This is a book about books, and as a lover of books, I loved it!
A history of the book may sound like a dry topic, but this was anything but dry. It is most beautifully written, and the style transported me to so many places throughout recorded history, as well as to my own childhood and my relationship with the printed word.
In addition to illuminating the catalytic role this humble invention played in shaping human civilization, it also highlights its far-reaching implications for today’s and tomorrow’s society. From dictators to revolutionaries and from book bans to copyright laws, books have become tools in power struggles, for better and for worse, thanks to their ability to transform our intellectual, emotional, and social world.
The bestselling phenomenon - an enthralling 6,000-year journey through the history of books and reading
A FINANCIAL TIMES, ECONOMIST AND MAIL ON SUNDAY BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Outstanding, universal and unique' NEW YORK TIMES 'A literary phenomenon.' TLS 'Masterly.' ECONOMIST 'Mindboggling' TELEGRAPH
Long before books were mass-produced, scrolls hand copied on reeds pulled from the Nile were the treasures of the ancient world. Emperors and Pharaohs were so determined to possess them that they dispatched emissaries to the edges of the earth to bring them back.
In Papyrus, celebrated classicist Irene Vallejo traces the dramatic history of the book and…
In a famous paper, philosopher Thomas Nagel asked, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" This book is an attempt to answer, or at least to ask, this question for all kinds of creatures.
Imagine being able to perceive electromagnetic waves, to smell with your feet, to have 200 eyes, or to see the world in slow motion, or fast forward. These are the experiences of other animals, and this is a book about their umwelt, the specific ways different organisms perceive the world.
It is full of fascinating examples and descriptions, and I didn’t want it to end.
'Wonderful, mind-broadening... a journey to alternative realities as extraordinary as any you'll find in science fiction' The Times, Book of the Week
'Magnificent' Guardian
Enter a new dimension - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals.
The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving only a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into previously unfathomable dimensions - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals.
I like books that change the way I see the world, and this is that kind of book.
We tend to think about units like kilograms and inches as things that are both mundane and objective. In compelling prose, this book shows they are neither: not only is measurement a product of human experience, but it also has profound social ramifications.
From ancient Egypt to the French Revolution and from the Food and Drug Administration to Fitbit, measurement has been used as a tool for social influence, control, liberation, and oppression.
From the cubit to the kilogram, the humble inch to the speed of light, measurement is a powerful tool that humans invented to make sense of the world. In this revelatory work of science and social history, James Vincent dives into its hidden world, taking readers from ancient Egypt, where measuring the annual depth of the Nile was an essential task, to the intellectual origins of the metric system in the French Revolution, and from the surprisingly animated rivalry between metric and imperial, to our current age of the "quantified self." At every turn, Vincent is keenly attuned to the…
Ritual is perhaps the oldest, and certainly the most enigmatic, thread in human culture. Apparently pointless ceremonies pervade every documented society: from handshakes to hexes, hazings to parades. Before we learned to farm, we were gathering in giant stone temples. And yet, though rituals exist in every culture and can persist nearly unchanged for centuries, their logic has remained a mystery until now. Today, a fearless new generation of anthropologists is venturing into this shadowy realm. Armed with cutting-edge technology and drawing on discoveries from a huge range of disciplines, they emerge with a powerful new perspective on our place in the world. Join the pathfinding scientist Dimitris Xygalatas on a tour of human culture at its strangest. In coronations, in silent prayer, in fire-walks and in all the bewildering variety of humanity's ritual life, Xygalatas reveals the deep and subtle mechanisms that bind us together.
