Books

Subtitled "How we became so self-obsessed and what it's doing to us".

This is my favourite sort of book, sweeping, well informed, compelling and empowering.

The author takes us on a couple of stops to explain the conception of self in the West, from the ideas of Ancient Greece, to Christianity and onto modern culture.  I found the paradox of the ideas at the centre of Western thought interesting, that of the Greek philosophers very much being about the perfectibility of human life, but then the Christian doctrine of original sin.

Having recently read Christopher Hitchens God is Not Great, I thought I would follow it with perhaps an even more famous book lamenting the persistence of religious faith in the world.

I came late to this book, indeed some years after the author had died. During his later years and illness, he was told many times that he would renounce his atheism as death approached, but that reversal never happened and he stayed true to himself until the end.