Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc. - Publishing

Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc. - Publishing is directed by Dr. Michael Eskin and provides a publication venue for original philosophical thinking steeped in lived life, in line with our motto: philosophical living and lived philosophy. We publish books in English and German.

Available & Forthcoming Titles from Upper West Side Philosophers, Inc.:

November Rose: A Speech on Death by Kathrin Stengel
ISBN 978-0979582912

November-Rose: Eine Rede über den Tod by Kathrin Stengel
ISBN 978-0979582905

17 Vorurteile, die wir Deutschen gegen Amerika und die Amerikaner haben, und die so nicht ganz stimmen können by Misha Waiman
ISBN: 978-0-9795829-3-6

Philosophical Fragments of a Contemporary Life by Julien David
ISBN: 978-0-9795829-2-9

Descartes’ Devil: Three Meditations by Durs Grünbein
Translated by Anthea Bell
ISBN: 978-0-9795829-4-3

The DNA of Prejudice: On the One and the Many by Michael Eskin
ISBN: 978-0-9795829-5-0

November Rose: A Speech on Death by Kathrin Stengel
ISBN 978-0979582912
Publication Date: November 25, 2007
Buy now!

In this penetrating, thought-provoking, and deeply personal philosophical meditation on the death of the beloved other and the turmoil into which it throws those who were close to him, philosopher Kathrin Stengel opens hitherto unseen vistas onto one of the most painful human experiences. The author's ruthless clarity of observation, coupled with razor-sharp philosophical intuition and unflinching honesty of judgment, allows her to pinpoint the personal and social complexities of life after death in a way that cannot but make us doubt some of our common practices in dealing with death and survival.

WINNER OF THE 2008 INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARD

Listen to Interviews with Dr. Kathrin Stengel on:

The Louie Free Radio Show (Brain food from the heartland) - Listen Now!

 

Readers' Reviews

"November Rose: A speech on Death should be a required reading before you go to a funeral home or before you meet someone who has lost a beloved."

(Louie Free, Host of The Louie Free Radio Show - WASN-AM)

Kathrin Stengel has landed a coup. She has succeeded in elevating the personal and intimate to the level of the universal - in writing a book that is crystal-clear and understandable, while being emotionally persuasive and inviting its reader fully to open herself to it. Her ruthless analysis and sober assessment of our dealing with survival and death notwithstanding, Kathrin Stengel has also written a story that is simply the story of a great love.

(Heike Simon, Editor-in-Chief, Radio Bavaria, Germany)

"... exquisite, eloquent, and beautifully thought through. It's philosophy as meditation."

(Claudia Weinstein, Senior Editor, 60 Minutes, CBS)

"Kathrin Stengel has written on the death of the other and how to understand the fact of that death without resorting to feel good pyscho-babble or self-improvement moralizing ... in a language as clear as reading Cioran or Unamuno ..."

(Thomas McGonigle, www.blogger.com)

"I don't think that thoughts such as these have ever been articulated before. November Rose: A Speech on Death is not only utterly original, but, more important, it taps into our very roots - and this is, by all counts, something very rare indeed in our discourse-ridden and existentially impoverished age. It is truly a profoundly beautiful book."

(Dr. Marion Detjen, Author and Historian)

"November Rose is a beautiful book. I can only agree that having seen death that close (watching, holding and kissing the dead person you love so much) changes you for ever and probably for the best."

(Sarah Miller, Homemaker and Mother of Four)

"I read your book and found it more than wonderful. You really project clear-headedness, happiness and a remarkable lack of anger (and other negative feelings). Excellent!"

(Jean Paul Schmetz, CEO, Schmetzfunds and 10betterpages)

"Yesterday, I reread the beautiful November Rose for the second time. This book is not only beautifully written, but written with honesty and emotional purity. It is, on the one hand, a story about love and life, and, on the other hand, a story full of sadness and grief. It invites deep thinking and empathizing."

(Natascha Theis, Event Planer for Robert Wilson)

"I truly cannot adequately express in words what a profoundly moving, engaging, intellectually rich and inspiring experience reading November Rose has been ... As a fellow philosopher I am indebted to Kathrin Stengel for broadening my horizons, for illuminating parts of my own experience in this precious world, and for challenging me to rethink certain concepts and to deepen my understanding of them."

