THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER***AS READ ON RADIO 4***The bestselling prizewinning author of
How to Live and At the Existentialist Café explores 700 years of writers thinkers scientists
and artists all trying to understand what it means to be truly human. 'I can't imagine a
better history' PHILIP PULLMAN * 'Fascinating moving funny' OLIVER BURKEMAN If you are
reading this it's likely you already have some affinity with humanism even if you don't think
of yourself in those terms. You may be drawn to literature and the humanities. You may prefer
to base your moral choices on fellow-feeling and responsibility to others rather than on
religious commandments. Or you may simply believe that individual lives are more important than
grand political visions or dogmas. If any of these apply you are part of a long tradition of
humanist thought and you share that tradition with many extraordinary individuals through
history who have put rational enquiry cultural richness freedom of thought and a sense of
hope at the heart of their lives. Humanly Possible introduces us to some of these people as it
asks what humanism is and why it has flourished for so long despite opposition from fanatics
mystics and tyrants. It is a book brimming with ideas personalities and experiments in living
- from Erasmus to Esperanto from anatomists to agnostics from Christine de Pizan to Bertrand
Russell to Zora Neale Hurston. It joyfully celebrates open-mindedness optimism freedom and
the power of the here and now - humanist values which have helped steer us through dark times
in the past and which are just as urgently needed in our world today. PRAISE FOR SARAH
BAKEWELL'S BOOKS 'Quirky funny clear and passionate . . . Few writers are as good as Bakewell
at explaining complicated ideas' Mail on Sunday 'A wonderfully readable combination of
biography philosophy history cultural analysis and personal reflection' Independent
'Splendidly conceived and exquisitely written' Sunday Times 'A rare achievement' Evening
Standard
