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The Book Of Nothing
The Book Of Nothing
Oct 25, 2024 5:17 PM

Author:John D. Barrow

The Book Of Nothing

How do you begin to understand the concept of nothing?

Where does it begin and where does it end?

From the zeros of the mathematician to the void of the philosophers, from Shakespeare to the empty set, from the ether to the quantum vacuum, from being and nothingness to creatio ex nihilo, there is much ado about nothing at the heart of things.

Recent exciting discoveries in astronomy are shown to shed new light on the nature of the vacuum and its dramatic effect upon the explanation of the Universe. This remarkable book ranges over every nook and cranny of nothingness to reveal how the human mind has had to make something of nothing in every field of human enquiry.

Reviews

The startling story of the West's intellectual struggle with the concept of zero is told with admirable elegance and clarity

—— New Statesman

When it comes to explaining the trickiest ideas John Barrow goes the extra mile which helps you to understand when going on

—— Guardian

An entertaining and informative account of how the zero came into being in ancient civilisations such as the Babylonian and Egyptian...I am happy to report that nothing is full of interesting reading

—— New Scientist

Peter Matthiessen is beyond dispute the best nature writer working today

—— Peter Farb

A stirring account of a fascinating adventure

—— Sunday Tribune

There aren't many writers like Charles around... His ability to step across emotional boundaries and enter the consciousness of the wild makes for an exhilarating, immersive, yet at times disturbing read. For me, the end result is a deeply thought-provoking book that encourages the reader to explore for themselves exactly where they stand on issues of humanity, conservation and moral legacy.

—— James Aldred, author of Goshawk Summer

Fiercely polemical, forcing the reader to see the world in a new light... Charles Foster is an original thinker with a strangely compelling prose style... Cry of the Wild is thought-provoking, profound, at times infused with a beautifully wistful lyricism and often witty.

—— Country Life

Foster [brings] a sense of wonder: geese fly in from the north with snow falling from their wings; imagined through the eyes of a young rabbit, a white owl wafts through the still night air like thistledown, a strangely beautiful occurrence that might at any moment end the rabbit's life... He avoids the temptations of anthropomorphism while reminding us that we who share these traits are more vulnerably and elegantly animal than we pretend.

—— Literary Review

A lyrical work of creative nonfiction containing eight stories of besieged animal lives. Emotional without being anthropomorphic, it is a thought-provoking read.

—— BBC Wildlife Magazine

Ardent and arresting... one of the darkest, most haunting books I've read in a long time... Yet the stories are also motivated by such depth of attention and love that their very existence offers some hope for a better future.

—— New Statesman

I have read Cry of the Wild with something approaching awe... The conviction with which these characters live on the page and suffer the assaults of existence can certainly live happily and proudly alongside Tarka.

—— Adam Nicolson, author of Life Between the Tides

Like Tarka, the stories in Cry of the Wild are not written for children. They take on the qualities of myth and magic which touch the source of our deepest feelings. How does the word on the printed page do this? ... the prose is muscular and astonishing... "Immersion" is a word commonly used about reading these days. I dislike it intensely. The sound of the word feels cold, unpleasant, like being pressed underwater. Not at all the deep sobbing that emerged from somewhere as I sat with these stories... This is not like any other nature book.

—— Caught by the River
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