EGGHEAD CHOICE – Crack open for a hard boiled think

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 […]

Published originally in German as Die Ringe des Saturn. Eine englische Wallfahrt (1995), The Rings of Saturn (1998) – with its curious archive of photographs – records a walking tour of the eastern coast of England. A few of the things which cross the path and mind of its narrator (who both is and is not Sebald

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

Since it appeared in 1971, John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice has become a classic of moral and political philosophy. The author has now revised the original edition to clear up a number of difficulties he and others have found in the original work. Rawls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawls) aims to express an essential part of the common core

The Appalachian Trail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_trail) trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America: majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike other than in Yosemite National Park, it’s probably the place to go. Bill Bryson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson and http://www.billbryson.co.uk/) proves to be the most entertaining guide

Is there such a thing as human nature? Sartre denied it with his epithet that ‘existence precedes essence’. We are free to choose what we become, he argued. Indeed, in a memorable phrase ‘we are condemned to be free’. Of the opposite opinion are thinkers like Steven Pinker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker) (Cf. The Blank Slate: The Modern