"What is love? May plunders Western poetry, philosophy and psychology to find answers . . . Thought-provoking stuff" ( The Sunday Telegraph).Love—unconditional, selfless, unchanging, sincere, and totally accepting—is worshipped today as the West's only universal religion. To challenge it is one of our few remaining taboos. In this path-breaking and superbly written book, philosopher Simon May does just that, dissecting our ideas of love and showing how the...

'A lyrical, fascinating, important book. More than just a family story, it is an essay on belonging, denying, pretending, self-deception and, at least for the main characters, survival.' Literary Review'Simon May's remarkable How to Be a Refugee is a memoir of family secrets with a ruminative twist, one that's more interested in what we keep from ourselves than the ones we conceal from others.' Irish TimesThe most...

What is love's real intent? Why can love be so ruthlessly selective? How is it related to sex, beauty, and goodness? And is the child now the supreme object of love? In addressing these questions, Simon May develops a radically new understanding of love as the emotion we feel towards whomever or whatever we experience as grounding our life--as offering us a possibility of home in a world that we supremely value. He sees love as motivated by a promise of "ontological rootedness," rather tha...

Do you repeatedly defer life to later, convinced there will come a time when you'll be better prepared to seize its opportunities?Do you spend your best hours on chores or trivia before allowing yourself to get to what most matters to you?The real mystery of procrastination is why we avoid goals to which we're passionately committed. It's understandable that we'd put off cleaning the fridge or completing our tax return; but why do we swerve...

'A lyrical, fascinating, important book. More than just a family story, it is an essay on belonging, denying, pretending, self-deception and, at least for the main characters, survival.' Literary Review'Simon May's remarkable How to Be a Refugee is a memoir of family secrets with a ruminative twist, one that's more interested in what we keep from ourselves than the ones we conceal from others.' Irish TimesThe most...

The most familiar fate of Jews living in Hitler’s Germany is either emigration or deportation to concentration camps. But there was another, much rarer, side to Jewish life at that time: denial of your origin to the point where you manage to erase almost all consciousness of it. You refuse to believe that you are Jewish.How to Be a Refugee is Simon May’s gripping account of how three sisters – his mother and his two aunts – grappled with what they felt to be a lethal herit...

Bobby the Blackbird sets out on a little adventure to see the King of England at his palace in London. Bobby meets his new little friends, Owl, Red Robin, Duck and Seagull, and they each join him on his journey. Along the way they see the ravens on top of the tower and ask them for help in finding the King. The ravens take them to the palace where they find the King and his golden crown. A perfect little short adventure story for very young children who can see the colourful characters com...

As the first British Professor of Philosophy since 1882 to be invited to teach at the prestigious and enigmatic University of Tokyo - the Oxbridge of Japan - Simon May enjoyed a degree of access denied to other commentators. Each chapter of the book focuses on some everyday human matter, such as love, death, bureaucracy, hygiene, food, toilets, commuting, education, marriage and memory. Japanese attitudes to such issues are explored through a mixture of light-hearted anecdote and trenchant...

Do you repeatedly defer life to later, convinced there will come a time when you'll be better prepared to seize its opportunities?Do you spend your best hours on chores or trivia before allowing yourself to get to what most matters to you?The real mystery of procrastination is why we avoid goals to which we're passionately committed. It's understandable that we'd put off cleaning the fridge or completing our tax return; but why do we swerve...

This audiobook narrated by acclaimed British actor Anthony Head explores cuteness and its immense hold on us, from emojis and fluffy puppies to its more uncanny, subversive expressionsCuteness has taken the planet by storm. Global sensations Hello Kitty and Pokémon, the works of artists Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons, Heidi the cross-eyed opossum and E.T.—all reflect its gathering power. But what does "cute" mean, as a sensibility and style? Why is it so pervasive?...

The Archaeology of Human Bones provides an up to date account of the analysis of human skeletal remains from archaeological sites, introducing students to the anatomy of bones and teeth and the nature of the burial record.Drawing from studies around the world, this book illustrates how the scientific study of human remains can shed light upon important archaeological and historical questions. This new edition reflects the latest developments in scientific techniques and th...

On the Genealogy of Morality is Nietzsche's most influential, provocative, and challenging work of ethics. In this volume of newly commissioned essays, fourteen leading philosophers offer fresh insights into many of the work's central questions: How did our dominant values originate and what functions do they really serve? What future does the concept of 'evil' have - and can it be revalued? What sorts of virtues and ideals does Nietzsche advocate, and are they necessarily incompatible wit...