Books

Book of the month

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
30th anniversary edition with a new introduction by the author
RRP £8.99 Our price 25% off

The Selfish Gene' caused a wave of excitement among biologists and the general public when it was first published in 1976. Its vivid rendering of a gene's eye view of life, in lucid prose, gathered together the strands of thought about the nature of natural selection into a conceptual framework with far-reaching implications for our understanding of evolution. Time has confirmed its significance. Intellectually rigorous, yet written in non-technical language, The Selfish Gene is widely regarded as a masterpiece of science writing, and its insights remain as relevant today as on the day it was published.

The Lyotard Reader and Guide
Edited by Keith Crome and James Williams
Columbia University Press, New York

The first comprehensive anthology of Jean-Francois Lyotard's writings, together with a critical guide.

The Lyotard Reader and Guide is designed as a one-stop companion to his thought. It covers the full range of Lyotard's work, from beginning to end, through his three main books (Discours, figure; Libidinal Economy; and Different) and up to his influential essays in The Inhuman and Postmodern Fables.

The readings are organized in sections on philosophy, politics, art, and literature for ease of use. Detailed introductions to each section explain Lyotard's key ideas and raise criticisms, providing a clear critical introduction to Lyotard and his works. As a sourcebook and guide, the book will be indispensable for the subjects touched by Lyotard's groundbreaking conceptual innovations and ideas, notable philosophy, critical theory, literature, art and politics.

Keith Crome is lecturer in philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University.

James Williams is reader in philosophy at the University of Dundee.

The Transversal Thought of Gilles Deleuze
Encounters and Influences
By James Williams
Clinamen Press

The work of Gilles Deleuze represents both a sustained and radical recasting of the Western philosophical tradition and a series of critical encounters with his contemporaries. The former strand has attracted a great deal of commentary and attention over recent years, while the latter remains to be fully broached. The Transversal Thought of Gilles Deleuze offers a careful and incisive examination of Deleuze's engagement with his contemporaries in the continental and analytic traditions alike. Each chapter considers the relation to an individual philosopher, approached through the metaphysical core of Deleuze's philosophy as set out in the masterwork Difference and Repetition. Gastron Bachelard, Emmanual Levinas, David Lewis, Jean-Francaois Lyotard, Alfred N. Whitehead ad Timothy Williamson are the contemporaries in question, while the while is prefigured by a chapter on the pre-eminent source of Deleuze's central problematic on the transcendental: Immanual Kant.

James Williams is a reader in philosophy at the University of Dundee, and has published widely on Lyotard and Deleuze.

ABC of Health Informatics
Edited by Frank Sullivan and Jeremy Wyatt
Blackwell Publishing

New addition to the ABC series looking at how better use of information can aid health care.

By investigating the better use of information, health informatics helps clinicians to improve their decision making and communications activity, and so enhance patient outcomes. This ABC focuses on how patient data, health knowledge, and local service information are managed during the routine tasks that make up clinical work. It explores issues such as medical record keeping, how to use the information that records contain for clinical, quality improvement and research activities, how to use new media to communicate with clinical colleagues and patients, and the availability and uses of clinical knowledge resources. A final chapter considers the implications of informatics and eHealth for the future of the health professions and their work.

After a short introduction to health informatics, each chapter is organised around a typical patient scenario that illustrates information dilemmas arising in clinical consultations. These practical case studies help make the links between theory, evidence and practice.

In common with all books in the ABC series, the authors demystify the subject using numerous practical examples, diagrams, tables, and evidence. As a result, this ABC offers a clear, concise, and authoritative overview of this topical area. It is a valuable handbook for clinicians working in primary and community care, hospitals, and public health. Medical, nursing, health sciences, informatics, and other students will also find it inspiring and useful.