(Dr. Licia Carlson, Philosopher, Harvard University)

"This speech gets under your skin. A beloved's premature death is an inexorably tragic event. With philosophical precision and utmost poetic force, sustained by a profound and all-encompassing sense of humanity, Kathrin Stengel transports the reader into the very depths of this event and guides him through it. This speech builds bridges - between life and death, as well as between reader and author. It is imbued with the love of life in its entirety - a love that is capacious enough to contain even death itself. This speech is written with the eyes of the heart. It is indispensable reading."

(Dr. Stefan Daltrop, Philosopher, www.amazon.de)

"After rereading November Rose: A Speech on Death I had to read it again - for the third time ... and not because I am slow to understand - no, it's because with every new reading, I discover new things in this book. I have to admit that initially I hesitated to pick up the book, as I was somewhat scared to confront the topic of death. Now, however, that I have read and reread it several times, I feel that could write endlessly about it, analyzing, probing, interpreting it ... but I'll make it short: it is a wonderful book! What I find most amazing is that each sentence fits like a glove: there nothing superfluous or artificial about it ..."

(Christina Schrader, PR Consultant)

"It is a must read for everyone who has lost a partner. I lost my husband 2 1/2 years ago to colon cancer and reading this book has confirmed a lot of my feelings and thoughts. It is very helpful for those who lost a partner and are in a new relationship."

(Margit's review, www.goodreads.com)

"... an immense help ... incredibly valuable ... beautifully written ..."

(Lindsay Dyson-Smith, Reader)

"I read November Rose: A Speech on Death and couldn't put it down. I would like to thank the author from the heart. I am deeply touched, deeply moved. It is an intelligent and humane speech. It shows a rare combination of mind and heart. This book gives me courage to transform suffering into strength, to say yes to life, and to learn to see our singularity as human beings."

(Elke Premauer, Journalist and Founder of "Thinking Weeks"-Château d'Orion)

"I read November Rose one afternoon in London over the New Year holiday. I found the book deeply thought provoking. For me it said so much about grief. I have not experienced this kind of grief personally, but have a very close friend who went through ... similar experiences ..., although at a later stage in his life. The same issues and emotions swirled around him. The same attitudes of others. But I thought that the book said as much about the nature of loving as it did about death, as I know it was meant to."

Dr. Sheila Gilfillan, Psychiatrist

"Its gentle and allusive manner stirs up feelings that are hard to name and yet allow one to cry with relief for having recognized them."

(Sue Martin, Middle School Teacher)

"... feels like a volume of poetry that one would like to peruse off and on. Its contents: observed with precision, beautifully articulated, structured with clarity. Simply stunning! And moving to the core ... immensely valuable for my psychotherapeutic work ... "

(Dr. Anna Maria Friedle, Psychotherapist)

"... a great speech that puts everything into the right perspective."

(Deborah Chen, CPA)

"a consummate love song, an unstoppable battle cry of true passion ... powerful and mercilessly truthful ..."

(Dr. Mike Mirsky, Scientist)

"... a true and beautiful book. Anyone who reads it will be strengthened by its honesty, wisdom, and capacity to affirm life ... This seems to me a very Jewish book in its love of life and living fully ... not to speak of its intellectual clarity. It is rare for a book to combine philosophy and poetry (prose poetry) so very happily ..."

(Rabbi and Poet, Norman D. Hirsh, Author of God Loves Becoming)

"It is a wonderful book."

(Neal Steele , WXGM-FM - Norfolk, VA)

November-Rose: Eine Rede über den Tod by Kathrin Stengel
ISBN 978-0979582905
Publication Date: November 25, 2007
Buy now! - kohlibri.de | amazon.com | amazon.de

Diese Rede über den Tod ist in ihrer Einfachheit ein philosophisches Schwergewicht. Diskret und bestimmt durchdringt die Autorin persönlich Erlebtes und legt zugleich den Blick auf den philosophischen Untergrund einer der schmerzlichsten menschlichen Erfahrungen frei: des Todes des geliebten Anderen. Mit messerscharfer philosophischer Intuition und unerbittlicher Klarheit wird die Komplexität der persönlichen und der sozialen Situation des den Tod des geliebten Anderen Überlebenden beleuchtet. Was da zum Vorschein kommt, lässt manche unserer Umgangsweisen mit Überleben und Tod fragwürdig erscheinen.

Besprechung auf Bayern 2 Radio (kulturWelt) - Jetzt anhören!

 

Readers' Reviews

"... exquisit, eloquent and wunderschön durchdacht. Philosophie als Meditation."

