EGGHEAD CHOICE – Crack open for a hard boiled think

Crack open for a hard boiled think

The White Nile by Alan Moorehead

This classic by Alan Moorehead (https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/01/obituaries/alan-moorehead-73-writer-acclaimed-for-war-reporting.html) is one for your shelf of travel literature. Based on contemporary records, as well as character portraits, this is the exciting story of fifty years of African exploration and the attempt to reach the sources of the Nile. Across these pages we meet a mixed group of reckless and determined […]

The White Nile by Alan Moorehead Read More »

Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas

This widely influential 1966 book by Mary Douglas (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/may/18/guardianobituaries.obituaries) should be on the shelves of anyone interested in cultural theory or anthropology. The line of inquiry in Purity and Danger traces the meaning of ‘dirt’ in different contexts. What is regarded as dirt in a given society is any matter considered out of place. Douglas clarifies the differences

Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas Read More »

Western Atheism by James Thrower

Many people now find the old creeds unconvincing, and are increasingly turning to naturalistic explanations of their world. At significant moments in their lives, such as weddings and funeral services, many opt for a humanist ceremony (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/increasingly-popular-humanist-weddings-to-overtake-church-of-scotland-ceremonies-within-two-years-8581924.html). What, then, of the intellectual underpinnings of this shift in understanding? James Thrower’s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thrower) concise account of atheism

Western Atheism by James Thrower Read More »

Janesville by Amy Goldstein

Pulitzer Prize winner Amy Goldstein (http://www.amygoldsteinwriter.com/) spent years immersed in Janesville, Wisconsin where America’s oldest operating General Motors plant shut down in the midst of the Great Recession, two days before Christmas of 2008.  With intelligence, sympathy, and insight Goldstein describes what connects and divides people in an era of economic upheaval. Her reporting takes

Janesville by Amy Goldstein Read More »

Jane Austen’s Textual Lives by Kathryn Sutherland

Jane Austen’s novels have never gone out of fashion, nor received anything less than high critical acclaim. Her work is familiar to millions who have never read a word by means of costume drama on film and television. Through three intertwined histories Jane Austen’s Textual Lives offers a new way of approaching and reading this most familiar

Jane Austen’s Textual Lives by Kathryn Sutherland Read More »

The Mystery of Existence edited by Robert Lawrence Kuhn

In the Philosophical Investigations (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/#PhilInve), Ludwig Wittgenstein writes that philosophical perplexities “arise when language is like an engine idling, not when it is doing work.” When we are engaged in everyday practicalities and challenges there seems no point in metaphysics. If that suffices, turn the page. If you have fallen prey to some of these speculations it’s

The Mystery of Existence edited by Robert Lawrence Kuhn Read More »

The Rhetoric of Religion by Kenneth Burke

It has been understood at least since Wittgenstein (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/) that there are varieties of human thought and discourse, and that they intersect in interesting ways. They have been described as ‘language games’. Each game in a school playground has its own set of rules. These are absorbed and complied with by the participants for the

The Rhetoric of Religion by Kenneth Burke Read More »

The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Humanism

The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Humanism presents an edited collection of essays that explore the nature of humanism (https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/) as an approach to life, and a philosophical analysis of the key humanist propositions from naturalism and science to morality and meaning. It looks at humanism not just in terms of its theoretical underpinnings, but also

The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Humanism Read More »

Translating Neruda by John Felstiner

Pablo Neruda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Neruda) is greatly revered by aficionados of Spanish poetry. You may have enjoyed his work in the original language, or read a translation. But what is entailed in translating a poem? How much is lost, and what, if anything, is gained? Usually the process gets forgotten once a newly translated poem is published.

Translating Neruda by John Felstiner Read More »

The Proper Study of Mankind

I’d better declare – Isaiah Berlin (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berlin/) is right up there for me as a penetrating intellect and champion of liberalism. The Proper Study of Mankind brings together his most celebrated writing. In this volume the reader will find Berlin’s famous essay on Tolstoy, ‘The Hedgehog and the Fox’; his insightful portraits of contemporaries from Pasternak and

The Proper Study of Mankind Read More »

The Really Hard Problem by Owen Flanagan

Modern science proceeds on the basis that we live in a material world, and its methods of investigation have been spectacularly successful on this basis. It’s somewhat embarrassing, then, that the interior world of consciousness has so far eluded the categories of natural science. This is the so-called ‘hard problem of consciousness, summarised here https://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/.

The Really Hard Problem by Owen Flanagan Read More »

Scroll to Top