Lesley Pearse (http://www.lesleypearse.com/) cultivates her fiction as if it were a young sapling. She waters it with care until something beautiful has grown. No matter how severe the adversity the pure in spirit will always triumph. No one should miss out on her uplifting tales. Her 22nd masterpiece, Survivor, will be published in February 2014. How […]
Peter James (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_James_(writer) and http://www.peterjames.com/) offers us the ninth book in the Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series. The summary is as follows. A vicious robbery at a secluded Brighton mansion leaves its elderly occupant dying, and millions taken in valuables. But Detective Grace rapidly learns that there is one item, of priceless sentimental value, that her
Peter May (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_May_(writer)) was a Scottish journalist who wrote for The Scotsman and The Glasgow Evening Times. He has gone on to become a highly successful novelist, penning among other works The Lewis Trilogy and The China Thrillers. Well into his stride now as a practised crime author, his latest is Entry Island (2014). The summary is as
It’s hard to imagine a cockroach being bored. It simply gets on with what a cockroach does and then dies. Boredom seems only to be a possibility for organisms capable of reflective consciousness. Schopenhauer treated boredom as worthy of philosophical consideration. He thought it was lethal and that it proved the vanity of human existence. Heidegger,
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In this widely acclaimed work from 1983, Benedict Anderson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_Anderson and http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/benedict-anderson/) examines the creation and global spread of the ‘imagined communities’ of nationality. He explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialization of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time.
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Ian Frazier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Frazier and http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111023952) trains his perceptive, generous eye on Siberia, the expanse of Asiatic Russia with a grim renown. In Travels in Siberia (2010), Frazier reveals Siberia’s role in history – its science, economics, and politics – with great passion and enthusiasm, ensuring that we’ll never think about it in the same way again. He tells the stories
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E. B. White (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._B._White and http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4155/the-art-of-the-essay-no-1-e-b-white ) conjures up clear and beautiful images in this collection of essays (1977). With detailed descriptions of sights, sounds, and transitory moments he brings his experiences vividly to life. You will find yourself immersed in technicolour New England, New York, or Florida. His crystalline depictions of all the moods and colours of
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The war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the political sniping engendered by the Supreme Court nominations, and so on. Contemporary American society is characterized by divisive anger, profound loss, and danger. Wendell Berry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry and http://www.wendellberrybooks.com/), one of the America’s foremost cultural critics, addresses the menace, responding with hope and intelligence in a series of essays that tackle
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Required reading for anyone interested in the sociology of religion. In one of the true classics of twentieth-century political economy, R. H. Tawney (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._H._Tawney and http://infed.org/mobi/richard-henry-tawney-fellowship-and-adult-education/) addresses the question of how religion has affected social and economic practices. The author tracks the influence of religious thought on capitalist economy and ideology since the Middle Ages, shedding light
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R.H. Tawney Read More »
