David Brooks

In The Second Mountain, David Brooks delves into the profound journey of personal transformation that challenges the mainstream definition of success and fulfillment. Brooks begins by questioning the widespread pursuit of self-interest, encapsulating the quest for money, power, and fame that defines the first mountain of our lives. However, as we climb this mountain and reach its summit, we may...

A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain. If you are going to care for someone, you must first understand them. If you're going to hire,...

The No. 1 New York Times bestseller on the secret to leading a good life. We live in a Big Me culture: universities and businesses alike reward goal-oriented superstars, and those who self-promote are most likely to thrive. But what does this say about us? David Brooks argues that our hunger for wealth and status is eroding our ability to...

A stunning new work of poetry combined with a selection of the best of David Brooks' award-winning career. A bottle of Romanee-Conti sells for $785,000, while bodies are dug by hand from earthquake rubble in Indonesia because the local government couldn't afford the earthmoving equipment to do so while people were still alive. Elephants are shot and skinned by poachers,...

'What are the crimes of love, anyway, but fragments of passion broken from their moorings, evidence of a kind of shipwreck? (But what kind of ship? Where was it? What was its name?) Or crows, a flock of them, high in the air, fighting against a wind that no-one can see.' David Brooks' mastery of the written word is both...

A young woman and an older man meet by accident—a gust of wind—at a restaurant in Trieste and find themselves dining together. They embark upon a conversation of the kind that can perhaps only happen between total strangers—risky, philosophical, full of the most intimate stories and confessions. She has questions. He finds, as the wine flows, delicious dishes come and...

During World War I, a friendship is forged on the battlefields of France between Axel and Edward, two young Englishmen. There, inspired by barrage balloons, they develop a mutual fascination that will change the course of their lives. After the war, as Axel's passion for flight and freedom consumes him, he sets off to balloon across the highlands of New...

Animal Dreams collects David Brooks' thought-provoking essays about how humans think, dream, and write about other species. Brooks examines how animals have featured in Australian literature and culture, from The Man from Snowy River to Phar Lap, to contemporary debates about horse-racing, live animal exports, veganism, and the culling of native species such as kangaroos and sharks. In his piercing,...

A poem is a place where you can bring things together, you don't have to know why. The mad and the bad, the gentle and the dead, tooth-ache and heart-ache and the ache and quandary of history. We are all creatures trembling under the sun of witness (or is it rain?); some of us, for reasons it would be hard...

We need to organise politically to defend the weak, empower the many and prepare the ground for reversing the absurdities of capitalism. — Yanis Varoufakis Capitalism over the past twenty-five years has been an incredible moral good. — David Brooks There is a growing belief that the capitalist system no longer works. Inequality is rampant. The environment is being destroyed...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Everybody tells you to live for a cause larger than yourself, but how exactly do you do it? The author of The Road to Character explores what it takes to lead a meaningful life in a self-centered world. “Deeply moving, frequently eloquent and extraordinarily incisive.”—The Washington Post Every so often, you meet people who...

The Balcony is a stunning collection by one of Australia's quiet masters of poetry. Robert Adamson said of Brooks' previous collection, Urban Elegies, that it contained some of "the best and most uplifting poetry that I have experienced in years". The Balcony is a volume of one hundred love poems in the tradition of Pablo Neruda's The Captain's Verses or...

David Brooks weaves a vast array of new research into the lives of two fictional characters, revealing a fundamental new understanding of human nature. He outlines a new definition of success, highlighting what economists call non-cognitive skills—those hidden qualities that can't be easily measured but which lead to happiness and fulfilment.

The number one bestselling guide to fostering deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives. If you are going to care for someone, you must first understand them. If you're going to hire, marry, or befriend someone, you have to be able to see them. If you are going to work closely with someone, you have to be...

A philosophical and poetic journey recounting the author's relationship with his four sheep and other animals in his home in the Blue Mountains. Both memoir and eloquent testament to animal rights. ‘One of the most beautifully written books about animals I have ever read. I know of nothing else like it published in this or any other country. Deep, sensitive,...

A.D. (Alec) Hope (1907-2000) was one of the most significant Australian poets of the twentieth century: satirist, scholar, master at once of erotic verse and of the discursive mode. He was the author of poems such as Australia and The Death of the Bird that, along with the works of Patrick White, Judith Wright, and Manning Clarke, scripted Australian thought...