Shakespeare's best known play and the most quoted work of the English language.

Hamlet's father is dead and he struggles with the desire for revenge. The play uses this backdrop to explore intrigue, incest, desire, and what is important in life.

Regularly included in lists of the greatest works of all time.

This essay is Locke's most famous work. It concerns that nature of human knowledge and understanding. It was one of the primary sources for empiricism, influenced many enlightenment philosophers like David Hume and Bishop Berkeley. The main thrust of the essay is that man does not have innate ideas or principals, that all are developed by experience. Volume one is devoted to disproving the theory of innate ideas. Volume two shows how ideas, principals, and morals are formed from experience.

Nominated for a Hugo for Best Novel in 2007

"Blindsight is a tour de force, redefining the First Contact story for good. Peter Watts' aliens are neither humans in funny make-up nor incomprehensible monoliths beyond human comprehension - they're something new and infinitely more disturbing, forcing us to confront unpalatable possibilities about the nature of consciousness. It'll make your skin crawl when you stop to think about it. Strongly recommended: this may be the best hard SF read of 2006."

- Charles Stross

This essay is Locke's most famous work. It concerns that nature of human knowledge and understanding. It was one of the primary sources for empiricism, influenced many enlightenment philosophers like David Hume and Bishop Berkeley. The main thrust of the essay is that man does not have innate ideas or principals, that all are developed by experience. Volume one is devoted to disproving the theory of innate ideas. Volume two shows how ideas, principals, and morals are formed from experience.

Nietzsche soars in philosophic thought in Beyond Good and Evil. He transcended most of his 19th century contemporaries and considered the bulk of their philosophic thinking to be greatly limited by their acceptance of Christian premises. Denying a universal morality for all people, Nietzsche instead proposed that the individual's "will to power" upon the world was the means to move beyond good and evil. Agree? Disagree? Agree to disagree? Brilliantly thought provoking.

Written in 1651 during the chaos of the English Civil War. Hobbes formulates the case for a powerful sovereign - or 'Leviathan' - to enforce peace and the law. The work was publicly burnt for sedition and blasphemy when it was first published. Hobbes' view that man's essential nature is competitive and selfish is as challenging today as it was when originally published, the work remains relevant to the modern world and stands as one of the most fascinating works of modern philosophy.