(Claudia Weinstein, Senior Editor, 60 Minutes, CBS)

"Kathrin Stengel ist etwas Wunderbares geglückt ... Es gelingt es der Autorin mit großem Geschick, Persönliches in einen allgemeingültigen Zusammenhang zu stellen, einen Text zu verfassen, der rational verständlich und emotional nachvollziehbar zum Einlassen einlädt ... Trotz der strengen Analyse, der stellenweise schonungslosen Bewertung unseres Umgangs mit überleben und Tod, hat sie mit November-Rose eben auch schlicht die Geschichte einer Liebe geschrieben ..."

(Heike Simon, Chef vom Dienst, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Germany)

"Ich wüßte nicht, wo diese Gedanken schon mal ausgesprochen worden wären. Sie sind originär, nicht originell, und das ist etwas ganz Seltenes in den diskursbesessenen, alle existentiellen Erfahrungen leugnenden Strukturen, in denen man heute veröffentlichen kann. Es ist wirklich ein sehr, sehr schönes Buch."

(Dr. Marion Detjen, Autorin von Ein Loch in der Mauer)

"Ich habe gestern zum zweitenmal die wunderschöne November Rose gelesen - sie ist so gefühlvoll und einfach wunderschön geschrieben. Auf der einen Seite eine Liebes - und Lebensgeschichte, auf der anderen Seite einfach so traurig. Es regt zum Nachdenken und Mitfuehlen an."

(Natascha Theis, Event Planer für Robert Wilson)

"Ich finde es ist trotz des traurigen Themas ein schönes Buch, zu dessen Veröffentlichung sehr viel Mut gehört."

(Florian Meierhofer, Inhaber, Germalingua Sprachschule)

Mit den Augen des Herzens geschrieben: Diese Rede geht einem nahe. Der zu frühe Tod eines Partners ist ein unabwendbar tragisches Ereignis. Kathrin Stengel führt einen auf philosophisch exakte und zugleich bilderstark poetische Weise in die Tiefe dieses Ereignisses hinein und hindurch, getragen von einer deutlich spürbaren, weit reichenden Mitmenschlichkeit. Es ist eine Rede, die Brücken baut zwischen Leben und Tod, Leser und Autor, durchdrungen von der Liebe zum Leben in seiner Ganzheit, einer Liebe, die auch den Tod mit einzuschließen vermag. Ein unverzichtbares Buch.

(Dr. Stefan Daltrop, www.amazon.de)

"Wir lesen aus Deinem Buch oft kurze Abschnitte wie wir dies mit B. Pascals "Pensées" tun. Es wie in Deinem Buch beschrieben die Apologie der Liebe, die über den Tod hinaus lebt und trägt. Danke für dieses Geschenk der Liebe und des Lebens.

(Dr. Bogdan and Helena Snela, Domicilium Hospizgemeinschaft)

"Ich habe die November-Rose: Eine Rede über den Tod am Wochende nicht mehr aus der Hand gelegt und möchte Ihnen von Herzen danken: Ich bin tief berührt, bewegt. Es ist eine kluge und menschliche Rede, Sie zeigen Herz und Verstand. Das Buch macht Mut, den Schmerz in Kraft zu verwandeln, das Leben zu bejahen und unsere Einzigartigkeit als menschliche Wesen zu sehen."

(Elke Premauer, Inhaberin und Initiatorin der Denkwochen, Château d'Orion, Frankreich)

  "Zwischenzeitlich habe ich die November Rose schon zweimal gelesen und ein drittes Mal heute Abend angefangen. Da könnte man meinen, ich sei begriffsstutzig - nein- das liegt daran, dass ich in dem Buch immer wieder Neues entdecke. Nun muss ich sagen, dass ich mich anfänglich schwer damit getan habe, das Buch in die Hand zu nehmen, weil ich ein wenig ängstlich war, mich mit dem Thema "Tod" ausein- anderzustetzen - nachdem ich es gelesen habe, könnte ich jetzt ellenlange Sätze darüber schreiben, analysieren und hinterfragen, interpretieren usw. aber ich mache es kurz: es ist ein wunderbares Buch! Und was ich auch erstaunlich finde: da sitzt jeder Satz, nichts ist verschnörkelt oder wurde künstlich hinzugefügt, um die Seiten aufzublasen."

(Christina Schrader, PR Consultant)

Philosophical Fragments of a Contemporary Life by Julien David
ISBN: 978-0-9795829-2-9
Publication Date: February 2008
Buy now!

Brimming with insights and startling perspectives the most diverse aspects of contemporary life - from marriage and parenting to love, friendship, and the logic of the everyday - this exquisite collection of aphorisms and essays, is bound to make its readers stop and reevaluate many a truth and commonplace we live by.

