The young Berber narrator of Donkey Heart Monkey Mind has to learn the kind of perseverance and ingenuity it takes to survive in 1980s Algeria, where his people are second-class citizens in a third world country. His tale opens when police brutally beat him for participating in a protest march. Knowing that he must leave his own country or suffer this kind of treatment forever, he begins wandering Europe and northern Africa, desperately seeking some alternative. He tries his hand as a street vendor and a pickpocket, is mistaken for a drug smuggler and an Egyptian spy, and poses as a Jew to sneak into Israel and as a devout Muslim to escape notice in a prison cell in Egypt. But he is eventually swept up in the wave of arrests following the ?Black October? Algerian political riots of 1988. Drugged and shipped to a remote military prison, for months he is burned, brutalized, and held in solitary confinement. But in the end, his tale gives evidence that even in the most desperate circumstances sometimes hope is found, help is offered, and inspiration strikes.

In The True Self, Lokesh (Loki) Babu invites you on a timeless journey, merging ancient wisdom to modern philosophy from across history and the world. Through an honest and intimate narrative, Loki shares his personal spiritual transformation, offering universal insights to help cut through the noise of our hyperconnected world. As you navigate the challenges of digitalisation and the relentless pursuit of validation, The True Self empowers you to unlock the boundless joy and peace within by uncovering your true purpose, identity, faith, and existence. Prepare to be captivated, enlightened, and forever changed, through this powerful journey of finding clarity over confusion, unveiling mysteries of human spirit and experience the beauty of life.

An up-close look at the democratic race for the White House—it isn't pretty Spanking the Donkey is a campaign diary like no other. Celebrated reporter Matt Taibbi turns a withering eye on the kissing contest of puffed-up martinets and egomaniacal fantasists more generally known as the 2004 Democratic primaries. Taibbi's contempt for the whole charade, and for most of those involved (including a generous helping of his fellow journalists), makes for a searing and highly entertaining account. His refusal to take the proceedings seriously leads him to volunteer for Wesley Clark's New Hampshire campaign in the guise of an adult-film director, while his take on a John Edwards press conference in New York City is filtered through the haze of hallucinogenic drugs. Taking up residence in slums and halfway houses as he follows the circus around the country, Taibbi juxtaposes an idiotic dog-and-pony show in which clashes of plainly identical candidates are presented as real controversies, with the quite separate concerns of the ordinary Americans whose lodgings he shares. The gap between the antiseptic exercise in faint patriotic optimism that is mainstream politics and the harsh realities of life for the millions of Americans that the electoral parade simply passes by has never been more sharply, or hilariously, sketched.

A fascinating work from an internationally renowned poet Anne Waldman's new investigative hybrid-poem explores the nuances of inter-species communication and compassion. It draws on animal lore, animal encounters (with grey wolf and manatee), dreams, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and Buddhist ritual to render a text of remarkable sympathy, reciprocity, and power. The poem asks questions as well as urges further engagement with the endangered (including our human selves). Part performance litany, part survival kit, part worried mammalian soundings, Waldman explores, as ever, what it means to inhabit our condition through language and imagination inside a wheel of time. This is the mature work of a philosophical field poet with a shamanic metabolism.

Gregory Bateson was a philosopher, anthropologist, photographer, naturalist, and poet, as well as the husband and collaborator of Margaret Mead. This classic anthology of his major work includes a new Foreword by his daughter, Mary Katherine Bateson. 5 line drawings.

When Henry receives a letter from an elderly taxidermist, it poses a puzzle that he cannot resist. As he is pulled further into the world of this strange and calculating man, Henry becomes increasingly involved with the lives of a donkey and a howler monkey--named Beatrice and Virgil--and the epic journey they undertake together.

"A collection of stories designed for the moral instruction and entertainment of readers"--