Robert Maynard Pirsig was an American writer and philosopher. He is the author of the philosophical novels Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974) and Lila: An Inquiry…
Anne Fadiman is the author, most recently, of the essay collection Frog (2026). Her first book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (1997), won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Ang…
Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has…
Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, philosopher, and abolitionist who is best known for Walden, a re…
Elizabeth Gilbert is an award-winning writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Her short story collection Pilgrims was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award, and her novel Stern Men was a New York Tim…
Since Jonathan Livingston Seagull - which dominated the #1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List for two consecutive years - Richard Bach has touched millions of people throug…
Dr. Sue Johnson is a leading innovator in the fields of couple therapy and adult attachment; she is the primary developer of Emotionally Focused Couple and Family Therapy (EFT). Sue’s received numerou…
Scott Nearing (1883-1983) was an American conservationist, peace activist, educator and writer. Born in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, Nearing is still viewed as a radical 20 years after his death. In 1954…
Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He obtained his PhD in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1…
Brother Lawrence was born Nicolas Herman in Hériménil, near Lunéville in the region of Lorraine, located in modern day eastern France and as a young man went into the army due to his poverty. At the a…
Kristin Kimball is a farmer and writer living in Northern New York. Prior to farmer, Kristin worked as a freelance writer, a writing teacher, and an assistant to a literary agent. A graduate of Harvar…
Cal Newport is Provost’s Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University, and the author of seven books. His ideas and writing are frequently featured in major publications and on…
Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. Hi…
Novella Carpenter grew up in rural Idaho and Washington State. She majored in biology and English at the University of Washington in Seattle. While attending Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, …
Worth, born Jennifer Lee while her parents were on holiday in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, was raised in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. After leaving school at the age of 14, she learned shorthand and typing an…
Kurt Timmermeister grew up in Seattle and was a successful restaurateur before moving to Vashon Island. There he transformed a rough patch of earth into Kurtwood Farms, presently a vibrant farm where …
Francis de Sales, C.O., T.O.M., A.O.F.M. Cap. (French: François de Sales; Italian: Francesco di Sales) was a Bishop of Geneva and is honored as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. His father sent hi…
Michaeleen Doucleff is a correspondent for NPR's Science Desk. She reports for the radio and the Web for NPR's global health and development blog, Goats and Soda. She focuses on disease outbreaks, dru…
James Rebanks runs a family-owned farm in the Lake District in northern England. A graduate of Oxford University, James works as an expert advisor to UNESCO on sustainable tourism.
I'm Will MacAskill, an Associate Professor in Philosophy at Lincoln College, Oxford, and author of Doing Good Better (Gotham Books, 2015). I've also cofounded two non-profits: 80,000 Hours, which …
A native of Appalachia, Jennifer McGaha lives with her husband, five dogs, twenty-three chickens, and one high-maintenance cat in a tin-roofed cabin bordering the Pisgah National Forest in western Nor…
Chelsea Abdullah is an American-Kuwaiti writer born and raised in Kuwait, where she grew up listening to stories about mysterious desert creatures and wily (only sometimes likable) heroes.