Thank you Netgalley for letting me read and review this book. "The moderator of the New York Times ’ Stone column and the author of numerous books on everything from Greek tragedy to David Bowie, Simon Critchley has been a strong voice in popular philosophy for more than a decade. This volume brings together thirty-five essays, originally published in the Times, on a wide range of topics, from the dimensions of Plato’s academy and the mysteries of Eleusis to Philip K. Dick, Mormonism, money, and the joy and pain of Liverpool Football Club fans. In an engaging and jargon‑free style, Critchley writes with honesty about the state of world as he offers philosophically informed and insightful considerations of happiness, violence, and faith."

There are 35 essays in here, and most of them are interesting and relatable. This is an accessible philosophy book that everyone should read.

This is a fine collection of essays, taken from Simon Critchley's New York Times column. He covers a range of subjects, from football and politics to religion and David Bowie and mainly succeeds in his aim to be baldly accessible. He veers a bit too far into theology on occasion for my taste but there's lots here to enjoy and learn from.

Bald is a collection of essays originally penned and published in The New York Times philosophy column The Stone from University of Essex educated Simon Critchley, a Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City. In typical Critchley mode, this collection of essays spills far beyond the question of hair, or the lack of it; it also refers to his attempts to be more direct, honest and forthright within these articles. The first entry, Happy Like God, asks what happiness is. How does one get a grip on this elusive, intractable and perhaps most unanswerable of questions? It has many definitions for the philosophers of Antiquity, with Aristotle believing it meant a solitary life of contemplation. But the quiet moments of reverie we steal are often interrupted by the demands of our busy lives - emails, calls and suchlike. Beyond the Sea, addresses the connection between happiness and death. The ancient Greeks had a powerful thought: “Call no man happy until he is dead.” Discussing the Greek concept of glory, the idea that people will tell stories of you when you are long gone, was their definition of immortality rather than immortality in the physical sense. “One lives on only through the stories, accounts and anecdotes that are told about one. It is in this that happiness consists.”

He talks about how new age spirituality, with its idea of striving to be the most authentic version of yourself, has overtaken the traditional religions in the number of people who subscribe to it and that the belief in authenticity often gives way to the type of cynicism Diogenes would be proud of. In Abandon (Nearly) All Hope, he asks if hope is merely a form of moral cowardice that allows us to escape from reality and prolong human suffering. Other essays explore anti-Mormon sentiment, Christianity, Satanism, atheism, faith, money, football, Eros and love, brexitentialism, Hamlet, Aristophanes, the mysteries of Eleusis, vengeance, cynicism, memory and what it means to be a philosopher; and the pieces reference philosophers from Nietzsche to Kierkegaard, Camus to Goethe. The book closes with a coda on Covid-19 and the anxiety and fear associated with it. This is a fascinating and thought-provoking read written in an accessible, conversational style and encompassing some very interesting perspectives and rumination. I hope many philosophy virgins decide to give it a shot as it is jargon-free and straightforward but meaty enough for those with prior interest to thoroughly enjoy. Highly recommended.

A selection of newspaper essays given new life in book form. For the most part, I found them thoroughly engaging and was left with much to think about..