"A blazing memoir in essays" ( Entertainment Weekly) that explores the ever-shifting definitions of what it means to be black (and a man) in America.An NPR Best Book of the YearA Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite of the YearA Finalist for the NAACP Image AwardA Finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for NonfictionA Finalist fo...

There is an old Buddhist adage: the teachings are like a finger pointing to the moon. To achieve enlightenment, you are not supposed to look at the finger. You are supposed to look to the celestial light.I am asking you to look at the finger. The finger is also the moon.A tilted head. A finger to the lips. A wave that could mean emphasis or dismissal. A raised palm of piety and fellowship.Our gestures do not simply...

A beautiful celebratory tribute to the powers of one of our most undervalued skills — an ideal gift for the avid reader.‘What you are doing right now is, cosmically speaking, against the odds.’As young children, we are taught to read, but soon go on to forget just how miraculous a process it is, this turning of scratches and dots into understanding, unease and inspiration. Perhaps we need to stop and remember, stop and learn again how to read better.

**From the Thurber Prize-winning author of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker comes a pioneering collection of Black humor from some of the most acclaimed writers and performers at work today“Crackling, hilarious. . . . You won’t want to miss it.” —People“Completely absorbing.”—Amy Sedaris**A critic explores the paradox of finding community in “the dozens” while grieving. A violent town ritual causes an all-too-familiar moral panic. An email t...

We all know what it is to be distracted—a feeling that our attention is not quite where it should be.Though it is not a new complaint, at work and at home, in our social lives and in the bedroom, our attention is often torn between one thing and another. What does it mean to be distracted, and why? In this insightful journey through the lives of philosophers, artists and great political thinkers, Damon Young shows how rewarding patient, sensitive and thoughtful attention to the worl...

This is the first substantial academic book to lay out the philosophical terrain within the study of the martial arts and to explore the significance of this fascinating subject for contemporary philosophy.The book is divided into three sections. The first section concerns what philosophical reflection can teach us about the martial arts, and especially the nature and value of its practice. The second section deals with the other direction of the dialectical interplay between philo...

The curious reader’s companion to sex.‘Wit, you know, is the unexpected copulation of ideas.’ Samuel JohnsonWhy is screwing so funny?How should we think about our most shocking fantasies?What is so captivating about nudity?Inspired by philosophy, literature, and private life, Damon Young explores the paradoxes of the bedroom. On Getting Off will f**k with your mind.

Most of us struggle with distraction every day: the familiar feeling that our attention is not quite where it should be. We feel it at work and at home and it can be frustrating and uncomfortable. But what is distraction? In his lucid, timely book, Damon Young shows that distraction is more than too many stimuli, or too little attention. It is actually a matter of value - to be distracted is to be torn away from what is worthwhile in life. And for Young, what is most worthwhile is freedom:...

Why did Marcel Proust have bonsai beside his bed? What was Jane Austen doing, coveting an apricot? How was Friedrich Nietzsche inspired by his ‘thought tree’?In Philosophy in the Garden, Damon Young explores one of literature’s most intimate relationships: authors and their gardens. For some, the garden provided a retreat from workaday labour; for others, solitude’s quiet counsel. For all, it played a philosophical role: giving their ideas a new life....

This classic work by one of the most important philosophers and critics of our time charts the genesis and trajectory of the desiring subject from Hegel's formulation in Phenomenology of Spirit to its appropriation by Kojève, Hyppolite, Sartre, Lacan, Deleuze, and Foucault. Judith Butler plots the French reception of Hegel and the successive challenges waged against his metaphysics and view of the subject, all while revealing ambiguities within his position. The result is a sophis...

A Finalist for theNAACP Image AwardLonglisted for thePEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the EssayAn NPR Best Book ofthe YearA Washington Independent Review of Books Favorite of the YearFrom the cofounder of VerySmartBrothas.com, and one of the most read writers on race and culture at work today, a provocativ...

**From the Thurber Prize-winning author of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker comes a pioneering collection of Black humor from some of the most acclaimed writers and performers at work today“Crackling, hilarious. . . . You won’t want to miss it.” —People“Completely absorbing.”—Amy Sedaris**A critic explores the paradox of finding community in “the dozens” while grieving. A violent town ritual causes an all-too-familiar moral panic. An email t...