Roger-Pol Droit Book order

Can we learn anything from the objects that surround us, the things we use in everyday life? If you look closely, yes. They may ignore us, they mostly outlive us, but they are the secret sharers of our days, as close to us as our spouses, our pets, our bodies, our selves. Things coexist with us, they store meanings for us - memories, desires - but do they inhabit the same world? Are they alive or dead? Do they have language? Can we make friends with them? Over the course of one year Roger-Pol Droit assigned himself an to keep a cross-border record of his meetings with unremarkable sunglasses, an alarm clock, a chest of drawers, a train ticket, a statue, a tombstone, a wheelbarrow, a bottle-opener, a razor...This book is the diary of that quest. We might discover in these pages that a paperclip is a model of ethics, that a bunch of keys or a streeetlamp are figures of love; that a washing-machine offers a lesson on the migration of souls, and that there is wisdom in the umbrella. That we are not the only life on earth. Here, taking one thing at a time, are fifty close encounters.

The book explores the contrasting perceptions of Buddhism in Western thought, highlighting the shift from a 19th-century view that portrayed it as a religion advocating self-destruction to the modern understanding that emphasizes compassion and tolerance. Roger-Pol Droit delves into the philosophical imagination of that era, revealing how these historical interpretations have shaped contemporary views of Buddhism.

Say your name aloud to yourself in a quiet room. Imagine peeling an apple in your mind. Take the subway without trying to get anywhere. The simple meditations in this book have the potential to shake us awake from our preconceived certainties: our own identity, the stability of the outside world, the meanings of words. At once entertaining and startling, irreverent and wise, this book will provoke moments of awareness for readers in any situation and in all walks of life. Enter the space of your favorite painting. Watch someone sleeping. The world won't look the same again.

Roger Pol-Droit's highly original book is a reassessment of our day-to-day engagement with life. In 101 short texts, written with limpid elegance, Droit invites us to reconsider our most ordinary actions as unexpected philosophical events: peeling an apple, trying to lie in a hammock, watching someone sleep, hearing your voice on an answering machine, playing with a small child - activities that, when considered outside of their routine, invite us to experience the familiar in startling new ways. Droit encourages us to go further: pretend to be an animal of your choice, create a wall with your hands, try to walk around your room in total darkness, spend time in the Underground - and observe your oddity.