Being a Human: Adventures in 40,000 Years of Consciousness

Review Dazzling and, yes, eccentric ... Foster is a beautiful writer and an engaging companion throughout this ... wonderfully fun if entirely bonkers read -- Alex Preston ― Observer Being a Human: Adventures in Forty Thousand Years of Consciousness is not the book its subtitle would have us believe. It's a better one. It's a lesson in what to watch for in nature. It's a discourse on the sentience we may have had as early humans and that, over millennia, we've somehow roasted into a crisp. It's funny. It's moving. It's mind-expanding. It's a collection of thoughts to read again and again ... Foster is a writer of extraordinary ability -- Rebecca Coffey ― Forbes Foster's daringly imaginative exploration of alternative models of selfhood is an original and beneficial way of grappling with history ... There is an increasing awareness today of the limitations of individualist models of selfhood, which many consider the root cause of some of our most urgent crises. The kinds of new and old imaginaries that Foster explores here, empirically and otherwise, are precisely what we need to remind us that there are many alternatives to the "I, me, mine" mindset -- Anna Katharina Schaffner ― TLS Foster is an amiable narrator. He is self-deprecating, feminist, in awe of what the natural world has to teach him. His observations - that it is hard to say where humans stop and aurochs begin; that the great disaster of the Enlightenment was its reduction of the universe to a machine - align firmly with those of Donna Haraway and Amitav Ghosh in recalling us to the epic mysticism of existence. He is, I think, also an optimist, still hopeful for humanity, even if we are never again going to run around Derbyshire in a deerskin loincloth -- Rachel Andrews ― Irish Times Controversial, yet oddly compelling ― Nature A wonderful, wild, dazzling book. You will feel more human for having read it -- Tom Whyman ― Literary Review A wild ride: brave, outrageous, hilarious, helpful, and urgent. Foster has no time for decaying paradigms; he tunnels underneath their crumbling foundations with a pickaxe to help them on their way. Being a Human will deepen and expand your sense of self. Essential reading -- Merlin Sheldrake, author ― Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, & Shape Our Futures Being a Human is a work of shaggy genius. Its subject is gargantuan in scale; its humour has a reckless panache; its argument is brilliantly original and above all it is written with a matchless audacity of soul. It is one of the most important books I have ever read -- Jay Griffiths, author ― Why Rebel? This is the most wonderful book - deftly written, highly imaginative, and a delight to read - and its message is such that its importance simply cannot be overstated. It gives a devastatingly clear portrait of humanity as we have become, and of what we once had - and still could have - but instead are in the process of throwing away, perhaps forever -- Iain McGilchrist, author ― The Master and his Emissary I'll read anything Charles Foster writes, and this is his most ambitious book yet. It is a historical investigation, a short story collection, a humour primer, a sheaf scientific papers and a work of philosophy all rolled into one, with a side helping of religious ecstasy and badger shit. It will tell you many things you didn't know about who you are. You should read it -- Paul Kingsnorth, author ― The Wake Being a Human is one of the most original inquiries into the who, what, and why of human existence to appear in recent years. Charles Foster writes with inspiring brilliance, originality, and simplicity. I love this book. It should be widely read, for the benefit of all us humans -- Larry Dossey, author ― One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters A fascinating book of immense scope and proportions ... The evolution of the mind makes for a labyrinthine investigation worthy of Sherlock Holmes --