Libreria’s Best Books of the Month

January 2017 Edition

Second Home’s bookshop Libreria is hitting 2017 running and we will be selecting three of our top picks every week, to keep you informed and prepared for the year ahead — after all, chance favours a prepared mind.

‘Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue’ — Sam Harris & Maajid Nawaz

Our first pick begins with a dialogue on religion from Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz. Writing in the NYT Sunday Book Review, Canadian author Irshad Manjinov touches on an engaging discourse: “How refreshing to read an honest yet affectionate exchange between the Islamist-turned-liberal-Muslim Maajid Nawaz and the neuroscientist who advocates mindful atheism, Sam Harris. ‘Islam and the Future of Tolerance’ begins on an impolitic note. Harris tells Nawaz that to reform Islamic practices one must ’pretend’ that ‘jihad is just an inner spiritual struggle, whereas it’s primarily a doctrine of holy war.’ Nawaz counters: ’Religion doesn’t inherently speak for itself’ because ‘no scripture, no book, no piece of writing has its own voice.’ Human interpretation is everything.” Hear, hear.

‘How Will Capitalism End?’ — Wolfgang Streeck

Historian Adam Tooze delves into Wolfgang Streeck in the London Review of Books: “It has been said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism: Streeck believes we may one day witness the proof of that. Capitalism will end not because it faces serious opposition but because over the course of the coming decades and centuries it can be relied on to consume and destroy its own foundations… ‘Life in a society of this kind,’ [Streeck] writes, ‘demands constant improvisation, forcing individuals to substitute strategy for structure, and offers rich opportunities to oligarchs and warlords while imposing uncertainty and insecurity on all others, in some ways like the long interregnum that began in the fifth century CE and is now called the Dark Age.” Heavy! You can find this review in the London Review of Books and many other great magazines now available at Libreria.

‘Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter’ — Peter Singer

Peter Singer, our guide to the world’s moral dilemmas. In September last year, The Economist reviewed Singer’s new collection of essays: “Despite their brevity, the essays do not shirk the big moral questions including perhaps the biggest of all: can there be objectively true answers to the question of how one ought to act? In a piece about ‘On What Matters’ by Derek Parfit, a philosopher, Mr Singer distils more than 1,400 pages of argument down to a scant three and concurs with him that moral judgments can, indeed, be true or false…However, agreeing with Mr Singer that objective ethical truths exist and imagining anyone, even a moral philosopher, has a monopoly on divining what these might be are not the same. Among the best essays in this collection are those that demonstrate that Mr Singer is alive to the possibility of being wrong… A welcome admission that even a much-feted moral philosopher may sometimes err.” Just what we need for 2017…

The World Beyond Your Head’ — Matthew Crawford

How are your New Year’s resolutions holding up? Yup, same here. You’ve thrown away any distracting physical objects, now it’s time to de-clutter your mind-hive. ‘The World Beyond Your Head’ uses moral philosophy and cognitive science to help you focus on the most important things. The Guardian’s Iain Morris comments: “Although its title is suggestive of the breezily written self-help guide, the text transcends this genre to evoke a full-blown philosophical inquiry.”

‘The Life-changing Magic of Tidying’ — Marie Kondo

Marie Kondo has seen your sock drawer and she doesn’t like it. You will be strangely comforted by her ruthless mantras and commands, and your space will never have looked so good. According to The Guardian review, Kondo has been “obsessed with tidying since she was five, opting to arrange shoes and pencils while other kids played outside. She began communing with her belongings in high school and, after years of work at a Shinto shrine, realised her calling as a professional consultant on attaining the joy of minimalism.” Come, join the converted and banish untidiness forever.

‘Gut’ — Giulia Enders

Giulia Enders is her name, gut-cleanse is her game. Her excellent book goes some way to explain how our guts seriously factor into our mental and physical wellbeing. Enders opens with the question, ‘How does pooing work?’ and closes with helpful and effective advice on bacterias. This book is written in an entertaining and informative way, and had reviewers at New Scientist “laughing aloud”. In 2017, let’s all be grown ups and listen to our guts.

‘Ways of Seeing’ — John Berger

Ways of Seeing by the late John Berger is a seminal guide for using eyes and mind, and is summarised perfectly by Lesley McDowell in the Independent (2008): “In a world full of reproductions, the currency of art (as much as the currency of the human body) is so much a part of our culture that we barely notice it — except, perhaps, when a Damien Hirst is bought for millions of pounds during the beginnings of a credit crunch. Berger is a political reminder of what that exchange means. Put it on the school curriculum! Every adolescent should read it.”

‘Essays and Interviews’ — Wolfgang Tillmans

Photographer and performance artist Wolfgang Tillmans is exhibiting his work in February at the new Switch House extension at Tate Modern (Tillmans’ collaboration with Frank Ocean was one of our highlights from last year). Libreria have his book of thoughtful essays and inventive interviews that will inform your experience of his exhibition. Book tickets to his show via Tate Modern here.

‘Participation — Documents of Contemporary Art’ — Ed. Claire Bishop

These survey books produced by the Whitechapel Gallery publishers cover every aspect of modern art from ‘Abstraction’ to ‘Utopia’. Take along a copy of ‘Participation’ to the Guerrilla Girls exhibition and shake up any ideas you thought you had about who, what or why art is.

‘Seven Brief Lessons on Physics’ — Carlo Rovelli

Rovelli is reviewed eloquently in The Scientific American: ‘This small book — fewer than 100 pages — contains some large ideas. In a series of translated essays first published in an Italian newspaper, theoretical physicist Rovelli, one of the founders of a popular theory called loop quantum gravity, explains the major concepts of modern physics. His concise and comprehensible writing makes sense of intricate notions such as general relativity, quantum mechanics, cosmology and thermodynamics. Rovelli’s enthusiastic and poetic descriptions communicate the essence of these topics without getting bogged down in details.’

‘Storm in a Tea Cup’ — Helen Czerski

Scientist Helen Czerski spoke at Second Home on the physics of everyday life in December and we’re glad to stock her latest work at Libreria. As Alexander Larman writes in The Guardian: ‘Helen Czerski’s engaging debut book seeks to demystify physics in everyday life, so whether you know your refraction from your reflection, or find the entire subject incomprehensible, this should be an invaluable primer. Dealing with the everyday — such as what really happens when you spill a few drops of coffee, or how magnetism really works — is a winning ploy. It enables Czerski to offer a mixture of erudition and enthusiasm to explain her chosen topics, leading the reader gently by the hand into some surprisingly complicated areas, but mostly keeping the discussion light, accessible and interesting.’

‘The Glass Universe’ — Dava Sobel

November’s edition of ‘Nature’ reviews ‘The Glass Universe’: ‘There are half a million photographic plates in the Harvard College Observatory collection, all unique. They date to the mid-1880s, and each can display the light from 50,000 stars. These fragments of the cosmos furthered our understanding of the Universe. They also reflect the dedication and intelligence of extraordinary women whose stories are more than astronomical history: they reveal lives of ambition, aspiration and brilliance. It takes a talented writer to interweave professional achievement with personal insight. By the time I finished ‘The Glass Universe’, Dava Sobel’s wonderful, meticulous account, it had moved me to tears.’

Libreria is new bookshop by Second Home. Come and browse our beautiful books today: 65 Hanbury Street, E1 5JP / libreria.io