Time (Big Ideas) by Eva Hoffman
| Time (Big Ideas) by Eva Hoffman | |
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| Category: Popular Science | |
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Reviewer: Ekaterina Rodyunina
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| Summary: An extensive, thorough and extremely intelligent review of the notion of time in humanity and individual environment. Not an easy read, but absolutely worth it to get these grey cells working. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 224 | Date: September 2009 |
| Publisher: Profile Books | |
| ISBN: 978-1846680380 | |
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Some writers make a lot of effort to appear intelligent. To quote Mr. Bingley - he does not write with ease. He studies too much for words of four syllables. They waste pages attempting to create an image of someone with an extensive library at home. End result? Plain boring and superficial.
Eva Hoffman is nothing like this. Here is a person who writes with genuine ease - such is the impression anyway. She is apallingly, enviably intelligent. To the point indeed that you find yourself considering philosophical ponderings on the nature of time interesting.
Time is one of Big Ideas series of books aiming to revisit the greatest notions and concepts and to provide them with a modern summary and understanding. The series strives to cause people to think and debate, to re-evaluate and doubt. Another Big Ideas books deal with topics such as Democracy, Identity and Bodies.
Time itself is divided into four parts (Time and the Body, Time and the Mind, Time and Culture and Time in our Time) each therefore dealing with how the concept of time is enframed into our physical being, psyche, culture and contemporary society.
The author makes the most complex ideas available to the reader without once being patronising. She swings effortlessly between the description of attitudes to time in Japan and the USA, motion of oscillation which introduces mortality in living organisms, Korsakov Syndrom and Milan Kundera, mortality levels in ancient Rome and Stephen Hawking. She also subtly shows her considerable knowledge and erudition through timely use of applicable quotes by most emminent writers, psychologist, philosophers, neuroscientists etc etc.
Make no mistake - this is by no means a summer read. It is one of those books that make you stop, close the book, google, find yourself lost in endless Wikipedia articles, take notes and read the original books of the authors she quotes. Written with precision and style, it is a scientific work in its own right, elegant and succinct.
A book for those who don't find themselves threatened with a little intellectual challenge. Highly recommended but not a page-turner, so would suggest to make time and spare effort for it.
If you're a fan of excellent non-ficton books, why not check out The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind by Steven Pinker - one of our Top Ten Non-Fiction Books To Make You Think list.
I would like to thank the publishers for sending this book to The Bookbag.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Time (Big Ideas) by Eva Hoffman at Amazon.com.
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