This classic by Alan Moorehead (https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/01/obituaries/alan-moorehead-73-writer-acclaimed-for-war-reporting.html) is one for your shelf of travel literature. Based on contemporary records, as well as character portraits, this is the exciting story of fifty years of African exploration and the attempt to reach the sources of the Nile. Across these pages we meet a mixed group of reckless and determined […]

This widely influential 1966 book by Mary Douglas (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/may/18/guardianobituaries.obituaries) should be on the shelves of anyone interested in cultural theory or anthropology. The line of inquiry in Purity and Danger traces the meaning of ‘dirt’ in different contexts. What is regarded as dirt in a given society is any matter considered out of place. Douglas clarifies the differences

Many people now find the old creeds unconvincing, and are increasingly turning to naturalistic explanations of their world. At significant moments in their lives, such as weddings and funeral services, many opt for a humanist ceremony (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/increasingly-popular-humanist-weddings-to-overtake-church-of-scotland-ceremonies-within-two-years-8581924.html). What, then, of the intellectual underpinnings of this shift in understanding? James Thrower’s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Thrower) concise account of atheism

Some years ago, one began to hear people say ‘too much information’. Additionally one’s state of awareness on any matter was confined on a ‘need to know’ basis. Both phrases acknowledge that the totality of human knowledge (especially specialist scientific knowledge) so vastly exceeds any one mind’s capacity to absorb it that the hapless individual