shell pebble

A sort of refresher course in art, history and science in the form of a miscellany of essays on particular topics. Grayling offers insight and opinion on the virtues of a liberal education, the trouble with Norman Foster, the brilliance of Marie Curie and of Simone de Beauvoir, amongst many reflections.

I usually agree with whatever I'm reading and I felt along with Grayling at times, including in his impatience with mysticism and critics of science, but I've since become disillusioned with the evangelical atheist crowd and distanced myself from their ilk. I remain unconvinced by his conservatism about modern architecture and the classical world.

It's all a bit bland though and Grayling certainly takes his own white man 'common sense' to be the final word (an appropriate disclaimer at the start is present, but does not erase all the right-thinking bluster) I think if he stuck his neck out a bit further I'd get my claws in.