The Good Book: A Secular Bible - Softcover

Grayling, Professor A. C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 140883782X ISBN 13: 9781408837825

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013

Synopsis

A. C. Grayling, Britain's most popular and widely read philosopher, has created a secular bible that draws on the wisdom of 2,500 years of contemplative non-religious writing about all that it means to be human - from the origins of the universe to small matters of courtesy and kindness in everyday life. Designed to be read as narrative and also to be dipped into for inspiration, encouragement and consolation, The Good Book offers a thoughtful, non-religious alternative to the many people who do not follow one of the world's great religions. Instead, going back to traditions older than Christianity, and far richer and more various, including the non-theistic philosophical and literary schools of the great civilisations of both West and East, from the Greek philosophy of classical antiquity and its contemporaneous Confucian, Mencian and Mohist schools in China, down through classical Rome, the flourishing of Indian and Arab worlds, the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, the worldwide scientific discoveries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the present, Grayling collects, edits, rearranges and organises the collective secular wisdom of the world in one highly readable volume. In an interview in the New York Times, AC Grayling says it is a book that 'provides resources for thinking about what the good life might be' but points out that we 'We have to take the Socratic challenge to lead the examined life [and] transcend the teachings and the teachers ... We have to think for ourselves.'

About this title

Review:

Undeniably thought-provoking * Christopher Hart, Sunday Times * Truly ... a good book, full of sage counsel, wise advice and comfort for the sorrowing * Richard Holloway, Observer * There is an immense depth of human wisdom on display here, and five minutes with any passage will have you contemplating all day * Independent on Sunday * There are many sentences, thoughts and sentiments in The Good Book that are illuminating, life-enhancing and revelatory on a personal level * Glasgow Herald * I am glad he put this book together and it will occupy a valuable place in my library as a source for inspiration and wisdom. **** * Terry Waite, Sunday Express * Grayling is ... a skilled writer of prose ... most impressively [he] demonstrates mastery of Greek history and culture in Histories and Acts * Rabbi Ariel Abel, Jewish News * Professor Grayling himself neatly exemplifies the values of calm rationality which are at the heart of Stoicism, and which influenced early Christian thought * Church Times *

About the Author:

A.C. Grayling is Master of the New College of the Humanities, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. Until 2011 he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. He believes that philosophy should take an active, useful role in society. He is the author of many books, including The Meaning of Things and Towards the Light: The Story of the Struggles for Liberty in the Modern West, and has been a regular contributor to The Times, Financial Times, Observer, Independent on Sunday, Economist, Literary Review, New Statesman and Prospect. He has been a Booker Prize judge and is a frequent and popular contributor to radio and television programmes, including Newsnight, Today, In Our Time, Start the Week and CNN news.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 140883782X
• ISBN 13: 9781408837825
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608