Sam Harris is the author of the bestselling books The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, and Lying. The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. His writing has been published in over fifteen languages. Dr. Harris is cofounder and CEO of Project Reason, a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA. Please visit his website at SamHarris.org.
"A seeker's memoir, a scientific and philosophical exploration of
the self, and a how-to guide for transcendence, Waking Up explores
the nature of consciousness, explains how to meditate, tells you
the best drugs to take, and warns you about lecherous gurus. It
will shake up your most fundamental beliefs about everyday
experience, and it just might change your life."--Paul Bloom,
Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Yale University and
author of "Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil"
"Harris's book . . . caught my eye because it's so entirely of this
moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who
are willing to say that they do not find the succor they crave, or
a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion." (Frank
Bruni, columnist, New York Times) "The fact is that Waking Up lends
a different picture of Harris (at least to me): an intelligent and
sensitive person who is willing to undergo the discomfort involved
in proposing alternatives to the religions he's spent years
degrading. His new book, whether discussing the poverty of
spiritual language, the neurophysiology of consciousness,
psychedelic experience, or the quandaries of the self, at the very
least acknowledges the potency and importance of the religious
impulse--though Harris might name it differently--that fundamental
and common instinct to seek not just an answer to life, but a way
to live that answer." (Trevor Quirk, The New Republic) "[A]n
extraordinary and ambitious masterwork. . . . altogether
spectacular." (Maria Popova, Brainpickings) "Uber-atheist Sam
Harris is getting all spiritual. In his new book, Waking Up: A
Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, the usually outspoken
critic of religion describes how spirituality can and must be
divorced from religion if the human mind is to reach its full
potential. . . . But there is plenty in Waking Up that will delight
Harris' most militant atheist readers." (Religion News Service)
"The great value and novelty of this book is that Harris, in a
simple but rigorous style, takes the middle way between these
pseudoscientific and pseudo-spiritual assertions . . . [leading] to
a profoundly more salubrious life." (Publishers Weekly) "A
demanding, illusion-shattering book." (Kirkus Reviews) "Don't read
Waking Up . . . if you want to be told that heaven is real. Do read
it if you want to explore the nature of consciousness, to learn how
just trying to be mindful can free you from anxiety and
self-blame." (MORE Magazine) "Waking Up is an eye opening, mind
expanding book." (AA Agnostica)
"Sam Harris has written a beautifully rational book about
spiritually, consciousness and transcendence. He is the high priest
of spirituality without religion. I recommend this book regardless
of your belief system. As befits a book called Waking Up, it's an
eye opener."--A.J. Jacobs, bestselling author of The Year of Living
Biblically
"Sam Harris points out the rational methodology for exploring the
nature of consciousness and for experiencing a transformative
understanding of possibilities. Waking Up really does help us wake
up."--Joseph Goldstein, author of "Mindfulness: A Practical Guide
to Awakening" and "One Dharma"
"Sam Harris ranks as my favorite skeptic, bar none. In Waking Up he
gives us a clear-headed, no-holds-barred look at the spiritual
supermarket, calling out what amounts to junk food and showing us
where real nutrition can be found. Anyone who realizes the value of
a spiritual life will find much to savor here - and those who see
no value in it will find much to reflect on."--Daniel Goleman,
author Emotional Intelligence and Focus
Praise for Free Will: Publishers Weekly Top 10 Science Book of
Spring 2012 "A nimble book, amiably and conversationally jumping
from point to point. The book's length is one of its charms: He
never belabors any one topic or idea, sticking around exactly as
long as he needs to in order to lay out his argument (and tackle
the rebuttals that it will inevitably provoke) and not a page
longer." --Washington Post "A brief and forceful broadside at the
conundrum that has nagged at every major thinker from Plato to
Slavoj Zizek. Self-avowedly secular, [Harris is] addressing the
need for individual growth and social betterment, and [is] doing so
with compelling argument and style." --Los Angeles Times "Harris
skewers the concept of free will -- that mainstay of law, policy
and politics -- in fewer than 100 pages." --Nature "Brilliant and
witty--and never less than incisive--Free Will shows that Sam
Harris can say more in 13,000 words than most people do in
100,000." --Oliver Sacks
"Expanding upon concepts posited in the End of Faith and Free Will,
neuroscientist Harris draws from personal contemplative practice
and a growing body of scientific research to argue that the self,
the feeling that there is an "I" residing in one's head, is both an
illusion and the primary cause of human suffering.... The great
value and novelty of this book is that Harris, in a simple but
rigorous style, takes the middle way between... pseudoscientific
and pseudospiritual assertions, cogently maintaining that while
such contemplative insights provide no evidence for metaphysical
claims, they are available, and seeing them for ourselves leads to
a profoundly more salubrious life."-- "Publishers Weekly"
Praise for The Moral Landscape: "The most compelling strand in The
Moral Landscape is its unspooling diatribe against relativism."
--New York Times "This is an inspiring book, holding out as it does
the possibility of a rational understanding of how to construct the
good life with the aid of science, free from the accretions of
religious superstition and cultural coercion." --Financial Times
"Harris's is a first-principle argument, backed by copious
empirical evidence woven through a tightly reasoned narrative...
Harris's program of a science-based morality is a courageous one
that I wholeheartedly endorse." --Scientific American "Sam Harris
breathes intellectual fire into an ancient debate. Reading this
thrilling, audacious book, you feel the ground shifting beneath
your feet. Reason has never had a more passionate advocate."--Ian
McEwan "I was one of those who had unthinkingly bought into the
hectoring myth that science can say nothing about morals. To my
surprise, The Moral Landscape has changed all that for me. It
should change it for philosophers too. Philosophers of mind have
already discovered that they can't duck the study of neuroscience,
and the best of them have raised their game as a result. Sam Harris
shows that the same should be true of moral philosophers, and it
will turn their world exhilaratingly upside down. As for religion,
and the preposterous idea that we need God to be good, nobody
wields a sharper bayonet than Sam Harris."--Richard Dawkins
"Reading Sam Harris is like drinking water from a cool stream on a
hot day. He has the rare ability to frame arguments that are not
only stimulating, they are downright nourishing... His discussions
will provoke secular liberals and religious conservatives alike,
who jointly argue from different perspectives that there always
will be an unbridgeable chasm between merely knowing what is and
discerning what should be. As was the case with Harris' previous
books, readers are bound to come away with previously firm
convictions about the world challenged, and a vital new awareness
about the nature and value of science and reason in our lives."
--Lawrence M. Krauss, Foundation Professor and Director of the ASU
Origins Project at Arizona State University, author of The Physics
of Star Trek, and, Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's Life in Science
"A lively, provocative, and timely new look at one of the deepest
problems in the world of ideas. Harris makes a powerful case for a
morality that is based on human flourishing and thoroughly enmeshed
with science and rationality. It is a tremendously appealing
vision, and one that no thinking person can afford to ignore."
--Steven Pinker, Harvard College Professor of Psychology, Harvard
University, and author of How the Mind Works and The Blank
Slate
"Waking Up is a rigorous, kind, clear, and witty book that will
point you toward the selflessness that is our original
nature."--Stephen Mitchell
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