Philosophy

The answer is Heathrow Airport’s newest terminal, as seen through the eyes of Alain de Botton, who agreed over the summer to become its first writer in residence. It was a brave task to take on; not only could the result have been very dull but de Botton could have felt bound to be nice. Instead he has produced a work which will do no harm to his reputation for thought-provoking reportage. This slim book is simultaneously poignant and terribly funny, thanks to de Botton’s knack of seeing the philosophical in the mundane and not being afraid to play up the incongruity. It is snobbish, too, but its targets are

A graphic novel about logic? The idea is not as far-fetched, or as innovative, as one might think. Back in the 1970s, the publishing company Writers and Readers began producing a series of comic books (as they were then called) which sought to provide entertaining and instructive introductions, both to individual philosophers (Marx for Beginners, Wittgenstein for Beginners) and to intellectual movements and disciplines (Postmodernism for Beginners, Economics for Beginners). The series was extremely successful and many of these books are still in print. Like those earlier books, Logicomix is written with the earnest intention to make an important but difficult body of work accessible to ordinary readers and a