Philosophy Bargain Book Box

Philosophy Bargain Book Box

Schopenhauer’s porcupines huddle together for warmth, then prick each other, then move apart, then get cold. That’s the whole problem of other people in one image, and there’s a small book about it in here.

The box runs from entry points to serious work. Graphic guides and pocket philosophy on one end; Jonathan Rée’s monumental history of philosophy in English on the other, at $88. Nietzsche at his most provocative. Sun Tzu, still read two and a half thousand years on. Martin Hägglund arguing that death is the thing that makes any of it matter.

Then the ones that come at it sideways: Roberto Calasso on the Vedic imagination, utopian dreamers walking the streets of London, a philosophy of beauty, and a scientist explaining why your own thoughts are as strange as they are.

For readers who’d rather be unsettled than reassured.

1. 50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know — Ben Dupré | ISBN: 9781848667358 | RRP: $29.99
   An efficient, well-organised tour of the central problems — free will, scepticism, the mind-body question, justice, meaning. Ideal for orienting yourself before going deeper, or for filling the gaps you’ve been meaning to fill.
2. Introducing Kierkegaard: A Graphic Guide — Dave Robinson | ISBN: 9781848315150 | RRP: $22.99
   An accessible illustrated introduction to the Danish philosopher who effectively invented existentialism — the anxiety, the leap of faith, and the relentless questioning of what it means to live authentically.
3. Pocket Philosophy: Zhuangzi’s Butterfly — Alice Brière-Haquet | ISBN: 9781804530672 | RRP: $19.99
   A beautifully compact introduction to the Daoist thought experiment that has troubled philosophers for millennia: if you dream you are a butterfly, how do you know you aren’t a butterfly dreaming you are you?
4. Pocket Philosophy: Schopenhauer’s Porcupine — Alice Brière-Haquet | ISBN: 9781804530658 | RRP: $19.99
   Schopenhauer’s parable of the porcupines who must find the right distance from one another — close enough for warmth, far enough to avoid the spines. A small book about the permanent difficulty of other people.
5. This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free — Martin Hägglund | ISBN: 9781788163866 | RRP: $32.99
   A widely acclaimed argument that our finitude is not a problem to be solved but the very thing that gives life meaning — with consequences for how we should organise society. Rigorous and genuinely provocative.
6. Why Am I Like This?: The Science Behind Your Weirdest Thoughts and Habits — Jen Martin | ISBN: 9781761450426 | RRP: $27.99
   Australian science communicator Jen Martin explains the research behind the odd, embarrassing, and inexplicable things human brains do. Funny, accessible, and reassuring in a way philosophy rarely manages.
7. This Beauty: A Philosophy of Being Alive — Nick Riggle | ISBN: 9781541675506 | RRP: $49.99
   A philosopher argues that beauty is not decoration but a fundamental part of how we make sense of existence. Nick Riggle writes clearly and personally about aesthetics, meaning, and paying attention.
8. Ardor — Roberto Calasso | ISBN: 9780374535643 | RRP: $39.99
   The Italian polymath on the Vedas, sacrifice, and the ancient Indian mind. Erudite, unclassifiable, and unlike anything else — Calasso wrote books that behave like nobody else’s.
9. What I Believe: Humanist Ideas and Philosophies to Live By — Andrew Copson | ISBN: 9780349438429 | RRP: $39.99
   The head of Humanists UK gathers the ideas and thinkers that underpin a life lived without religion — practical, generous, and grounded in how people actually make ethical decisions.
10. The Imagination Muscle — Albert Read | ISBN: 9780349134789 | RRP: $49.99
    A wide-ranging investigation into where new ideas come from, drawing on history, science, and the working lives of inventors and artists. Albert Read argues imagination is trainable — and makes a convincing case.
11. Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English — Jonathan Rée | ISBN: 9780300255386 | RRP: $88.00
    A monumental history of philosophical thinking in the English language, told through the people who actually did it rather than the canon tidied up afterwards. Jonathan Rée writes beautifully and knows the territory completely.
12. The Frontiers of Knowledge: What We Know About Science, History and the Mind — A C Grayling | ISBN: 9780241304570 | RRP: $26.99
    A survey of the outer edges of human understanding across three fields, and an honest account of where the certainty stops. A C Grayling is an exceptionally clear writer on difficult material.
13. The Infinite City: Utopian Dreams on the Streets of London — Niall Kishtainy | ISBN: 9780008325862 | RRP: $32.99
    A walk through London in the company of the utopians, radicals, and visionaries who imagined it otherwise. Part history of ideas, part psychogeography, and a quietly moving book about what people hope for.
14. Beyond Good and Evil — Friedrich Nietzsche | ISBN: 9781398818484 | RRP: $14.99
    Nietzsche’s assault on conventional morality, truth, and the philosophers who came before him. Still one of the most bracing and quotable works in the Western canon — and still capable of starting an argument.
15. The Art of War — Sun Tzu | ISBN: 9781398806146 | RRP: $14.99
    The foundational text on strategy, deception, and the management of conflict, written in China around the fifth century BC and never out of use since. Read by generals, negotiators, and anyone who needs to think several moves ahead.