LITERARY COMPETITION

GIVE YOUR RESPONSE TO THIS BOOK

Readers will inevitably disagree with the selection of classic books which I have described. This is an invitation to add your own essay on an outstanding classic book of your choice, missing from this collection. A prize of £100 will be awarded for the best entry received. If 'A Universe of Books' is reprinted, the winning essay will be added to the text and the author credited. Entries must be no longer than 1000 words. They will be judged by a panel of three: Peter Whitfield, Valerie Ravenstone, and Jonathan Wooding. The result will be announced in January 2008. Submissions must be sent as typed copy only by post to Wychwood Editions.

Peter Whitfield`s Outstanding New Book

A UNIVERSE OF BOOKS

What was the most powerful tool ever to have shaped our civilisation? The wheel, the ship, the engine, the means of controling fire or measuring time?

Overshadowing all these physical tools stands the book, the great container of human thought. As an object the book is small, passive, silent, and fragile, but its contents are mysteriously powerful and everlasting.

This survey ranges over world literature, examining key texts in science, religion, history, fiction and poetry, displaying the vastness of the intellectual universe which books contain. It shows why the role of the book is still a vital one in the electronic age.

From Homer to Eliot, from Plato to Freud, from the Bible to Marx, from Dante to Darwin, this book turns the spotlight on the classic texts which have defined our cultural heritage.

Thought-provoking and richly illustrated, this is a work which no book-lover will want to miss.

TO VIEW THE OPENING PAGES OF 'A UNIVERSE OF BOOKS' CLICK ON SAMPLE PAGES

Publication date: 31 October 2007
ISBN: 9780951483831
250 pages
240 illustrations
Price: £15 hardback