My Perfect Cabin by Emmanuelle Mardesson & Sarah Loulendo

The Blurb On The Back:

Lucile is on a search for her perfect cabin so she sets off on an exciting trip around the world, looking for ideas.  Travelling from the forests of Sweden to the comfort of snowy Siberia and the enchanting caves in Turkey, will Lucile find her dream home?

A stunning book that shows how people live around the world, while presenting the beauty of our planet.

MY PERFECT CABIN was released in the United Kingdom on 7th April 2022.  Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

You can order MY PERFECT CABIN: A ROUND-THE-WORLD ADVENTURE TO FIND THE PERFECT HOME by Emmanuelle Mardesson and Sarah Loulendo from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Do Robots Make Love? From AI To Immortality by Laurent Alexandre and Jean-Michel Besnier

The Blurb On The Back:

Discover the incredible potential of mankind’s near future, as a doctor and a philosopher debate the big questions surrounding trans humanism – the tech movement that seeks to improve the human condition through science.

Transhumanism has fast become one of the most controversial subjects the scientific community has ever faced.  As scientists in California make great strides in using advanced technology to enhance human intellect and physiology, the ethical and moral questions surrounding its possibilities have never been more pressing.

– should we change the way we reproduce?

– could we enhance the human body with technology to the point where we are all technically cyborgs?

– does anyone really want to live for a thousand years?

– is it possible to make love to a robot?

Through 12 thought-provoking questions, doctor and entrepreneur Laurent Alexandre and tech-philosopher Jean-Michel Besnier go head to head in a captivating and entertaining debate about the fundamental and real-world ramifications of transhumanism. 

You can order Do Robots Make Love? From AI To Immortality by Laurent Alexandre and Jean-Michel Besnier from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Dogs: A Philosophical Guide To Our Best Friends by Mark Alizart

The Blurb On The Back:

Man’s best friend, domesticated since pre-historic times, a travelling companion for explorers and artists, thinkers and walkers, equally happy curled up by the fire and bounding through the great outdoors: dogs matter to us because we love them.  But is that all there is to the canine’s good-natured voracity and affectionate dependency?

Mark Alizart dispenses with the well-worn cliches concerning dogs and their masters, seeing them not as submissive pets but rather as unexpected life coaches, ready to teach us the elusive recipes for contentment and joy.  Dogs have faced their fate in life with a certain detachment that is not easy to understand.  Unlike other animals in a similar situation, they have not become hardened, nor have they let themselves die a little inside.  On the contrary, they seem to have softened.  This book is devoted to understanding this miracle, the miracle of the joy of dogs – to understanding it and, if at all possible, learning how it’s done.

Weaving elegantly and eruditely between historical myth and pop-culture anecdote, between the peculiar views of philosophers and the even more bizarre findings of science, Alizart offers us a surprising new portrait of the dog as thinker – a thinker who may perhaps know the true secret of our humanity. 

You can order Dogs: A Philosophical Guide To Our Best Friends by Mark Alizart from Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Narcocapitalism by Laurent de Sutter

The Blurb On The Back:

What do the invention of anaesthetics in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Nazis’ use of cocaine, and the development of Prozac have in common?  The answer is that they’re all products of the same logic that defines out contemporary era: ‘the age of anaesthesia’.  Laurent de Sutter shows how large aspects of our lives are now characterised by the management of our emotions through drugs, ranging from the everyday use of sleeping pills to hard narcotics.  Chemistry has become so much a part of us that we can’t even see how much it has changed us.

In this era, being a subject doesn’t simply mean being subjected to powers that decide our lives: it means that our very emotions have been outsourced to chemical stimulation.  Yet we don’t understand why the drugs that we take are unable to free us from fatigue and depression, and from the absence of desire that now characterises our psycho-political condition.  We have forgotten what it means to be excited because our only excitement has become drug-induced.  We have to abandon the narcotic stimulation that we’ve come to rely on and find a way back to the collective excitement that is narcocapitalism’s greatest fear. 

You can order NARCOCAPITALISM by Laurent de Sutter from Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Three Days And A Life by Pierre Lemaitre

The Blurb On The Back:

Antoine is twelve years old.  His parents are divorced and he lives with his mother in Beauval, a small backwater town surrounded by forests, where everyone knows everyone’s business, and nothing much ever happens.  But in the last days of 1999, a series of events unfolds, culminating in the socking vanishing without trace of a young child.  The adults of the town are at a loss to explain the disappearance, but for Antoine, it all begins with the violent death of his neighbour’s dog.  From that one brutal act, his fate and the fate of his neighbour’s six year old son are bound forever.

In the years following Rémi’s disappearance, Antoine wrestles with the role his actions played.  As a seemingly inescapable net begins to tighten, breaking free from the suffocating environs of Beauval becomes a gnawing obsession.  But how far does he have to run, and how long will it take before his past catches up with him again? 

You can order THREE DAYS AND A LIFE by Pierre Lemaitre from Amazon USAAmazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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Islam: The Essentials by Tariq Ramadan

The Blurb On The Back:

What is Islam?

What are its principles, rituals, history, evolution and challenges?

What do words such as Allah, Sharia, Jihad and Infidel really mean? 

You can order ISLAM: THE ESSENTIALS by Tariq Ramadan from Amazon USAAmazon UK, Waterstone’s or Bookshop.org UK.  I earn commission on any purchases made through these links.

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