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 […]
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Each of the brutal and repressive regimes that have ever existed have been brutal and repressive in their own uniquely interesting ways. The Soviet Union takes its place among these. Journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/jan/25/pressandpublishing.booksobituaries) wandered across the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1991. His sharply observed travelogue illuminates the tragedy of 20th-century Soviet history and
Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski Read More »
John Berger (5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/30/john-berger-at-90-interview-storyteller) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His essay on art criticism, Ways of Seeing (1972), was written as an accompaniment to a BBC series intended as a response to the broadcast of ‘Civilisation’ by Kenneth Clark. It has been highly influential, and often prescribed
India often conjures up images of endemic poverty, superstition and entrenched social structures. A country doomed to perpetual backwardness. If so, think again. India is now a burgeoning economic and geopolitical giant. The country has the 21st century stamped on it more visibly than any other nation after China and the United States. India
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Bats are not everyone’s favourite beastie. For those who are fascinated by life on Earth, this volume comes highly recommended. From the African long-tongued fruit bat to the wrinkle-faced bat of Mexico and Central America, Walker’s Bats of the World offers a complete guide to this hugely varied order of mammals. The book includes scientific and
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Our primate relations on the tree of life go on raiding parties. (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/jun/21/chimpanzees-territory-killing-neighbours) They have a deep instinct to conquer and dominate, establishing rule over territory. So it is with us. None of the empires in human history (Roman, Chinese, Persian, Mongol, British) got established without violence, massacre and repression. And if one had to
American novelist Christpher Bollen (http://www.christopherbollen.com/) writes psychologically probing fiction in the style of John Updike and Jeffrey Eugenides. His third novel is a swift moving thriller. The summary is as follows. Arriving on the Greek island of Patmos broke and humiliated, Ian Bledsoe is fleeing the emotional and financial fallout from his father’s death.
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/.
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The whereabouts of snails under knee deep snow in Clydesdale in March 2018 is not known to me. One assumes there must be some survival strategy. Perhaps the little critters dream of a sun dappled terrace in Las Palmas Gran Canaria, having retreated within their shells and battened down the hatch for the winter. Confined
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Tova Bailey Read More »
