Discover the restorative power of silent reflection with this practical guide by the meditation teacher and author of Slaying the Three Dragons. Silence—deep inner silence—opens the pathways to spiritual self-discovery. But where can we find that silence in our noise-polluted world? This book provides a practical toolkit for escaping the clashing sounds of everyday life. Through gentle insights and guided meditations, it provides a quiet space for making mindful choices and learning to enjoy the profound benefits of tranquility—even as the noise around us continues.

‘A tour de force of luminous writing.’ Mark Cocker, Spectator

“Feel better, get done more and become a nicer person” In this age of social media, fake news, individualism and information overload, the certainties we relied on in the past are gone. In our quest for assurance and support, the only seemingly dependable pillar left is other people. So we look to them. But they are unsettled too. And by looking to them, we create and perpetuate our own vicious stress-cycle. As a result, we lose our sensible selves. And we go bananas. But there is good news. If we look around us, there are people who withstand the collective lunacy and stay grounded. They do something that most of us have a hard time doing: they stay themselves. And the best news is that what they can do, you can do too. It doesn’t require any special talents or supernatural powers. It only requires doing. In this amiable, open and accessible book, Jeroen Kraaijenbrink takes you on his personal journey out of Bananaland. Drawing from cognitive psychology, martial arts, Saint Benedict, personal experience, and a wide range of other sources, the book offers a nine-step approach with some remarkably practical advice for keeping a cool head in the collective lunacy. “Free yourself from the collective lunacy and reclaim your calm and sensible self”

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I am sitting on the front doorstep of my little house with a cup of coffee, looking down the valley at my extraordinary view of nothing. It is wonderful. I look at it, and with fewer things to look at, I see better. #2 We all imagine that we want peace and quiet, but we rarely seek opportunities to enjoy it. We romanticize silence on the one hand, but feel that it is terrifying and dangerous to our mental health on the other. #3 I had an unusually noisy childhood, with six children born within six and a half years of each other. My parents were deeply sociable and engaged as parents, and they allowed us to be highly articulate, contentious, and witty. #4 My parents were very politically engaged, and I remember the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the Profumo affair in 1963, and the Equal Opportunities Act in 1973, which I was expelled from the House of Commons for disrupting.

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. What is silence? In a series of short meditations, novelist and playwright John Biguenet considers silence as a servant of power, as a lie, as a punishment, as the voice of God, as a terrorist's final weapon, as a luxury good, as the reason for torture-in short, as an object we both do and do not recognize. Concluding with the prospects for its future in a world burgeoning with noise, Biguenet asks whether we should desire or fear silence-or if it is even ours to choose. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

A One-of-a-Kind Devotional What is it like to spend extended time in an environment where you focus solely on God and His Word, with no other obligations and nothing to distract you from His loving presence—wrapped in an ever-deepening closeness with the Lord? Find out in this one-of-a-kind devotional. Chaim Bentorah reveals the spiritual blessings of spending time alone with God as he describes his experiences in three different silent retreats. With years of study in ancient languages and research into Jewish literature, Chaim was able to dig deep into the very core of key words from Scripture that God called to his attention during his times of living in silence. These meditations on the deeper meanings of Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic words, drawn from the author’s real-time journal entries, open up the depths of God’s Word—leading you, too, to be called into an intimate relationship with God. You will become refreshed and challenged in your spiritual walk so that you can live with renewed purpose, carrying the compassionate heart of Jesus to the hurting world around you. Journey into Silence is a spiritual and emotional journey, demonstrating how your life can be transformed as you enter into times of contemplation, wonder, and worship with God.

In the visionary tradition of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, One Square Inch of Silence alerts us to beauty that we take for granted and sounds an urgent environmental alarm. Natural silence is our nation’s fastest-disappearing resource, warns Emmy-winning acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, who has made it his mission to record and preserve it in all its variety—before these soul-soothing terrestrial soundscapes vanish completely in the ever-rising din of man-made noise. Recalling the great works on nature written by John Muir, John McPhee, and Peter Matthiessen, this beautifully written narrative, co-authored with John Grossmann, is also a quintessentially American story—a road trip across the continent from west to east in a 1964 VW bus. But no one has crossed America like this. Armed with his recording equipment and a decibel-measuring sound-level meter, Hempton bends an inquisitive and loving ear to the varied natural voices of the American landscape—bugling elk, trilling thrushes, and drumming, endangered prairie chickens. He is an equally patient and perceptive listener when talking with people he meets on his journey about the importance of quiet in their lives. By the time he reaches his destination, Washington, D.C., where he meets with federal officials to press his case for natural silence preservation, Hempton has produced a historic and unforgettable sonic record of America. With the incisiveness of Jack Kerouac’s observations on the road and the stirring wisdom of Robert Pirsig repairing an aging vehicle and his life, One Square Inch of Silence provides a moving call to action. More than simply a book, it is an actual place, too, located in one of America’s last naturally quiet places, in Olympic National Park in Washington State.