Books of the Month
From razor sharp dissections of religious doctrine, to chilling descriptions of nuclear disaster, here’s our round up of books for the month ahead
Words by Will HALBERT
The Four Horsemen
by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, & Daniel Dennett
By turns erudite and irreverent, The Four Horsemen offers a faithful transcription of a conversation, indeed the only conversation of its kind, between four of the most outspoken and intellectually rigorous atheists in contemporary academia. Surprisingly, the most interesting moments in the text are not to be found when Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and Dennett revel in their collective (and amusingly acerbic) shunning of theism, but rather, in the moments when they disagree. Couple that with a splendid foreword by intellectual confrère, Stephen Fry,and The Four Horsemen becomes essential reading regardless of your religious standing.
The Four Horsemen (Bantam Press) is available now
Midnight in Chernobyl
by Adam Higginbotham
Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted over the course of more than ten years, as well as letters, unpublished memoirs, and documents from recently-declassified archives, Adam Higginbotham has written a harrowing and compelling narrative which brings the Chernobyl disaster to life through the eyes of the men and women who witnessed it firsthand. By all accounts, Higginbotham paints a picture that is more complex, more human, and more terrifying than the Soviet myth. As a result Midnight in Chernobyl not only represents a masterful non-fiction thriller but offers a definitive account of an event that changed history.
Midnight in Chernobyl (Bantam Press) is available now
A Work in Progress: A Journal
by René Redzepi
Far more than just a cookbook, A Work in Progress offers an unprecedented insight into the inner workings of restaurant Noma and its highly creative team of chefs. Recounting 12 months of the day-to-day life at Noma – from the trials of developing new dishes to the successes that come with winning the 50 Best Restaurant award – the journal provides a stunning, and often humorous, insight into the inner workings of the world’s most notorious restaurant. Reflective, insightful and compelling, René interweaves observations on creativity, collaboration and ambition, making A Work in Progress an important piece of reading for food lovers and general readers alike.
René Redzepi: A Work in Progress (Phaidon) is out now
Bullshit Jobs: The Rise of Pointless Jobs and what we can do about it
by David Graeber
Not to be confused with a job that is, quite simply, shit, a bullshit job refers to a kind of Kafka-esque, phantom job. The kind of job that’s difficult to explain, the kind of job that wouldn’t be missed if it were to suddenly disappear. The kind of job that might not actually be a job at all, but an eternal series of hoops created by a broken-but-no-less self-perpetuating capitalist workforce that transforms work into an end in and of itself. Graeber’s assiduous and eye-opening work delves deep into our collectively absurd desire to serve a purpose that is, when we really get down to it, actually quite purposeless.
Bullshit Jobs (Allen Lane) is out now
