EGGHEAD CHOICE – Crack open for a hard boiled think

Crack open for a hard boiled think

The Origins of the World’s Mythologies by E.J. Michael Witzel

In this comprehensive book E.J. Michael Witzel (http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Witzel) demonstrates the prehistoric origins of most of the mythologies of Eurasia and the Americas (‘Laurasia’). By comparing these myths with others indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa, Melanesia, and Australia (‘Gondwana Land’) Witzel is able to access some of the earliest myths told by humans. The Laurasian mythologies share […]

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Ruling Passions by Simon Blackburn

Simon Blackburn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Blackburn andhttp://www2.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/) puts forward a compelling and original philosophy of human motivation and morality. Why do we behave as we do? Can we improve? Is our ethics at war with our passions, or is it an upshot of those passions? Blackburn seeks the answers to such questions in an exploration of the nature of

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Principles of Literary Criticism by I.A. Richards

Ivor Armstrong Richards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._A._Richards and https://archive.org/details/practicalcritici030142mbp  was one of the founders of modern literary criticism. He enthused a generation of writers and readers and was an influential supporter of the young T.S. Eliot. Principles of Literary Criticism was the text that first established his reputation and pioneered the movement that became known as the ‘New Criticism’. Highly

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Logic by Wilfred Hodges

If a man supports Celtic one day and Rangers the next then he is fickle but not necessarily illogical. From this starting point, and assuming no previous knowledge of the subject, Wilfrid Hodges (http://wilfridhodges.co.uk/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfrid_Hodges) takes the reader through the whole gamut of logical expressions in a simple and lively way. Readers who are more mathematically adventurous

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The Feeling of What Happens by Antonio Damasio

Antonio Damasio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Damasio and http://www.ted.com/speakers/antonio_damasio.html) does not claim to have solved the mystery of consciousness in The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. This is fortunate, because in many senses Damasio’s book does not provide much new information about consciousness and why its highest forms occur only in humans. Instead, Damasio

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Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung

Most autobiographies cover the main events of a life with the reader often left with only glimpses of the inner life of the author. Carl Jung’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung) autobiographical  Memories, Dreams, Reflections (first English translation 1963), focuses on the great psychologist’s spiritual and intellectual awakenings. The descriptions of his visions, dreams and fantasies, which he considered his

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Why Beauty Is Truth

At the heart of relativity theory, quantum mechanics, string theory, and much of modern cosmology lies one concept: symmetry. In Why Beauty Is Truth, world-famous mathematician Ian Stewart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stewart_(mathematician)) narrates the history of the emergence of this remarkable area of study. He introduces us to such characters as the Renaissance Italian genius, rogue, scholar, and gambler Girolamo

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Through The Language Glass by Guy Deutscher

In April 2002, the great journal Lloyd’s List gave shipping a sex change, switching the nautical pronoun to ‘it’. ‘She’ fell by the quayside! There, in half a sentence, is the delight of Guy Deutscher’s (http://www.guydeutscher.org/) book. It is relaxed, witty and pertinent. English ships display feminine grace, not because a bulk carrier, barge or battleship is

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God’s Philosophers by James Hannam

Treat yourself to this engrossing narrative history which reveals the roots of modern science in the medieval world. The adjective ‘medieval’ has almost become a synonym for backwardness and uncivilized behaviour. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution. In God’s Philosophers, James Hannam (http://jameshannam.com/) debunks

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