If you eat while lying down, you will turn into a snake. If you don't polish off all the rice on your plate you will marry a man full of pimples and pockmarks. Looking After the Ashes is a semi-biographical fiction of Kopi Soh's childhood stories. Growing up in a large extended Taoist influenced Peranakan family filled with strong women, Soh hears these words of 'wisdom' daily. She used to live in a world where clipping finger nails at night was strictly forbidden, pointing at the moon would result in one's ears getting chopped off, and children were forced to stay indoors during sundown for fear of collision with evil forces. A world where mental disorders and illnesses were believed to be caused by malevolent spirits. Talisman, mediums and fortune tellers were a part of everyday life.
A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
"Have You Ever Felt That No One Understands You? Have You Ever Wanted To Stop The Pain In Your Heart And Wished That The Hurt Would Just Dissipate?"Discover Ways To Cope With The Downturns in Your LifeDear Reader, You have come to the right place. This book was written for you. It was written with you in mind, with the hopes of easing your pain by letting you feel less alone in dealing with the troubles in life. Through little insights, the book shows us how to live fully in every moment and how to be successful without compromise- the deep soul searching for harmony and happiness we all can achieve.Instead of chapters, this book is made up of 30 petals, as a metaphor for the exquisitely beautiful and ephemeral nature of life, each dealing with a commonly undiscussed dilemma in life. Like the cherry blossom, this book will bestow on its readers the license to hope, the courage to dream again and perhaps the optimism to look toward a brighter future. Each petal tells a simple story of an experience or life event - struggles of people just like you and me. More importantly, these blossoms serve as a reminder that life is transient and all problems are impermanent.Packed With Real Life StoriesThese issues are closely guarded dark secrets, little-known to even family and friends. Many people suffer alone, desperately struggling for years while keeping their secrets hidden for fear of humiliation, rejection and being ostracized by society.The author uses light humor to help readers identify and courageously deal with such issues within themselves, as well as in their relationships with others. By reading this book, you will feel less alone in coping with your problems and daily stressors. You will be able to pursue your passion in life, find your own happiness and perhaps someday learn to smile again."The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved." - Mother Theresa
Ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are widely represented throughout modern culture. They can be found in any number of entertainment, commercial, and other contexts, but popular media or commodified representations of ghosts can be quite different from the beliefs people hold about them, based on tradition or direct experience. Personal belief and cultural tradition on the one hand, and popular and commercial representation on the other, nevertheless continually feed each other. They frequently share space in how people think about the supernatural. In Haunting Experiences, three well-known folklorists seek to broaden the discussion of ghost lore by examining it from a variety of angles in various modern contexts. Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas take ghosts seriously, as they draw on contemporary scholarship that emphasizes both the basis of belief in experience (rather than mere fantasy) and the usefulness of ghost stories. They look closely at the narrative role of such lore in matters such as socialization and gender. And they unravel the complex mix of mass media, commodification, and popular culture that today puts old spirits into new contexts.
Purity and Danger is acknowledged as a modern masterpiece of anthropology. It is widely cited in non-anthropological works and gave rise to a body of application, rebuttal and development within anthropology. In 1995 the book was included among the Times Literary Supplement's hundred most influential non-fiction works since WWII. Incorporating the philosophy of religion and science and a generally holistic approach to classification, Douglas demonstrates the relevance of anthropological enquiries to an audience outside her immediate academic circle. She offers an approach to understanding rules of purity by examining what is considered unclean in various cultures. She sheds light on the symbolism of what is considered clean and dirty in relation to order in secular and religious, modern and primitive life.
"Time travel, UFOs, mysterious planets, stigmata, rock-throwing poltergeists, huge footprints, bizarre rains of fish and frogs-nearly a century after Charles Fort's Book of the Damned was originally published, the strange phenomenon presented in this book remains largely unexplained by modern science. Through painstaking research and a witty, sarcastic style, Fort captures the imagination while exposing the flaws of popular scientific explanations. Virtually all of his material was compiled and documented from reports published in reputable journals, newspapers and periodicals because he was an avid collector. Charles Fort was somewhat of a recluse who spent most of his spare time researching these strange events and collected these reports from publications sent to him from around the globe. This was the first of a series of books he created on unusual and unexplained events and to this day it remains the most popular. If you agree that truth is often stranger than fiction, then this book is for you"--Taken from Good Reads website.
One of G. K. Chesterton’s finest collection of essays, The Well and the Shallows, explore more controversial themes than typically seen in the work of the English writer. Written with Chesterton’s biting wit, he touches on various cultural, social and moral issues from birth control to Catholicism. Chesterton’s perceptive analysis of core issues within modern society remains startling relatable nearly 100 years since its publication. Written shortly after his conversion to Catholicism, he writes with tremendous foresight focusing on subjects like Catholicism, Reformation and Protestantism, and other profound writings on political and social issues based around the central theme of religion. Essays in this volume include: My Six Conversions The Return to Religion The Higher Nihilism The Ascetic At Large Babies and Distribution A Century of Emancipation Trade Terms Shocking the Modernists Sex and Property Why Protestants Prohibit Where is the Paradox? The Well and the Shallows is an insightful collection of essays on some of the most important ideas of the modernist era written by one of the greatest English writers of the 20th century. It is a perfect read for those interested in the work of G. K. Chesterton or any with a broader interest in historical, social analysis from a religious perspective.
