Books by Dimitris Xygalatas
“Xygalatas wants to explore, understand, and explain the curious fact that so much of what we do in life is guided by ritual, and some of these rituals are very painful. People cut themselves or starve themselves or walk up hills on their knees. And after, they describe themselves as happy. Xygalatas suggests that part of the reason is that ritual helps us become part of a community.” Read more...
Five of the Best Self-Help Books of 2022
Avram Alpert, Literary Scholar
Interviews where books by Dimitris Xygalatas were recommended
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1
Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution
by Tania Branigan -
2
Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire
by Nandini Das -
3
The Violence of Colonial Photography
by Daniel Foliard -
4
Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation
by Kris Manjapra -
5
Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World
by Irene Vallejo -
6
Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living
by Dimitris Xygalatas
The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, recommended by Madawi Al-Rasheed
The 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, recommended by Madawi Al-Rasheed
The annual British Academy Book Prize seeks out books that promote ‘global cultural understanding’—something we could all do with more of right now. Anthropologist Madawi Al-Rasheed, a visiting professor at LSE and one of the prize’s judges, talks us through the six excellent books that made the 2023 shortlist, from the ancient Library of Alexandria to fire walking in contemporary Greece.
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1
Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want
by Ruha Benjamin -
2
Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
by Susan Cain -
3
The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
by Meghan O'Rourke -
4
Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)
by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò -
5
Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living
by Dimitris Xygalatas
Five of the Best Self-Help Books of 2022, recommended by Avram Alpert
Five of the Best Self-Help Books of 2022, recommended by Avram Alpert
At the turn of the year, many of us take the opportunity to think about our lives—how they are going, and how we hope to live them in future. We asked Avram Alpert, author of The Good-Enough Life, to recommend five of the best self-help books of 2022 that might help our bids for self-improvement; his choices remind us that self-help is not only about life-hacks and diets, but about bringing the world more in line with our ideals.
