EGGHEAD CHOICE – Crack open for a hard boiled think

“Fiction and The Reading Public” provoked fierce controversy when first published in 1932, and it has since come to be recognised as a classic in its field. In her fascinating study, Q D Leavis (http://mypages.surrey.ac.uk/eds1cj/qd-leavis-life-and-work.htm#lifeandwork) investigates what has happened to the public taste in the last three centuries and what effect this has had on […]

You can imagine the scene. They’ve gone up to the top of  Tinto Hill on an evening full of expectation. Thrilling expectation, because that night is going to be The End of The World. The chosen ones (among whom they are counted in the number) are to be taken to a heavenly place in a

The physical and natural sciences investigate how the world is, its contents and relations between them. Why, though, is there anything rather than just nothing? This is a perenniel question and many thinkers cite this fact to suggest that it is really unanswerable. It may be able to be framed grammatically, yet could still be

Berlin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah_Berlin) was a colossus of a thinker bestriding the twentieth century. His unique intellectual contribution was the concept of value-pluralism. Allow the mellifluous tones of John Gray to give you a tour round Berlin’s mind, and in particular his ideas about agonistic liberalism. 240 pages in Princeton University Press paperback edition. ISBN 978-0691157429

Do you know anyone who is exhausted by work and permanently under stress? Perhaps that person takes a smartphone and tablet to a wi-fi hotspot on the beach whilst on holiday? Work, seemingly, has become an end in itself and we all worship at the altar of Efficiency, praise be upon its name. All our

Why do people persist in superstitious convictions long after science has shown them to be ill-founded? Robert L. Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Park) has some ideas. He covers here in 2008, among other topics, parapsychology, homeopathy, acupuncture, souls, ‘intelligent design’, the power of prayer, reincarnation and astral projections. Park’s previous debunk ‘Voodoo Science’ (2000, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Voodoo-Science-Road-Foolishness-Fraud/dp/0198507453/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1375693564&sr=1-1) is also well worth a read. 240

Our very own David Hume is revered by many professional philosophers as the greatest of their number ever to write in English. His work is almost endlessly rich and stimulating to deep thought. The result is that there has sprung up a vast industry of publication on every single nuance that can be discerned from

A cheeky blend of impish pleasure and serious intent, Lust (2004) rescues this life-giving impulse from the revulsion of the dessicated desert fathers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers), the smug detachment of ascetics, and Puritans the world over. What is lust? Even though our language makes it clear that it can have broader applications, lust is often associated with sexual