In my every day work here at Austin Public Library, I have the opportunity to stumble across many cool books. Often these are in subjects I wouldn’t normally consider reading for leisure. For instance, I was blown away yesterday when I discovered The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained. Are you groaning right now at the thought of reading philosophy for fun? I don’t blame you but this is the most straightforward and attractive book I’ve seen on the topic.
The book begins with a section on each of the major time periods of philosophy and then contains information on individual philosophers with easy to understand overviews of their major concepts. The graphics in each section certainly help the book look more appealing, but more importantly they serve to supplement the text as well. What I found particularly helpful was the way the book focuses on how philosophers are related to one another by listing their “branch” and “approach” as well as giving you a list of philosophers with related theories.
Another nice feature is the directory at the back which lists all the philosophers featured, the period in which they worked, a short blurb about their ideas and a short list of related philosophers. I do wish this section also included their “branch” as well but that’s easy enough to find.
Other graphic guides to philosophy that you might enjoy!
