Using simple language and a dash of contextual wit, James Garvey and Jeremy Stangroom take the reader on a whirlwind tour of the evolution, development and future of Western philosophy. It sure is an arduous endeavour to traverse back 2000 years in time to flesh out the origins, premise and causes that triggered the thinking … Continue reading The Story of Philosophy by James Garvey, Jeremy Stangroom

In a world obsessed with hoarding material wealth and acquiring symbolic societal status, how we judge the value of our existence is to a great extent dependent upon how worthy or unworthy others perceive us to be - whether fairly or unfairly. While a favourable verdict imbues us with a vainglorious vanity, an adverse judgment … Continue reading Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton

Angola is facing testing times just on the brink of its much awaited Independence. The streets are rife with warm blooded rioting youth and factional violence becomes a common place occurrence. Ludovica Fernandes Mano (‘Ludo’) lives in an elite housing complex with her sister Odete and brother in law. An unfortunate incident uproots her existence … Continue reading A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa, Daniel Hahn (Translator)

First things first. The title of this work is an absolute misnomer. This is not a practice manual for an aspiring ascetic or a to-be-mendicant. In fact going through the collection of Jonathan Franzen's bold and extremely personal essays, loneliness is replaced by a sense of camaraderie and a need for engaging in collective musings. … Continue reading How to Be Alone by Jonathan Franzen

Commenced by the brilliant late Michael Crichton and completed by the visionary Science Writer Richard Preston, "Micro" is a high strung concept science thriller involving an explosive intersection between nano technology and microbiology. Nanigen, a company housed in an unobtrusive expanse of acreage in quiet Honolulu is on the cusp of making path breaking discoveries … Continue reading Micro by Michael Crichton, Richard Preston

From time immemorial, thought experiments have been employed as a platform from which to springboard towards seminal discoveries and thought provoking concepts. Thought experiments have distinguished themselves in a multitude of disciplines ranging from Physics, to Humanities and from Law to Mathematics. Prima facie appearing to be either extremely trivial or incredibly complex, these thought … Continue reading The Infinite Tortoise: The Curious Thought Experiments of History’s Great Thinkers by Joel Levy

The story of Andreas Egger is of a life distinguished by simplicity. It is also the story of a relationship between a solitary man and a stunning landscape. But more pertinently it is a story with which you, me and every other person can relate to, in howsoever a trivial or material way. Robert Seethaler … Continue reading A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler

Still waters run deep. Sleeping dogs do not always lie. John Rebus is now a former Detective Inspector. However, both his razor sharp brain and restless mind are in a state of flux. An unsolved murder, with the victim being the promiscuous Maria Turquand the wife of the high profile entrepreneur John Turquand continues to … Continue reading Rather Be the Devil (Inspector Rebus #21) by Ian Rankin

Written and published initially under the pseudonym of Emil Sinclair - also the name of the narrator in 'Demian' - "The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth" is a bright, bold and bewitching saga of soul searching and self realization. Written during a tumultuous phase when the world was plunged in chaos and destruction as a … Continue reading Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair’s Youth by Hermann Hesse, Michael Roloff (Translator),

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 'A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain', is a remarkable collection of short stories by Robert Olen Butler. The stories are in the voices of people from Vietnam who in the aftermath of the carnage wreaked by the infamous Vietnam War, find solace in the vast expanse of … Continue reading A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler