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The Virtues of the Table: How to Eat and Think
Julian Baggini
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Description for The Virtues of the Table: How to Eat and Think
Paperback. An entertaining and thought-provoking look at the food on our plates, and what it can teach us about being human, from the author of The Ego Trick and The Pig That Wants to be Eaten Num Pages: 320 pages. BIC Classification: HPX. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 199 x 129 x 20. Weight in Grams: 212.
How we eat, farm and shop for food is not only a matter of taste. Our choices regarding what we eat involve every essential aspect of our human nature: the animal, the sensuous, the social, the cultural, the creative, the emotional and the intellectual. Thinking seriously about food requires us to consider our relationship to nature, to our fellow animals, to each other and to ourselves. So can thinking about food teach us about being virtuous, and can what we eat help us to decide how to live? From the author of The Ego Trick and The Pig that ... Read moreWants to be Eaten comes a thought-provoking exploration of our values and vices. What can fasting teach us about autonomy? Should we, like Kant, 'dare to know' cheese? Should we take media advice on salt with a pinch of salt? And can food be more virtuous, more inherently good, than art? Show Less
Product Details
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
About Julian Baggini
JULIAN BAGGINI (www.julianbaggini.com) is Founding Editor of The Philosophers' Magazine. His books include Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind, What's It All About?: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life, the bestselling The Pig that Wants to be Eaten, Do They Think You're Stupid? and The Ego Trick, all published by Granta Books.
Reviews for The Virtues of the Table: How to Eat and Think
Julian Baggini has that rare but wonderful gift of being able to be at once profound and highly entertaining. This remarkable book combines the pleasures of the table with those of philosophy, and once again this most engaging of philosophers has achieved a perfect balance. Marvellous
Alexander McCall Smith Excellent. By examining the virtues of all aspects of food, ... Read morea very broad approach, the author cuts through all the myths, confusion and lazy thinking with a precision and humour that enables the reader to think and eat better. If you care about what you eat then you need to buy this book
Charlie Hicks, presenter of Radio 4’s Veg Talk [Baggini is] a serious thinker and a fluent writer... This book might cause you to look again at some of the choices you make about what to eat, and how you go about eating it
Erica Wagner
Financial Times
Eating and thinking, both vital. If one goes down, the other will restore. A wonderful book
Fergus Henderson Engaging and cleverly illustrated... A beguiling mix of insights from philosophy, psychology and sociology
Cain Todd
TLS
Julian dances through the complex ethical dilemmas around food. With a practical and deeply human philosophy, his razor-sharp intellect brings clarity to our daily lunchtime choices. In a challenging and inspirational tour of allotments, supermarkets and dinner tables, Baggini puts philosophy into our reach: The Virtues of the Table could sit happily alongside the recipe books in everyone's kitchen
Harriet Lamb, CEO of Fairtrade International Baggini's The Virtues of the Table is a virtuoso feast for the mind and soul. A lively, thought provoking read. Bite-sized but filling, this delightful volume is sure to satisfy the philosopher and foodie in us all
Francine Segan, author
The Philosopher's Kitchen
In this book, Baggini serves up a refreshingly new approach to the often familiar and pressing issues behind the food we eat. It is surprisingly free from dogma, imploring us to be virtuous rather than rigid in our food choices. It charts one man's journey through the moral maize of gastronomy with compelling and mouth-wateringly informative prose. A must-read for thinking food lovers everywhere
Philip Lymbery, Chief Executive Compassion in World Farming Raymond Aron told Jean-Paul Sartre that according to his philosophy, Sartre ought to be able to philosophise about a cocktail. Yet Sartre never quite managed to say anything very illuminating about drink or food. Julian Baggini has triumphed where Sartre failed: he has written brilliantly about food and drink in all their cultural, scientific and philosophical complexity. Written in Baggini's typically limpid and effortlessly readable style, The Virtues of the Table is a wonderful book
full of wisdom, information and (in a particularly nice touch) a well-chosen recipe for each chapter. Anyone who has ever thought about the meaning and significance of what we eat and drink will want to devour this book
Tim Crane, Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy, University of Cambridge Entertaining [and] thought-provoking
Bookseller
Baggini expertly dismantles self-congratulatory assumptions about the evils of large industry and chain restaurants or the superiority of organic food and local eating
Steven Poole
Guardian
Thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking
Irish Independent
This is interesting stuff and shows Baggini at his best, drawing from a glorious range of sources to produce engaging thought
Alex Renton
Observer
Baggini brilliantly picks apart the contradictions and inherent hypocrisies of the 'new food orthodoxies'.... Even-handed to the last
Roger Lewis
The Times
A great success
Tom Payne
Daily Telegraph
He combines scrupulous argument with fastidious respect for common sense
Wall Street Journal
Each chapter ends with a mouth-watering description, not strictly a recipe, of how to prepare a wholesome treat. A book that stimulates mind and palate
Tom Moriarty
Irish Times
Never dry or over-academic, leavening reason with wit. Several writers have attempted philosophies of food. This philosopher does a better job and with more humour
Tim Hayward 'Books of the Year'
Financial Times
A thought-provoking and entertaining foray into food
Mail on Sunday
[Baggini's] most appealing book yet... an enlightening work of practical philosophy very much grounded in the real world
Herald
Well-argued with bags of humorous reflections, ethical dilemmas and astute observations and will make you see your food choices in a new light
Julia Richardson
Daily Mail
Enlightening and provocative
Irish Examiner
There's plenty to agree and disagree with in this book but if you are interested in why the subject of food makes us feel so strongly, then this is a great
Health Food Business
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