Ever wondered who rip-off label jeans are actually ripping off? Or why maintenance men never call when they are meant to? The Secret Life of Money is a lighthearted and authoritative guide to the secrets behind the everyday economics that regulate our lives - whether we know it or not.
A cool, dark, sexy nightdrive of a novel. . . . A new J.G. Ballard. - Toby Litt Jeremy Shepherd has relinquished his London life and moved back home. By day, he has a boring desk job, but Jeremy soon finds a way to break the monotony through illicit sex with strangers in public places. As the police close in, tensions rise. "Jeremy 'The Shep' Shepherd is on a night out in the Midlands. Clean teeth and hair. Black suit, white shirt. In a bag, he has kitchen paper, a banana for energy, some condoms and a tube of KY jelly. He's off to a corner of a supermarket carpark where he won't be caught on CCTV. The Shep is into dogging... yuck, you'd think. But Davies manages to make you see things through The Shep's eyes. As Alex in A Clockwork Orange sought meaning in violence, The Shep seeks it in public sex where people can achieve a state of "hushed, scholarly, reverent concentration". There is 'purity'. There is 'democracy'." - William Leith, The Guardian, Saturday 16 May 2009
The most famous of all medieval Jewish thinkers, Moses Maimonides is known for his monumental contributions to Jewish law, theology and medicine and an influence that extends into the wider world. His remarkable work, The Guide for the Perplexed, is notoriously difficult to interpret since Maimonides aimed it at those already versed in both philosophy and the rabbinic tradition and used literary techniques to test his readers and force them to think through his arguments. Daniel Davies explores Maimonides’ approaches to issues of perennial and universal concern: human nature and the soul, the problem of evil, the creation of the world, the question of God’s existence, and negative theology. He addresses the unusual ways in which Maimonides presented his arguments, contextualizing Maimonides’ thought in the philosophy and religion of his own time, as well as elucidating it for today’s readers. This philosophically rich introduction is an essential guide for students and scholars of medieval philosophy, philosophy of religion, theology and Jewish studies.