Subway Line Series

Winner of the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Award for Social Change. This remarkable book takes the reader through the many layers of meaning that accompany the word ‘prejudice’. By critically confronting the ways in which we think and speak about prejudice, Michael Eskin clears the path for a new understanding of prejudice as a concept, a phenomenon, and a lived experience. Combining analytical rigor with sound practical suggestions, this book speaks to a broad audience and will serve as a valuable companion for anyone who shares the author’s passionate commitment to confronting and eradicating prejudice.

In this witty philosophical polemic, Misha Waiman uncovers the paradoxes and absurdities underlying Germans’ love-hate relationship with the US and its culture.

Acclaimed poet and essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger takes a fresh, sobering look at our faith in statistics, our desire to predict the future, and our dependence on fortuitousness. Tracing the interface between chance and probability in medical diagnostics, risk models, economics, and the fluctuations of financial markets, Fatal Numbers goes straight to the heart of what it means to live, plan, and make decisions in a globalized, digitized, hyperlinked, science-driven, and uncertain world ...

Winner of the 2011 Independent Publisher Book Award for Creative Non-Fiction. In a sequence of rivetingly personal essays, Europe's premier contemporary poet and essayist, Durs Grünbein, reflects on his own evolution as an artist and on the meaning and importance of poetry for life in general. "What counts is the one, unattended second, the moment of inspiration that can never be forced and that decides all. It gives the beginning, it sets in motion the production of sense. The poem is the literary form that most purely captures this moment of inception. I might even go so far as to say that poetry is in large part born from the desire to start over as often as possi⁠ble ..." (Durs Grünbein)

"Yoga for the Mind is Slow Thought for a Fast Life." (2014 Living Now Award Winner) We are constituted to think and reflect, to query and question, to seek answers and not stop at the answers we find, pushing further and further on our quest for meaning and insight into the big and the small, into first things and last. In other words, we are philosophical creatures. How, then, can we achieve more satisfying, rich, creative, and fulfilled lives as creatures of thought and reflection, as fundamentally philosophical beings? This question lies at the heart of Yoga for the Mind - an intensely fruitful and enriching philosophical supplement to the daily diet of existence. Both an ethic and a method - a spiritual guide to a mentally and emotionally satisfying life and a manual laying out the concrete steps that will take us there - Yoga for the Mind is accessible and speaks to anyone anywhere.

If parenthood were a function of biology, adoptive parents, for instance, ought not to be considered parents — which is absurd. Thus, it follows that biology cannot be an essential component of parenthood. Concomitantly, if parenthood were merely a function of law, all those who have parented children without being their legal parents would be stripped of their de facto parenthood ... If, then, parenthood is neither a function of biology nor simply law — what is it? What does being a parent truly mean? Rooted in the author’s own experience as a father of three, THE WISDOM OF PARENTHOOD is an insightful, original, and provocative philosophical meditation on the meaning, experience, and practice of parenthood both as a universally human phenomenon across history and, more specifically, in the age of assisted reproduction, in vitro fertilization, gestational surrogacy, “third-party production,” international adoption, and the transformation of the very notion of the nuclear family with the rise of same-sex and LGBT parenting. “Finally we have a real thinker who dispels the ‘blood is thicker than water’ myth in persuasively showing that, in fact, the wisdom and commitment of deliberate love — not DNA — are thicker, richer, deeper ... Michael Eskin offers an enlightened understanding of true parenthood ‘beyond necessity’, which is as essential to the survival of the soul as water is to the body.” — LOUIE B. FREE, host of The Louie b. Free Show “... beautifully articulated, profoundly moving, enlightening and inspiring ... THE WISDOM OF PARENTHOOD has already shifted my perspective, in some ways renewed it, but definitely also imbued me with some new ways of thinking and understanding and taking pride in my role as a mother and stepmother ...” — DONNA MURPHY, Tony Award-winning actress and singer “A powerful argument for an understanding of parenthood based on the daily actions, the real practice of parenting as opposed to our children’s origins. Speaking from experience, Michael Eskin takes the reader on a wonderfully substantiated path to a conclusion that will be reassuring to anyone considering adoption, or anyone who has ever parented.” — JILL LARSON, Emmy-nominated cast member of All My Children “An insightful, intelligent exploration of parenthood — no matter where and how your children came to be in your life — THE WISDOM OF PARENTHOOD is a book one can read over and over again. There is so much to absorb that it is one to keep going back to. It is a manual for parenthood — truly a philosophy of parenting to live by.” — CAROL CIANCUTTI, acclaimed director of Absolutely Safe