Treat yourself to a good read this Christmas
We've got a great selection of recommendations from Battle of Ideas festival authors, plus Letters on Liberty and news on The Academy 2024.
Christmas is a great opportunity to catch up on some reading. And we’ve got plenty for you to get your teeth into if you want to treat yourself - or perhaps, your nearest and dearest.
Letters on Liberty
There are now 36 essays available to buy and read in our series, inspired by the thought-provoking pamphleteers of the past but rethinking freedom for the twenty-first century. We’ve got a fresh batch published just a few weeks ago, defending drag, boxing and the right to smoke. They’re nothing if not eclectic and fascinating, and beautifully illustrated by Jan Bowman!
You can find all the Letters on our website here. They’re £2 each, or £5 for each three-pamphlet set. And why not subscribe for £25 to get the next five batches, postage-free?
Books
We’ve had some fantastic speakers at our Battle of Ideas festivals this year and now is a great opportunity to delve into their writing. The books above are all available direct from the Academy of Ideas Bookshop online.
A few other books we think are worth your time and money include:
Tough Crowd: How I Made and Lost a Career in Comedy
Graham Linehan
Buy via Amazon
A Heretic's Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable
Brendan O’Neill
Buy via Amazon
Israelophobia: The Newest Version of the Oldest Hatred and What To Do About It
Jake Wallis Simons
Buy via Amazon
The Academy 2024: Civilisation under siege?
The Academy is an annual residential weekend that aims to explore the history, philosophy, literature and sociology of our current moment, through a series of lectures and discussions on a range of foundational themes. Founded by the Academy of Ideas in 2011, the event is now organised by the Ideas Matter charity.
Next year’s event is titled ‘Civilisation under siege?’ and takes place on the weekend of 17 & 18 August at Wyboston Lakes, Bedfordshire. Among the questions posed will be: What is civilisation? How does it emerge? Why are so many in the West dismissive of the idea today?
Tickets will be available shortly. Find out more via the Ideas Matter website.
Also important is Cynical Therapies, edited by Dr Val Thomas, one of whose contributors spoke at the Festival (alongside Amy Gallagher and James Esses), about the corruption of therapy by identity politics ideology.