PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- What an enormous task Bakewell has taken on here, begininng with what is Humanism? When one takes into account that there are so many different interpretations attached to this school of thought. So where to start? Maybe with Democritus who planted the seed and from that grew a tree with many different branches: people such as Petrarch , Boccaccio, Russell, Sartre and many many more all bearing fruit. Bakewell litters her narrative with touches of humour and irony - It's her ability to bring all these diverse characters alive all with their own personality quirks that makes this a book that is bursting with ideas. Greg
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
AS READ ON RADIO 4
The bestselling, prizewinning author of How to Live and At the Existentialist Cafe explores 700 years of writers, thinkers, scientists and artists, all trying to understand what it means to be truly human.
'I can't imagine a better history' PHILIP PULLMAN
* 'Fascinating, moving, funny' OLIVER BURKEMAN
If you are reading this, it's likely you already have some affinity with humanism, even if you don't think of yourself in those terms. You may be drawn to literature and the humanities. You may prefer to base your moral choices on fellow-feeling and responsibility to others rather than on religious commandments. Or you may simply believe that individual lives are more important than grand political visions or dogmas.
If any of these apply, you are part of a long tradition of humanist thought, and you share that tradition with many extraordinary individuals through history who have put rational enquiry, cultural richness, freedom of thought and a sense of hope at the heart of their lives.
Humanly Possible introduces us to some of these people, as it asks what humanism is and why it has flourished for so long, despite opposition from fanatics, mystics and tyrants. It is a book brimming with ideas, personalities and experiments in living - from Erasmus to Esperanto, from anatomists to agnostics, from Christine de Pizan to Bertrand Russell to Zora Neale Hurston. It joyfully celebrates open-mindedness, optimism, freedom and the power of the here and now - humanist values which have helped steer us through dark times in the past, and which are just as urgently needed in our world today.
PRAISE FOR SARAH BAKEWELL'S BOOKS
'Quirky, funny, clear and passionate . . . Few writers are as good as Bakewell at explaining complicated ideas' Mail on Sunday
'A wonderfully readable combination of biography, philosophy, history, cultural analysis and personal reflection' Independent
'Splendidly conceived and exquisitely written' Sunday Times
'A rare achievement' Evening Standard
Sarah Bakewell had a wandering childhood, growing up on the hippie trail through Asia and in Australia. She studied philosophy at the University of Essex, and worked for many years as a curator of early printed books at the Wellcome Library, London, before becoming a full-time writer. Her books include How to Live- a life of Montaigne, which won the Duff Cooper Prize and the US National Book Critics Circle Prize, and At the Existentialist Cafe, one of the New York Times's Ten Best Books of 2016. She was also among the winners of the 2018 Windham-Campbell Literature Prize. She still has a tendency to wander, but is mostly to be found either in London or in Italy with her wife and their family of dogs and chickens. www.sarahbakewell.com
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- What an enormous task Bakewell has taken on here, begininng with what is Humanism? When one takes into account that there are so many different interpretations attached to this school of thought. So where to start? Maybe with Democritus who planted the seed and from that grew a tree with many different branches: people such as Petrarch , Boccaccio, Russell, Sartre and many many more all bearing fruit. Bakewell litters her narrative with touches of humour and irony - It's her ability to bring all these diverse characters alive all with their own personality quirks that makes this a book that is bursting with ideas. Greg
To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth...
Legal Imagination and International...
Paperback
$141.95
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