The Gold Bug Variations is a national bestseller and a magnificent story that probes the meaning of love, science, music, and art. Written by the brilliant author Richard Powers, the novel intricately intertwines two love stories in a double helix of desire.

In 1957, the brilliant biologist Stuart Ressler sets out to crack the genetic code. Yet his efforts are sidetracked by other, more complex codes – social, moral, musical, and spiritual – as he falls in love with a member of his research team.

Years later, another young man and woman investigate a different mystery: why did the promising Ressler suddenly vanish from the world of science? Strand by strand, these two love stories intertwine in an enthralling tale about new love and the mysteries of science.

Perhaps one of the most revolutionary works of philosophy ever presented, The Phenomenology of Spirit is Hegel's 1807 work that is in numerous ways extraordinary.

It begins with a Preface, created after the rest of the manuscript was completed, that explains the core of his method and what sets it apart from any preceding philosophy. The Introduction, written before the rest of the work, summarizes and completes Kant's ideas on skepticism by rendering it moot and encouraging idealism and self-realization.

The body of the work is divided into six sections of varying length, entitled "Consciousness," "Self-Consciousness," "Reason," "Spirit," "Religion," and "Absolute Knowledge." A myriad of topics are discussed, and explained in such a harmoniously complex way that the method has been termed Hegelian dialectic.

Ultimately, the work as a whole is a remarkable study of the mind's growth from its direct awareness to scientific philosophy, proving to be a difficult yet highly influential and enduring work.

Boethius was an eminent public figure under the Gothic emperor Theodoric, and an exceptional Greek scholar. When he became involved in a conspiracy and was imprisoned in Pavia, it was to the Greek philosophers that he turned. The Consolation of Philosophy was written in the period leading up to his brutal execution. It is a dialogue of alternating prose and verse between the ailing prisoner and his 'nurse' Philosophy.

Her instruction on the nature of fortune and happiness, good and evil, fate and free will, restore his health and bring him to enlightenment. The Consolation of Philosophy was extremely popular throughout medieval Europe and his ideas were influential on the thought of Chaucer and Dante.

Written in the last years of his life, Reflections from the North Country is often considered Sigurd Olson's most intellectually significant work. In an account alive with anecdote and insight, Olson outlines the wilderness philosophy he developed while working as an outspoken advocate for the conservation of America's natural heritage.

Based on speeches delivered at town meetings and government hearings, this book joins The Singing Wilderness and Listening Point as the core of Olson's work. Upon its initial publication in 1976, Reflections from the North Country, with Olson's unique combination of lyrical nature writing and activism, became an inspiration to the burgeoning environmental movement.

In this wide-ranging work, Olson evokes the soaring grace of raven, osprey, and eagle, the call of the loon, and the song of the hermit thrush. He challenges the reader to loosen the grasp of technology and the rush of contemporary life and make room for a sense of wonder heightened by being in nature. From evolution to the meaning and power of solitude, Olson meditates on the human condition, offering eloquent testimony to the joys and truths he discovered in his beloved north-country wilderness.

Arthur Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung is one of the most important philosophical works of the nineteenth century, representing a fundamental statement of post-Kantian thought. This masterpiece is undeniably Schopenhauer's greatest contribution to philosophy.

Conceived and published before Schopenhauer turned 30, and later expanded over 25 years, the work encapsulates a lifetime of profound thinking. For seven decades, the only unabridged English translation was the Haldane-Kemp version. In 1958, E. F. J. Payne introduced a new translation that decisively replaced the older version by correcting nearly 1,000 errors and omissions found in the Haldane-Kemp translation. Payne's translation is based on the definitive 1937 German edition prepared by Dr. Arthur Hübscher.

This edition is particularly useful for students and teachers as it translates the text’s numerous quotations from various languages into English, making it an invaluable resource for understanding Schopenhauer's vision of the world as will and representation.

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter is a superb autobiography by one of the great literary figures of the twentieth century, Simone de Beauvoir. It offers an intimate picture of growing up in a bourgeois French family, rebelling as an adolescent against the conventional expectations of her class, and striking out on her own with an intellectual and existential ambition exceedingly rare in a young woman in the 1920s.

Beauvoir vividly evokes her friendships, love interests, mentors, and the early days of the most important relationship of her life, with fellow student Jean-Paul Sartre, against the backdrop of a turbulent political time in France.