Patheos, John Ehrett's The Best Books I Read This Year
Seminary Co-Op, Notable books for 2020, Notable Top 12
Zena Hitz, Winner of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, The Dallas Institute
In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape, lasting pleasure, contemplation, or connection to others? While many forms of leisure meet these needs, Zena Hitz writes, few experiences are so fulfilling as the inner life, whether that of a bookworm, an amateur astronomer, a birdwatcher, or someone who takes a deep interest in one of countless other subjects. Drawing on inspiring examples, from Socrates and Augustine to Malcolm X and Elena Ferrante, and from films to Hitz's own experiences as someone who walked away from elite university life in search of greater fulfilment, Lost in Thought is a passionate and timely reminder that a rich life is a life rich in thought.
Today, when even the humanities are often defended only for their economic or political usefulness, Hitz says our intellectual lives are valuable not despite but because of their practical uselessness. And while anyone can have an intellectual life, she encourages academics in particular to get back in touch with the desire to learn for its own sake, and calls on universities to return to the person-to-person transmission of the habits of mind and heart that bring out the best in us.
Reminding us of who we once were and who we might become, Lost in Thought is a moving account of why renewing our inner lives is fundamental to preserving our humanity.
'[An] important book in which [Hitz] reminds us that the humanities are about humanity, and essentially about cultivating an inner life.' - Paradigm Explorer
'[In Lost in Thought] Hitz is asking the right questions...The question at its heart is disarmingly simple and deeply engaging: What should we do with ourselves.' - Jonathan Marks, Wall Street Journal
Patheos, John Ehrett's The Best Books I Read This Year
Seminary Co-Op, Notable books for 2020, Notable Top 12
Zena Hitz, Winner of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, The Dallas Institute
In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape, lasting pleasure, contemplation, or connection to others? While many forms of leisure meet these needs, Zena Hitz writes, few experiences are so fulfilling as the inner life, whether that of a bookworm, an amateur astronomer, a birdwatcher, or someone who takes a deep interest in one of countless other subjects. Drawing on inspiring examples, from Socrates and Augustine to Malcolm X and Elena Ferrante, and from films to Hitz's own experiences as someone who walked away from elite university life in search of greater fulfilment, Lost in Thought is a passionate and timely reminder that a rich life is a life rich in thought.
Today, when even the humanities are often defended only for their economic or political usefulness, Hitz says our intellectual lives are valuable not despite but because of their practical uselessness. And while anyone can have an intellectual life, she encourages academics in particular to get back in touch with the desire to learn for its own sake, and calls on universities to return to the person-to-person transmission of the habits of mind and heart that bring out the best in us.
Reminding us of who we once were and who we might become, Lost in Thought is a moving account of why renewing our inner lives is fundamental to preserving our humanity.
'[An] important book in which [Hitz] reminds us that the humanities are about humanity, and essentially about cultivating an inner life.' - Paradigm Explorer
'[In Lost in Thought] Hitz is asking the right questions...The question at its heart is disarmingly simple and deeply engaging: What should we do with ourselves.' - Jonathan Marks, Wall Street Journal
Lost and Found, the bestselling Australian fiction debut of 2014, now an international sensation, will have you laughing, crying and, by the end, feeling just a little wiser . . . A stunning first...
From mean beginnings 'wretched accommodation, no comfortable houses, no soft beds', visiting French knights complained in 1341 the city of Edinburgh went on to become one of the architectural wonders...
In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's summer house on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father takes his own life, and her mother...
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