A Time of Gifts

Aargh, Formatting! Try 2 : For the value of ‘best’ that includes (a) had a deep and long lasting impact on how I think about the world and (b) I consider beautiful pieces of writing in their own right, here are some in no particular order: The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein (These you might want to approach via a gentle introduction if you did not study Philosophy to degree level) The Rediscovery of the Mind, John R Searle Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh Diaries, Samuel Pepys Falling Off the Map, Pico Iyer A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor The Lonely Sea and the Sky, Francis Chichester The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope Bevis, Richard Jeffries The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon GrossSmith The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse Hitch-22, essays, Christopher Hitchens Collected Essays, William Hazlitt Venice, Martin Gayford The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.

For the value of ‘best’ that includes (a) had a deep and long lasting impact on how I think about the world and (b) I consider beautiful pieces of writing in their own right, here are some in no particular order: The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein (These you might want to approach via a gentle introduction if you did not study Philosophy to degree level) The Rediscovery of the Mind, John R Searle Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh Diaries, Samuel Pepys Falling Off the Map, Pico Iyer A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor The Lonely Sea and the Sky, Francis Chichester The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope Bevis, Richard Jeffries The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon GrossSmith The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse Hitch-22, essaysChristopher Hitchens Collected Essays, William Hazlitt Venice, Martin Gayford The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.

A time for gifts by Patrick fermor I became interested in fermor after reading about his kidnap of a German general during ww2. This books is about his walking across Europe during the 30s. Well written snapshot of this period

Used to be the Swallows and Amazon series (when I was much younger). Then it was the 2 memoirs by Patrick Leigh Fermor: "A Time of Gifts" and "Between the Woods and the Water". Lately it's the Aubrey-Maturin by Patrick O'Brian series which I have re-read multiple times.

Fiction - Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse. Contrasting the lives of a free spirit and a disciplined mind. Non Fiction - A Time of Gifts/Between the Woods and the Water/The Broken Road by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Recounting a trip from Holland to Constantinople by foot in the 1930's when he was a teenager. A trilogy of books written when he was in his 60's and 70's. An erudite raconteur.

Just finished Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A time of gifts" and I can't recommend it enough! One of the best English books that I have read. You will particularly like it if you're interested in European history (political, as well as art history), if you like traveling, if you're into foreign languages and if you don't mind using a dictionary once in a while. I'm really excited to start its sequel "Between the woods and the water".