EGGHEAD CHOICE – Crack open for a hard boiled think

The famous child psychologist, Bruno Bettelheim (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bettelheim), explains how fairy tales educate, support, and liberate the emotions of children. Wicked stepmothers and beautiful princesses … magic forests and enchanted towers … little pigs and big bad wolves … Fairy tales have been an integral part of childhood for hundreds of years. It’s in this book […]

Saloon-keepers and street preachers, gypsies and steel-walking Mohawks, a bearded lady and a 93-year-old ‘seafoodetarian’ who believes his specialized diet will keep him alive for another two decades. These are among the people that Joseph Mitchell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mitchell_(writer)) immortalized in his reportage for The New Yorker and in four books McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The

A central bond, a cherished value, a unique relationship, a profound human need, a type of love. What is the nature of friendship, and what is its significance in our lives? How has friendship changed since the ancient Greeks began to analyze it, and has modern technology altered its very definition? In this fascinating exploration

What Charles Rosen’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rosen) celebrated book The Classical Style (1971) did for music of the Classical period, this volume of 1995 brilliantly does for the Romantic era. An exhilarating exploration of the musical language, forms, and styles of the Romantic period, it captures the spirit that enlivened a generation of composers and musicians, and in doing so

Noam Chomsky’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky) book Syntactic Structures (1957) was one of the first serious attempts on the part of a linguist to construct a comprehensive theory of language which may be understood in the same sense that a chemical or biological theory is understood by experts in those fields. It proved to be a seminal work in linguistics. It is

Written on the brink of World War II and then published in 1941, Rebecca West’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_West and http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rwest.htm) classic examination of the history, people, and politics of Yugoslavia illuminates a region that is still a focus of international concern. A magnificent blend of travel journal, cultural commentary, and historical insight, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941) probes the

‘The Proper Study of Mankind is Man’ appears as a line in the poem ‘An Essay on Man‘ by Alexander Pope in 1734. Isaiah Berlin chooses this as a title for a collection of his essentially humanistic writings. Berlin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Berlin) was one of the leading thinkers of the last century and one of its finest writers.

Now revised, The Story of English (1986) by Robert McCrum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McCrum) was the first book to tell the whole story of the English language for a popular audience. It presents a stimulating and comprehensive record of spoken and written English, from its Anglo-Saxon origins some two thousand years ago to the present day, when English is