 

 

 

 

17 Vorurteile, die wir Deutschen gegen Amerika und die Amerikaner haben, und die so nicht ganz stimmen können by Misha Waiman
ISBN: 978-0-9795829-3-6
Publication Date: February 2008
Buy now! - kohlibri.de | amazon.com | amazon.de

Mit Witz, Charme und philosophischem Biss deckt Misha Waiman die Ungereimtheiten und Paradoxien der Hassliebe der Deutschen zu Amerika und den Amerikanern auf.

Interview in Das Fenster (May 2008) - Jetzt lesen!

Lesermeinungen

"... großartig, witzig, polemisch, ironisch, scharfsinnig ... [ein] Treffer ..."

(Dr. Andrea Wörle, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag)

"... ich zweifle ... nicht daran, dass es genügend Menschen gibt, die gut daran täten, dieses Buch zu lesen ... "

(Dr. Siv Bublitz, Ullstein Buchverlage)

"... frech, unvoreingenommen, tiefgründig ... "

(Dr. Rafael Seligman, Die Welt)

"Jeder von uns kennt diese Vorurteile und hat seinen Teil von ihnen sicher verinnerlicht. Umso interessanter liest sich ihre Analyse ..."

(Arne Rautenberg, Kieler Nachrichten)

"Wer sich ... über die bisherige Entwicklungs- und Wirkungsgeschichte deutscher Vorurteile gegenüber Amerika ein Bild machen will, dem sei Waimans Streitschrift wärmstens empfohlen. Klar und witzig geschrieben, selbstkritisch und weltoffen konzipiert ... stellt diese konzise Polemik ein kongeniales Reflexionsmedium dar ..."

(Prof. Dr. Frederick Lubich, Trans-Lit2)

Descartes’ Devil: Three Meditations by Durs Grünbein
Translated by Anthea Bell
ISBN: 978-0-9795829-4-3
Publication Date: January 2010
Buy now!

In three beautifully wrought meditations on the import of René Descartes' legacy from a poet's perspective, Durs Grünbein presents us with a Descartes whom we haven't met before: not the notorious perpetrator of the mind-body-dualism, the arch-villain of Rationalism but the inspired and courageous dreamer, explorer, and fabulist. Reading Descartes against the grain of the widely accepted view of the philosopher as the proponent of a cut-and-dried, disembodied, and, hence, misguided view of humanity, Grünbein discloses the profoundly humane and poetic underpinnings of the legacy of this "modern man par excellence," and, by extension, of modernity as a whole. Uncovering the poetic foundations of Descartes' rationalism and, concomitantly, the poetic lining of the mantle of reason, Durs Grünbein, one of the world's greatest living poets and essayists, shows us that reason is never more alive than when it is most poetic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

One of the world's greatest living poets and essayists, Dresden-born Durs Grünbein has been the recipient of many national and international awards, including the Friedrich Nietzsche Prize, the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize, the Berlin Literature Prize, the Georg Büchner Prize (Germany's most prestigious literary recognition), and the Premio Internazionale di Poesia Pier Paolo Pasolini. His book Ashes for Breakfast: Selected Poems (translated by Michael Hofmann) was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize 2006. He has also been a Fellow at the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles and the Villa Massimo in Rome, Italy. In 2009, he was awarded the Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts as well as the Great Cross of Merit with Star by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. Since 1988, when the then twenty-five-year-old's first collection of poems, Grauzone, morgens (Gray zone, morning), appeared - a mordantly poignant poetic reckoning with life in the former East Germany - Durs Grünbein has published more than twenty books of poetry and prose, which have been translated into dozens of languages. He holds the Chair for Poetics and Artistic Aesthetics at the School of the Arts in Düsseldorf, Germany, and lives in Berlin, Germany.

"An inspired poet, brilliant essayist and erudite explicator, Durs Grünbein, in his profound engagement with another genius, Descartes, has much to say in this book about poetry, history, science, philosophy and the human soul. An entirely remarkable work."

(C. K. WILLIAMS, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and author of The Singing, Repair, and Flesh and Blood)

"Descartes' Devil is a moving and beautifully constructed book that opens our eyes to the fantasy, humor, and imagination of Descartes. Günbein's thought-provoking reflections on the poetry and modernity of the philosopher - this man 'chosen to set the course for all of us' - are heightened and made whole by his own playful poems, which conclude each meditation."

