Showing results by narrator "Charles Featherstone" in All Categories

The earliest, most visionary examples of the genre in a two-thousand-year compendium of speculative fiction that begins when the height of technology was Roman concrete and the watermill, and ends on the cusp of the pulp era. An essential collection of 30 stories for the true sci fi enthusiast...

"The Elements of Style" is an American English writing style guide in numerous editions. The original was written by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, and it was published by Harcourt in 1920, comprising eight "elementary rules of usage," ten "elementary principles of composition," "a few matters of form," a list of 49 "words and expressions commonly misused," and a list of 57 "words often misspelled."

The most popular and well-known of Allen's bestselling self-help books, As A Man Thinketh is a pocket companion for thoughtful people, about the power and right application of thought.

The Classic of Changes (I Ching / Yìjīng / 易經) is one of the oldest and most enduring texts in the Chinese literary tradition, and one of the oldest books on record. The trigrams and method are classically attributed to the culture hero and legendary emperor Fu Xi (c. 2800 BCE), who also...

Four centuries ago, the philosopher, statesman and father of the scientific method Francis Bacon wrote a proto sci-fi book that would help reshape the world. The vision of ‘Salomon’s House’ inspired the Royal Society (the oldest continuously existing scientific academy on earth, founded in...

In 100 AD, Plutarch wrote what would become the first science fiction about the civilisation on the moon, appended to a rigorous scientific analysis of current knowledge about the moon. Orbital mechanics, optics, atmospheric refraction, lunar geography, planetary and stellar composition...

“Absolutely unique — a book made for constant use and a companion for life" "I have never found a book that contains such a multitude of wise rules for the conduct of life.” - Arthur Schopenhauer “Europe has never produced anything more subtle in matters of moral knowledge" "Such a book...

The Tàishàng Gǎnyìng Piān (太上感應篇) is the most influential morality text in Chinese history, a succinct layperson's guide to Daoist ethics. It gives a long series of life rules, for both action and thought, listing specific good and bad deeds and the consequences they invite, with...

Any study of Dàoism is a paradox. The first line of the Dàodé Jīng declares: "The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way." This inherent contradiction—attempting to define the indefinable—lies at the heart of the tradition. Yet it is precisely this tension that makes Dàoism so rich and enduring.

It looks like a simple riddle book. A monk asks, "Has a dog Buddha‑nature?" The master replies, "Mu." Nothing more. But this single syllable—meaning literally "no" or "not"—has undone more clever minds than any philosophical argument. The Gateless Gate (Wúménguān) is a collection of 48...

Before the global sensation As a Man Thinketh, there was From Poverty to Power (1901), James Allen‘s first and, in his view, more significant work. Unlike other books, it was written while he was still working as a journalist, and before the success of As a Man Thinketh. Written with an energy and directness that defined his emerging philosophy in its earliest stages, this book presents a foundational exploration of spiritual law that Allen felt his later, more popular work only hinted at.

“Though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second; yet, I will endeavour to be, Margaret the First: and, though I have neither Power, Time nor Occasion, to be a great Conqueror, like Alexander, or Cesar; yet, rather than not be Mistress of a World, since Fortune and the Fates would...

This complete edition spans 2,400 years (431 BCE–1944) in 40 hours, 155 speeches, and 52 speakers, including foundational addresses by Gandhi and Mao—voices that shaped modern Asia. Begin in 431 BCE with Demosthenes, whose structural genius remains the DNA of modern expression. Traverse Athens’ zenith via Pericles’ Funeral Oration, Alexander’s volatile proclamations, and Rome’s crisis in Cicero’s showdown with Cataline—featuring Caesar’s sole surviving senate address and Mark Antony’s incendiary eulogy.

You know him as a swashbuckling, giant-nosed lover immortalised in a play... but did you know he wrote one of the earliest sci-fi novels? Long before Edmond Rostand immortalized him, the real Cyrano de Bergerac was a freethinking philosopher and soldier who turned his sharp wit from the...

This tale from 1869 is the very first vision of an artificial satellite, which accidentally also becomes the first space station. Sailors could fix their latitude easily enough by the height of the North Star above the horizon, but longitude, without a comparable fixed point in the sky, had cost...

Before AA… Before The Twelve Steps… Soul Surgery defined personal work, was the foundation of sponsorship and step work, and bridged the Oxford Group and Alcoholics Anonymous. The practical evangelical method covers: - Confidence, gained through trust and discretion - Confession of moral...

You probably know the name Nathaniel Hawthorne. Often described as one of the greatest fiction writers of the 19th century, and master of the allegorical and symbolic tale, he penned The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables, and was a close friend of Herman Melville, Merson, Thoreau, and...

The origin of the phrase “call a spade a spade.” Πῶς δεῖ ἱστορίαν συγγράφειν was written in the mid‑160s AD, and is the the most complete surviving ancient treatise on historiographical method. Prompted by the deluge of amateur accounts celebrating Rome’s...

Long before the term “science fiction” was coined in 1929, Edgar Allan Poe was writing tales that reached for the stars, probed the boundaries of life and death, and imagined strange future histories. Best known as the master of the macabre, Poe here turns his restless imagination to what...

Between every stimulus and every response, there is a space. Three to five seconds wide. Most people never feel it. They react before it opens, then construct an explanation afterwards for why the reaction was reasonable. The explanation is almost always wrong. You Are Not Your Reaction is about...