Nick Pappas has published a series of over 20 thought-provoking books with Algora Publishing, examining ways to handle personal challenges, how to think about our relationships to each other and how to decide our own path in life, how to choose what we do and why, and how to get the most out of everyday life.

Nick teaches high school English Language Arts in Western New York. Prior to that he worked as a director and consultant in information technology. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Harvard Law School. Nick has written numerous short stories and poems in addition to his philosophical dialogues.

The reader of this book is invited to enjoy a tasty feast of bite-sized philosophical dialogues. One reader might choose to enjoy a single dialogue at a time. Other readers might prefer to try a few at a time, in a 'dim sum' approach to...

The reader of this book is invited to enjoy a tasty feast of bite-sized philosophical dialogues. One reader might choose to enjoy a single dialogue at a time. Other readers might prefer to try a few at a time, in a 'dim sum' approach to thoughtful inquiry. Either way, the reader will find a great variety of individual themes that reflect upon each other and add up to a larger discussion. Sections center on notions including Peace, Dread, Daring, Ignoring, Hiding, Doubt, Sparks, Time, Patience, Fluff, Dwelling, Revealing, Stepping Back, Knowing, Worry, and Gratitude. As with the author's previous two books with Algora, the main character, Director, leads his interlocutors through an analysis of the issues in question in each dialogue. Sometimes the characters reach agreement; sometimes they don't. But in all cases light is shed on the questions at hand. Readers will find that the book stimulates thought about important topics, and that, if read with other people, it stimulates conversation. A reader might not agree with the conclusion that the characters draw in a particular dialogue, or even how they handled the discussion, but the reader will often find him or herself smiling nonetheless.Ã? 

This is a book of thirty-one short philosophical dialogues, marking a departure for me. My previous two books with Algora contained dialogues of much greater length. Why the change? Many people today lead busy lives. Accordingly, it's nice to be able to read five pages or so and reach an end. The book may then be set down and picked up another time. Or, one might carry on with another morsel, depending on time available and how one feels. From my perspective, the shortness of the dialogues afforded me the opportunity to explore many themes. A glance through the table of contents of this book gives an idea of what these themes are. But is there a larger theme? Awareness. Most of the dialogues in this book deal with being aware of, or knowing, many things ' things that might be all too obvious, or things that might not be obvious at all. Consider the dialogue called Knowing. Is it harder to know than not to know? What do you do with experiences that are difficult to come to terms with? Do we have a choice concerning our awareness of such experiences? While the dialogues may suggest answers to questions such as these, they do not profess to be authoritative. Director, the one constant character throughout the dialogues, perhaps comes closest to being an authority on the themes explored. And yet his dialogue depends on the opinions of Friend and the other interlocutors. A note on Friend. He is not necessarily the same Friend in each dialogue. Director has many Friends. I hope you enjoy the book. Nick Pappas