(Heather Ewing, author of The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian and A Guide to Smithsonian Architecture: An Architectural History of the Smithsonian)

"This book is nothing less than a rewriting - and a supremely convincing one at that - of the history of ideas of the last four hundred years. Durs Grünbein forces us not only to rethink how we view ourselves as rational, thinking human beings, but he also compels us to reimagine the task of philosophy in the modern era."

(Christopher Young, University of Cambridge, author of The Munich Olympics 1972 and the Making of Modern Germany)

"... Grünbein's poems read as if the forces of history pressing in on the present drove them into this world."

(Melanie Rehak, The New York Times Book Review)

"I ... couldn't help but stay awake all night reading Grünbein's severe work ... absolutely unignorable ..."

(Helen Vendler, The New Republic, author of Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats)

"Grünbein's ... work has a depth that deserves our attention."

(David Hellman, San Francisco Chronicle)

"With Descartes' Devil, Durs Grünbein, one of the leading figures in contemporary European poetry, joins the company of great European poet-thinkers such as Leopardi, Valéry and Unamuno. By locating the origin of the modern poetic 'I' in Descartes' provocations, he challenges contemporary assumptions about the kind of work poetry should do, and then proposes what it might be capable of doing. Through a boldly unfashionable reappraisal of Cartesian ideas, he invokes an almost pre-Socratic ideal: that poetry and philosophy are aspects of the same imaginative mode. But where Wittgenstein proposed it, Grünbein is in the process of realizing it. His own writing has now converged on a remarkable style, one capable of conducting powerful and original thought with no loss of lyric intensity. This book offers a timely corrective to much twenty-first-century Anglophone poetry and its pettifogging, idea-free tendencies: 'poetry', as Grünbein reminds us, 'is a guardian of the non-trivial', and the poet 'someone who puts language into a state of exception'. In this astonishing book Grünbein has richly honored his own definitions."

(DON PATERSON, winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Whitbread Poetry Award, and the Forward Prize, and author of Nil Nil, God's Gift to Women, Landing Light, and Rain

The DNA of Prejudice: On the One and the Many by Michael Eskin
ISBN: 978-0-9795829-5-0
Publication Date: January 2010
Buy now!

"Sedulously argued, this thoughtful book attempts nothing less than a revalorization of prejudice - its meaning, the way it manifests itself, and its effect on individuals (the prejudiced and those who feel the sting of it) as well as the world around them. It's an ambitious undertaking, deftly navigated by Michael Eskin, who cogently offers an entirely original framework for identifying prejudice and even confronting it. In an environment that has been optimistically (if naively) called post-racial - in which racial, gender, and ethnic divides appear to have as much poignant resolve as ever - Eskin's important book offers a set of powerful pathways for comprehending and addressing a pernicious aspect of life that remains far too at home in the headlines, the rural backroads, and the chill of urban streets."

(Jeffrey Rothfeder, former BusinessWeek, Time Inc., and Bloomberg News editor, and author of McIlhenny's Gold: How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire and Every Drop for Sale: Our Desperate Battle over Water in a World About to Run Out)

"An original, much needed (and overdue) philosophical work with important practical and political implications, not only for our own societies, but also for those who work cross-culturally, like diplomats. We encounter the issues Michael Eskin discusses in one form or another often - it seems like every day."

(Matthew G. Boyse, United States Consul General, Düsseldorf, Germany)

"This remarkable little book takes the reader through the many layers of meaning that accompany the word 'prejudice'. By critically confronting the ways in which we think and speak about prejudice, Michael Eskin clears the path for a new understanding of prejudice as a concept, a phenomenon, and a lived experience. Combining analytical rigor with sound practical suggestions, this book speaks to a broad audience and will serve as a valuable companion for anyone who shares the author's passionate commitment to confronting and eradicating prejudice."

(Dr. Licia Carlson, Harvard University, author of The Faces of Intellectual Disability: Philosophical Reflections)

"The DNA of Prejudice is a wonderful essay that excels both at analyzing the essence of prejudice and at providing a demonstration of the practice of philosophical thinking accessible to all with no requirement or knowledge of the history of philosophy. Highly recommended for all who have an interest in the topic of prejudice and/or philosophical thinking."

(Jean-Paul Schmetz, CEO, 10betterpages GmbH/Cliqz.com/Schmetzfunds)

For permission to reuse material from any of our titles, please contact the publisher, or access www.copyright.com, or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organization that provides licenses and registration for a variety of uses.

Distributed in the US by SPD