Audiobooks by John Kaag

Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living

What Thoreau can teach us about working—why we do it, what it does to us, and how we can make it more meaningful Henry at Work invites readers to rethink how we work today by exploring an aspect of Henry David Thoreau that has often been overlooked: Thoreau the worker. John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle overturn the popular misconception of Thoreau as a navel-gazing recluse who was scornful of work and other mundanities. In fact, Thoreau worked hard—surveying land, running his family’s pencil-making business, writing, lecturing, and building his cabin at Walden Pond—and thought intensely about work in its many dimensions. And his ideas about work have much to teach us in an age of remote work and automation, when many people are reconsidering what kind of working lives they want to have. Through Thoreau, readers will discover a philosophy of work in the office, factory, lumber mill, and grocery store, and reflect on the rhythms of the workday, the joys and risks of resigning oneself to work, the dubious promises of labor-saving technology, and that most vital and eternal of philosophical questions, “How much do I get paid?” In ten chapters, including “Manual Work,” “Machine Work,” and “Meaningless Work,” this personal, urgent, practical, and compassionate book introduces readers to their new favorite coworker: Henry David Thoreau.

John Kaag, Jonathan Van Belle (Author), Jonathan Todd Ross (Narrator)

Audiobook

Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life

From the celebrated author of American Philosophy: A Love Story and Hiking with Nietzsche, a compelling introduction to the life-affirming philosophy of William James In 1895, William James, the father of American philosophy, delivered a lecture entitled 'Is Life Worth Living?' It was no theoretical question for James, who had contemplated suicide during an existential crisis as a young man a quarter century earlier. Indeed, as John Kaag writes, 'James's entire philosophy, from beginning to end, was geared to save a life, his life'?and that's why it just might be able to save yours, too. Sick Souls, Healthy Minds is a compelling introduction to James's life and thought that shows why the founder of pragmatism and empirical psychology?and an inspiration for Alcoholics Anonymous?can still speak so directly and profoundly to anyone struggling to make a life worth living. Kaag tells how James's experiences as one of what he called the 'sick-souled,' those who think that life might be meaningless, drove him to articulate an ideal of 'healthy-mindedness'?an attitude toward life that is open, active, and hopeful, but also realistic about its risks. In fact, all of James's pragmatism, resting on the idea that truth should be judged by its practical consequences for our lives, is a response to, and possible antidote for, crises of meaning that threaten to undo many of us at one time or another. Along the way, Kaag also movingly describes how his own life has been endlessly enriched by James. Eloquent, inspiring, and filled with insight, Sick Souls, Healthy Minds may be the smartest and most important self-help book you'll ever read.

John Kaag (Author), Daniel Henning (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are

A revelatory Alpine journey in the spirit of the great Romantic thinker, Friedrich Nietzsche Hiking with Nietzsche is a tale of two philosophical journeys-one made by John Kaag as an introspective young man of nineteen, the other seventeen years later and in quite different circumstances: as a husband and father. His wife and small child in tow, Kaag sets off for the Swiss peaks above Sils-Maria, where Nietzsche routinely summered, and where he wrote his mysterious landmark work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Both journeys are made in search of the wisdom at the core of Nietzsche's philosophy, but they deliver him to radically different interpretations and, more crucially, revelations about the human condition. Just as Kaag's acclaimed debut, American Philosophy: A Love Story, seamlessly wove together his philosophical discoveries and his search for meaning, Hiking with Nietzsche is a fascinating exploration, not only of Nietzsche's ideals, but of how his experience of living relates to us as individuals in the twenty-first century. Bold, intimate, and rich with insight, Hiking with Nietzsche is about defeating complacency, balancing sanity and madness, and coming to grips with the unobtainable. As Kaag hikes alone or with his family, but always with Nietzsche, he recognizes that even slipping can be instructive. It is in the process of climbing, and through the inevitable missteps, that one has the chance, in Nietzsche's words, to 'become who you are.'

John Kaag (Author), Josh Bloomberg (Narrator)

Audiobook

American Philosophy: A Love Story

The epic wisdom contained in a lost library helps the author turn his life around. In American Philosophy, John Kaag-a disillusioned philosopher at sea in his marriage and career-stumbles upon a treasure trove of rare books on an old estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that once belonged to the Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. The library includes notes from Whitman, inscriptions from Frost, and first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As he begins to catalog and preserve these priceless books, Kaag rediscovers the very tenets of American philosophy-self-reliance, pragmatism, the transcendent-and sees them in a twenty-first-century context. Hocking was one of the last true giants of American philosophy. After studying under Harvard's philosophical four-William James, George Santayana, Josiah Royce, and George Herbert Palmer-he held the most prestigious chair at the university for the first three decades of the twentieth century. And when his teachers eventually died, he collected the great books from their libraries (filled with marginalia) and combined them with his own rare volumes at his family's estate. And there they remained for nearly eighty years, a time capsule of American thought. Part intellectual history, part memoir, American Philosophy is an invigorating investigation of American pragmatism and the wisdom that underlies a meaningful life. "A compelling hybrid combining memoir, a dramatic narrative about saving an endangered rare book collection, and the intellectual history of philosophy...The author deftly intertwines the narrative threads in a story perfect for book lovers and soul searchers alike. Kaag's lively prose, acute self-examination, unfolding romance, and instructive history of philosophy as a discipline make for a surprisingly absorbing book."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

John Kaag (Author), Josh Bloomberg (Narrator)

Audiobook