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| Kindle Holiday Reads Source: Roy Blumenthal, cc-by-3.0, flickr |
As Summer slowly ends everyone wants to make the best of some time off, perhaps with a great book to settle down with as they enjoy the holidays. With more and more material going online these days and the proliferation of reading devices such as the Kindle, there are now more ways than ever before to enjoy hard or paperback novel, whether you’re in an office, on a plane or in the back of the car on the way to somewhere nice for summer. Read on to find out about the top picks in books to enjoy over these holidays.
On Looking: Eleven Walks With Expert Eyes
The great thing about this little gem is that it’s both enjoyable to read and highly therapeutic. On Looking, written by cognitive scientist Alexandra Horowitz, critiques our isolation and disengagement with the world around us as we become increasingly obsessed with the notion of ‘productivity’. By drawing on the observations of experts from different fields, including an artist, a geologist and even a dog, Horowitz encourages us to take better stock of our surroundings and to take in more of our urban milieu. If you’re looking for a way to get enjoyment out of the ordinary, while working effectively, this book is definitely for you.
Advice to Little Girls
This book was originally written by Mark Twain all the way back in the mid 19th century, and yet it has escaped popular consciousness for all these years. A mischievous and satirical look at the way women were socialised in Twain’s time, the book seemingly urges young girls, teenagers and women to break free of these constraints or to rebel against them- all in a very tongue-in-cheek way, of course. Complete with illustrations from renowned Russian artist Vladimir Radunsky, this book is worth a read if you’re a fan of Twain’s writing style and his activism, and also if you want to soak in a snapshot taken from a time long past.
This Explains Everything
In the tradition of intellectualism and seeking answers to the unknown, This Explains Everything is a book that really pushes readers to engage with areas outside their areas of knowledge. Author John Brockmann has sought to gather answers to questions by scientific and philosophical masters every year since 1998, and this year he has asked them for their favourite explanations of scientific, philosophical and psychological phenomena. Prepare to be wowed by eloquence and prosaic thoughts of the highest calibre, laid out in a clear, logical and reflective style. The book is suited to people of all pursuits, and you’ll learn about disciplines totally alien to you while enjoying the lucid expression of the book’s contributors!
Time Warped
If you’ve ever wondered why it is that things which happened a long while ago seem relatively recent, or why things recent seem to be ancient history, or even why, as a child, times goes more slowly than it does for us as adults, then this book is for you. Time Warped written by author Claudia Hammond, is a work of spirited enquiry that seeks to understand why the human mind perceives time differently in different contexts. It discovers that not only as humans do we need to do this, but also it finds that our sense of time is critical to the development of our conscious identity. As such, if you have some philosophical questions to wrestle with over these holidays, grabbing this book might be the ticket to finding the answers.
Self-Portrait as Your Traitor
In this astounding collection of poems, artworks and other creative musings from distinguished artists, we see how the very act of creating a work, whether it be a picture, a poem or even a manuscript, reveals a wealth of information about our own beliefs, securities and insecurities, and our outlook on how the world works. From the colours used to the arrangement of letters, the types of fonts printed and the styles of paper chosen, windows into the psyche of these individuals are to be found throughout the collection. For those wanting to see plentiful examples of how the self colours everything we do, this book should be at the top of the present wish-list these holidays.
Michael Trent is an Arts Student who recently purchased an electronic reader by arranging a loan through Flexirent, and has his holidays cut out for him with more books than he knows what to do with!
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