Popular North American Philosophical Books

Find philosophical books written by authors from North America for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (12)

1.

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis EN

0 Ratings
Description:
With her characteristic brilliance, grace and radical audacity, Angela Y. Davis has put the case for the latest abolition movement in American life: the abolition of the prison. As she quite correctly notes, American life is replete with abolition movements, and when they were engaged in these struggles, their chances of success seemed almost unthinkable. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. Similarly,the entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and generations lived in the midst of the practice, with few predicting its passage fr... continue

2.

Colonel Lágrimas by Carlos Fonseca Suárez EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Description:
“Beware, reader, in these pages you will experience vertigo, anxiety and joy. You will become a ghostly presence in a Borgesian world, a camera obscura, where mathematics is a secret weapon, and memory the object of an archaeological pursuit. Loosely inspired by the eventful life of the French mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, Fonseca has created a gorgeous opera prima.” —Valerie Miles, The New York Times Book Review Holed away in a cabin in the Pyrenees, the world-famous and enigmatic mathematician Alexander Grothendieck is working furiously on a final project. But what exactly is this mo... continue

3.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck EN

Rating: 5 (5 votes)
Description:
The biblical account of Cain and Abel is echoed in the history of two generations of the Trask family in California.

4.

Embers : One Ojibway's Meditations by Richard Wagamese EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Description:
"Life sometimes is hard. There are challenges. There are difficulties. There is pain. As a younger man I sought to avoid them and only ever caused myself more of the same. These days I choose to face life head on--and I have become a comet. I arc across the sky of my life and the harder times are the friction that lets the worn and tired bits drop away. It's a good way to travel; eventually I will wear away all resistance until all there is left of me is light. I can live towards that end." --Richard Wagamese, Embers In this carefully curated selection of everyday reflections, Richard Wagamese... continue

5.

Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis EN

Rating: 4 (3 votes)
Description:
Winner of the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalist for the 2015 Toronto Book Awards Winner of the 2015 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize "[Alexis] devises an inventive romp through the nature of humanity in this beautiful, entertaining read … A clever exploration of our essence, communication, and how our societies are organized." – Kirkus Reviews "This might be the best set-up of the spring." – The Globe & Mail "André Alexis has established himself as one of our preeminent voices." – Toronto Star — I wonder, said Hermes, what it would be like if animals had human intelligence. — I'll wager... continue

6.

Freedom by Margaret Atwood EN

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Description:
Can we ever be wholly free? In this book of breathtaking imaginary leaps that conjure dystopias and magical islands, Margaret Atwood holds a mirror up to our own world. The reflection we are faced with, of men and women in prisons literal and metaphorical, is frightening, but it is also a call to arms to speak and to act to preserve our freedom while we still can. And in that, there is hope. Selected from The Handmaid's Tale and Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood. VINTAGE MINIS- GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make ... continue

7.

La răsărit de Eden by John Steinbeck RO

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Description:
"La rasarit de Eden" este un roman inegalabil despre dragoste şi ură, inocenţă şi depravare, lupta omului pentru supravieţuire şi impulsul lui de autodistrugere şi, mai cu seamă, despre liberul-arbitru. Inspirându-se din "Geneză", Steinbeck reia în cheie modernă mitul lui Cain şi Abel şi îl transpune în Valea Salinas din California.

8.

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville EN

Rating: 4 (4 votes)
Description:
Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read First published in 1851, Herman Melville’s masterpiece is, in Elizabeth Hardwick’s words, “the greatest novel in American literature.” The saga of Captain Ahab and his monomaniacal pursuit of the white whale remains a peerless adventure story but one full of mythic grandeur, poetic majesty, and symbolic power. Filtered through the consciousness of the novel’s narrator, Ishmael, Moby-Dick draws us into a universe full of fascinating characters and stories, from the noble cannibal Queequeg to the natural history of ... continue

9.

Outline by Rachel Cusk EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Description:
A Finalist for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction One of The New York Times' Top Ten Books of the Year Named a A New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Vogue, NPR, The Guardian, The Independent, Glamour, and The Globe and Mail Chosen as one of fifteen remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write in the 21st century by the book critics of The New York Times Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and lucid, it follows a novelist teaching a cou... continue

10.

Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel EN

Rating: 5 (3 votes)
Description:
Still Born, Guadalupe Nettel's fourth novel, treats one of the most consequential decisions of early adulthood - whether or not to have children - with the intelligence and originality that have won her international acclaim. Alina and Laura are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom have built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura has taken the drastic decision to be sterilized, but as time goes by Alina becomes drawn to the idea of becoming a mother. When Alina's daughter survives childbirth - after a diagnosis that predicted the opposite - a... continue