ourContinue reading “The Keys to Kindness”

The Four-Dimensional Human

“When W. H. Auden said, ‘My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain,’ we see something new and true about both Auden’s face and wedding cakes. That sort of good metaphoric language makes our experiences more spacious, expanding our sensibility. In this way, a metaphor is a door that appears andContinue reading “The Four-Dimensional Human”

Davos Man

As the wealth gap and economic inequality widen across the globe, populations are leaning towards far-right governments with nationalist agendas while doubling down on outdated beliefs about immigration, race, class and so on. This book takes an expansive view of these trends and places the blame squarely on the heads of the super-rich class comprisingContinue reading “Davos Man”

My Age of Anxiety

“Fear sharpens the senses. Anxiety paralyses them” – Kurt Goldstein. Is anxiety a medical illness or a cognitive mis-wiring, a philosophical or a spiritual problem or a cultural condition explored by poets? Scott Stossel explores how anxiety is a function of all of these. It can be measured physiologically, it can be measured as aContinue reading “My Age of Anxiety”

Into Thin Air

In 1996, Jon Krakauer, a mountaineer and journalist, was commissioned by Outside magazine to join and write about a commercial expedition to climb Mount Everest. The journey ended in disaster. Krakauer weaves a history of Mount Everest and different expeditions, famous climbers of the past and his present as well as the culture of climbingContinue reading “Into Thin Air”

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

When one takes up a hobby, it is hard to not want to be the absolute best in a short amount of time. The frustration at realising that we cannot get there fast, or possibly ever, is sometimes enough to abandon the cause altogether. Yet, what is it about a person that makes them keepContinue reading “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”