Witcraft | Non-Fiction - www.zzdbook.com

Witcraft

Oct 10, 2024 1:23 AM

Author:Jonathan Rée

Witcraft

'Astonishing ... enjoy its riches slowly, and savour every generous, erudite and undogmatic page' Boyd Tonkin, Financial Times

'We English men have wits,' wrote the clergyman Ralph Lever in 1573, and, 'we have also framed unto ourselves a language.'

Witcraft is a fresh and brilliant history of how philosophy became established in English. It presents a new form of philosophical storytelling and challenges what Jonathan Rée calls the 'condescending smugness' of traditional histories of philosophy. Rée tells the story of philosophy as it was lived and practised, embedded in its time and place, by men and women from many walks of life, engaged with the debates and culture of their age. And, by focusing on the rich history of works in English, including translations, he shows them to be quite as colourful, diverse, inventive and cosmopolitan as their continental counterparts.

Witcraft offers new and compelling intellectual portraits not only of celebrated British and American philosophers, such as Hume, Emerson, Mill and James, but also of the remarkable philosophical work of literary authors, such as William Hazlitt and George Eliot, as well as a carnival of overlooked characters - priests and poets, teachers, servants and crofters, thinking for themselves and reaching their own conclusions about religion, politics, art and everything else.

The book adopts a novel structure, examining its subject at fifty-year intervals from the sixteenth century to the twentieth. Researched over decades and illuminated by quotations from extensive archival material, it is a book full of stories and personalities as well as ideas, and shows philosophy springing from the life around it. Witcraft overturns the established orthodoxies of the history of philosophy, and celebrates the diversity, vitality and inventiveness of philosophical thought.

Reviews

Rée spans a vast ocean of ideas. He introduces us to their shapers and breakers, and gently captains us in 50-year stretches across the seas of English-language thought with astonishing skill as both map-maker and way-finder ... enjoy its riches slowly, and savour every generous, erudite and undogmatic page

—— Boyd Tonkin , Financial Times

Rée's book may well be the most fun we've ever had with anglophone philosophy

—— Stuart Jeffries , Spectator

Dead philosophers, and indeed dead philosophies, here feel alive, and integrated with the rest of history

—— Nakul Krishna , Daily Telegraph

Witcraft is the story of philosophy in English told in a new way, narrated with relish and considerable wit

—— Jonathan Egid , Times Literary Supplement

Garrulous, wide-ranging and humane ... The Bookseller's Tale has the teetering, ramshackle feeling of a reliably eclectic bookstore.

—— Denis Duncan , Times Literary Supplement

Roaming across topics from legendary libraries to humble book pedlars, as well as historically overlooked literary forms like chapbooks and comfort reads, its appeal is vivid enough that even the electronic edition seems to exude the tantalising aroma of a used bookstore.

—— Hephzibah Anderson , The Observer

A history and celebration of all things bookish ... This is a book that celebrates stories, scribbling in margins and the collecting, cherishing and even kissing of books - something done with surprising frequency, apparently ... ... Those who enjoy browsing in paper-scented bookshops, run by eccentric old storytellers with yarns to spare, will come away with something unexpected, reassuring and possibly worth a kiss.

—— Katy Guest , The Guardian

For sheer enthusiasm, it will be hard to beat Martin Latham, bookseller at Waterstones Canterbury for three decades. His The Bookseller's Tale is a collection of tales about famous writers and bibliophiles, but above all a love letter to pages between covers.

—— Paul Laity and Justine Jordan , The Guardian

A celebration of reading and readers and all things bookish. Entertaining, erudite, eccentric - The Bookseller's Tale is a delight.

—— Alison Light, author of COMMON PEOPLE: THE HISTORY OF AN ENGLISH FAMILY

Aside from being a history of books, this is a love letter, larded with charming anecdotes. There's AS Byatt buying a Terry Pratchett Discworld novel and admitting she can't be seen doing it in London, and another customer having a heart attack in his shop and saying it would be "a great place to go".

—— Evening Standard

A shared love of books creates a fellowship that transcends race, culture, gender, age and class. This book, written with wit, elegance and understanding, by one who knows what he is talking about, celebrates the abiding pleasure, nourishment and comradeship that books provide.

—— Salley Vickers, author of THE LIBRARIAN

Delightful ... a love letter to publishing.

—— Jack Blackburn , The Times

God, this book is wonderful.

—— Lucy Mangan

Martin Latham is a man of many parts ... This is jam packed full of interesting facts, amusing anecdotes, and witty quotes. It is to be devoured or dipped into, depending on one's taste and time and rewards both types of readers. A treat for book lovers.

—— David Roche , BookBrunch

An enjoyable take on China’s turbulent 20th-century history, seen through the revealing perspective of three women at the centre of power

—— Andrea Janku , BBC History

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a gripping story of love, war, intrigue, bravery, glamour and betrayal, which takes us on a sweeping journey… a group biography that is by turns intimate and epic, Jung Chang reveals the lives of three extraordinary women who helped shape twentieth-century China.

—— Southern Star

A story of love, war, intrigue, bravery, glamour and betrayal.

—— Asian Art Newspaper, *Books of the Year*

[Chang’s] breathtaking new new triple biography restores these “tiger-willed” women to their extraordinarily complex humanity… As in her bestselling 1991 memoir Wild Swans, Chang uses a gripping and emotional personal story to draw Western readers into the history of China.

—— Helen Brown , Daily Telegraph

Thrilling.

—— Rachel Billington , Tablet, *Books of the Year*

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