(Available October 1, 2012) Who is the greatest living essayist writing in English? Unquestionably Joseph Epstein. Epstein is penetrating. He is witty. He has a magic touch with words, that hard to define but immediately recognizable quality called style. Above all, he is impossible to put down. How easy it is today to forget the simple delight of reading for no intended purpose. Each of the 40 pieces in this book is a pure pleasure to read.

(Available September 1, 2012) What happens when a kid eats too much junk food and watches too much TV, and never, ever leaves the couch? You guessed it: he turns into a couch potato—literally! In a unique feature, the book has three separate endings—three different outcomes for poor Bud—which range from the positive and uplifting to the decidedly macabre (which kids thoroughly love). Behind the humor is a serious message to help combat childhood obesity.

(Available September 1, 2012) Bernard Baruch was a self-made millionaire, legendary stock trader, and venture investor. For most of the first half of the 20th century, he epitomized the “good side” of Wall Street in the public mind. Celebrated as “Adviser to Presidents” and “The Park Bench Statesman,” he also became known as “The Man Who Sold out before the Crash.” James Grant’s much praised biography draws on a wealth of previously untapped material.

(Available August 1, 2012) Axios’s Essence of … Series takes the greatest works of practical philosophy and pares them down to their essence. Selected passages flow together to create a seamless work that will capture your interest from page one. Kant may be the greatest Western philosopher. In this extraordinary little book, one of the most influential in history, he offers an ethics based on universal logic. This edition makes his own words both readable and understandable.

(Available August 1, 2012) Axios’s Essence of . . . Series takes the greatest works of practical philosophy and pares them down to their essence. Selected passages flow together to create a seamless work that will capture your interest from page one. Goethe: " [In his] Ethics ..., I found the serenity to calm my passions...." This new edition makes Spinoza's own words understandable by everyone.

Near the end of World War Two, a Navy pilot meets and falls in love with a beautiful California girl. They have a brief two weeks together before he is shipped off to the South Pacific. This is an engaging collection of his letters, compiled by the daughter he never got to meet. Full of poignant detail—a chronicle of the passions and fears of wartime—the book is the ultimate love story of America's “greatest generation.”

Axios’s Essence of … Series takes the greatest works of practical philosophy and pares them down to their essence. Selected passages flow together to create a seamless work that will capture your interest from page one. George Fox founded The Religious Society of Friends, better known as Quakers, a form of Christianity which has had an immense influence throughout the world. The story contained in his journal is gripping and hard to put down.

Axios’s Essence of … Series takes the greatest works of practical philosophy and pares them down to their essence. Selected passages flow together to create a seamless work that will capture your interest from page one. Jane Addams was arguably the most influential woman in American history. Her mission as a public intellectual, social activist and reformer shines forth brightly in her inspiring and easy-to-read autobiography. In her time, she was as famous as a president.

The Tang Dynasty was the golden age of Chinese poetry, and Bo Juyi is generally acclaimed as one of China’s greatest poets. For him, writing poetry was a way to expose the ills of society; his was the poetry of everyday human concerns. His poems have an appealing style, written with a deliberate simplicity. They were extremely popular in his lifetime, in both China and Japan, and they continue to be read in both countries today.

What is “moral” in the modern age? What is truly “ethical”? Adler skillfully separates “real” good from “apparent” good, and shows how excesses—like gluttony, or the lust for power—simply mistake the means for the ends. Drawing on the entire Western philosophical tradition, he tackles (and solves) some of the thorniest ethical problems facing the world today. This clear and straightforward book is geared toward the lay reader rather than the philosophy student.

In responding to the financial crash of 2008, both the Bush and the Obama Administrations have relied on prescriptions developed by John Maynard Keynes, the most important economist since Marx. But should we be relying on Keynes? What did Keynes actually say? Hunter Lewis concludes in his criticism of Keynesian economics that he did not. If Keynes economics was wrong then so are the economic policies of virtually all world governments today, and are opposed to libertarian ideas like those of Ron Paul and the Tea Party movement.

Axios’s Essence of … Series takes the greatest works of practical philosophy and pares them down to their essence. Selected passages flow together to create a seamless work that will capture your interest from page one. Usually regarded as a bible of free market capitalism, this famous work is also a stinging indictment of what is today called crony capitalism.

Axios’s Essence of… Series takes the greatest works of practical philosophy and pares them down to their essence. Selected passages flow together to create a seamless work that will capture your interest from page one. Aristotle formulated a unique way of looking at the good life. The motto: moderation in all things is completely Aristotelian, although he would probably have added: moderation in all things including moderation.

Axios’s Essence of… Series takes the greatest works of practical philosophy and pares them down to their essence. Selected passages flow together to create a seamless work that will capture your interest from page one. Before Machiavelli, writers described human beings as they ought to be, not as they are. Machiavelli was brutally realistic, not to mention cynical and amoral. Must reading for anyone managing a business, organization, or nation.

The "New Age," contrary to its stereotype of crystals, incense, and Tarot cards, describes important cultural movements of the 18th through 20th centuries which share a preoccupation with political change, experimental art, sex, new ideas about medicine, primitivism, and the familiar axis of love/nature/peace/spirituality. Green analyzes the influence of Gandhi, Tolstoy, Jung, William Blake, Gary Snyder, Rachel Carson, and many others, presenting an immense amount of diverse material in a coherent, imaginative, and convincing form.

From one of the last century's greatest storytellers, Lawrence Durrell, comes a sumptuous collection of essays that describe the author’s unique and cherished approach to life, with its pagan enjoyments as well as its intellectual pursuits. The book contains Durrell's articles about the Mediterranean and Aegean islands he loved so much, along with passages from his letters.

John Julius Norwich’s life has reflected an appetite for living, enlivened by a sense of personal theater. Trying to Please is an engaging and amusing memoir that describes a glamorous but vanishing world. From the monasteries on Mt. Athos to a camel trek across the Sahara, the book shows how Norwich’s passions for history, travel, and music have combined with simpler pleasures like friendship and a close family. A remarkable life and a thoroughly enjoyable read.

This book is an anthology of the travel writings of Rosita Forbes, the fascinating English writer and explorer of the 1920s and 1930s. It includes selections from eight of her travel books, an introduction to her life and work, and will introduce her to a new generation of readers.

In 1902, Ernest Thompson Seton founded a group called the Woodcraft Indians, and went on to become one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America. Although written in the third person, it records Seton's adventures in the woods of Ontario in 1876, when he and a friend developed games that were later incorporated in Boy Scout rituals still in use today. The book is generously illustrated with over 300 of Seton’s own detailed drawings.

The author covers an immense amount of material, both historically and chronologically. He delves into Aztec civilization, the ancient settlers of the Southwest, the Five Nations of the Iroquois League, the Plains Indians, the “Diggers” of the Northwest, the builders of Mesa Verde, and other First Nations. Numerous hand-drawn illustrations throughout, including a map showing the distribution of tribes across the US. An attractive volume aimed at children but equally fascinating for adults.