Icon News & Events

‘It’s Sunday lunchtime in South Kensington…’

Posted on 2010/11/08 in General, tagged as

‘… and at the Battle Of Ideas – the big annual rammy of political thought staged by Claire Fox and her Institute Of Ideas – the session on “Generation Wars” is drawing to a close, when a young woman rises to ask a question. “I just want to know,” she says, “what I should be able to expect. I’m 32, and I’ve just got married. But both of us have insecure jobs. We can’t afford to buy a house or flat; and it feels as if we can’t afford to start a f… Read more »

Slaughter on a Snowy Morn – new paperback cover

Posted on 2010/11/05 in General, tagged as

We’ve just finished off today the cover for the new paperback edition of Colin Evans’ brilliant true-crime thriller Slaughter on a Snowy Morn – and here it is (click for a larger image): The book is published in January next year.

‘It’s irresistible, as compulsive as eating popcorn’

Posted on 2010/11/04 in General, tagged as

John Sutherland and Stephen Fender’s Love, Sex, Death and Words is reviewed in the Guardian. ‘I’ve had tremendous fun reading [the entries] – arguing with some, substituting others, quoting them over lunch – and pleasure is at the heart of this project. It’s irresistible, as compulsive as eating popcorn. Hawthorne and Melville meet for the first time, Petrarch catches first sight of Laura, Picasso, Joyce, Stravinsky and Diaghilev and Proust dine… Read more »

Anthem for doomed youth

Posted on 2010/11/04 in General, tagged as

Ed Howker and Shiv Malik’s Jilted Generation is reviewed in this week’s Spectator. ‘For Ed Howker and Shiv Malik, authors of Jilted Generation, British youth now face the most uncertain future since the 1930s. Identifying the eponymous generation as those born after 1979 — the first UK school year to pay university tuition fees — the authors argue that a country where the young have lost out even during the giddiest boom in living memory has effe… Read more »

Introducing Romanticism – free sample!

Posted on 2010/11/02 in General, tagged as

The new, compact edition of Introducing Romanticism is published this week. To celebrate, here’s the first 30-or so pages from the book. Enjoy: Open publication – Free publishing – More romanticism

‘The modern world owes more to the semi-mythical mathematician Pythagoras than most of us can even begin to conceive.’

Posted on 2010/11/01 in General, tagged as

Kitty Ferguson’s Pythagoras is reviewed in Irish magazine Politico. The reviewer says ‘Science writer Kitty Ferguson has done an admirable job in presenting not just the famous theorem, but any number of mathematical concepts that seem to have been first laid down by a group of philosophers and scientists in the Greek colonies in Southern Italy in the 5th century. Her logical approach proves useful in breaking down the various different accounts… Read more »

‘Young, gifted, and broke before they start’

Posted on 2010/11/01 in General, tagged as

Ed Howker, co-author of Jilted Generation, writes in the Independent on Sunday on the crippling financial burdens facing today’s younger people. Read the piece here and if you’d like to read his book for free on your mobile phone, text JILTED to 60300 and follow the instructions on screen.

‘Greg Grandin’s study is strikingly well-written, and full of fascinating anecdotes that evoke the futility of Ford’s enterprise’

Posted on 2010/10/29 in General, tagged as

The paperback edition of Fordlandia is reviewed in the Independent. Read the full review here.

‘As long as there has been brain science there have been – in retrospect – misguided neurological explanations and justifications of sex inequality.’ Cordelia Fine interviewed in The Psychologist

Posted on 2010/10/28 in General, tagged as

The Psychologist this month has a fantastic, lengthy interview with Cordelia Fine about her Delusions of Gender. Here’s the first question and answer: ‘Q: For anyone who thought that the battle of the sexes was over, that any gender inequalities remaining are innate and pretty inevitable, your new book Delusions of Gender is pretty uncomfortable reading. Everything’s not fine.’ ‘A: As long as there has been brain science there have been – in retr… Read more »

Who is Philosophy’s Biggest Hitter – Wittgenstein, Nietzsche or Kant?