Vybarr Cregan-Reid

Vybarr Cregan-Reid is an unlikely academic. Someone who knows what it's like to be written off, who left school with no qualifications, who desperately needed a second chance. He also understands better than anyone the power of literature to change a life. From a turbulent start, through a disastrous education, truancy and petty crime, to a distinguished career as an English professor, We Are What We Read weaves Vybarr's own unexpected life in books with a spirited history of the war on the humanities, uncovering the profound impact that books have in shaping our reality at a time when their value is under attack from governments around the world. Part memoir, part manifesto, part history, We Are What We Read is not just about how education can place you back on the right side of the tracks. It is also a rallying cry for the importance of literature in a world where the arts are being squeezed out at every level and where book bans in schools and libraries have surged to record highs. It's about the joys and the transformational power of reading and how our brains are rewired by books, exploring how literature offers a vital means of connection in a fractured world. Reading is not merely an escape - it's an essential part of who we are.

'A work of remarkable scope' - GuardianFT Best science books of 2018Primate Change has been adapted into a radio series for the BBC WORLD SERVICE.*This is the road from climate change to primate change. PRIMATE CHANGE is a wide-ranging, polemical look at how and why the human body has changed since humankind first got up on two feet. Spanning the entirety of human history - from primate to transhuman - Vybarr Cregan-Reid's book investigates where we came from, who we are today and how modern technology will change us beyond recognition. In the last two hundred years, humans have made such a tremendous impact on the world that our geological epoch is about to be declared the 'Anthropocene', or the Age of Man. But while we have been busy changing the shape of the world we inhabit, the ways of living that we have been building have, as if under the cover of darkness, been transforming our bodies and altering the expression of our DNA, too. Primate Change beautifully unscrambles the complex architecture of our modern human bodies, built over millions of years and only starting to give up on us now.'Our bodies are in a shock. Modern living is as bracing to the human body as jumping through a hole in the ice. Our bodies do not know what century they were born into and they are defending and deforming themselves in response.'

Homo Sapiens - Luotu liikkumaan on ajankohtainen ja monipuolinen tietokirja ihmisen kehityksen ja ympäristön suhteesta. Kirja kuvaa kansantajuisesti, miten ihmisen keho on kehittynyt miljoonien vuosien aikana, mutta elinympäristö muuttunut radikaalisti vain viimeisten parin sadan vuoden aikana. Vybarr Cregan-Reid osoittaa kirjassaan, että vaikka elämä on monella tapaa helpompaa kuin ankarissa olosuhteissa eläneillä esi-isillämme, todellisuudessa ympäristö, jossa elämme, sairastuttaa meidät. Biologisesti ihminen on yhä metsästäjä-keräilijä, joka on suunniteltu liikkumaan ja joka ei tiedä tuolista mitään. Ympäristön ja kehon välisestä ristiriidasta seuraa monenlaisia vaivoja ja sairauksia: mm. selkävaivoja, sydän- ja verisuonitauteja, kakkostyypin diabetesta, syöpää, hammasongelmia, monenlaisia psyykkisiä ongelmia, kuten jatkuvaa stressiä, unettomuutta ja masennusta. Kehityksen kelloa ei voi kiertää taaksepäin. Vai voiko? Vybarr Cregan-Reidin mukaan voimme tehdä paljonkin. Meidän täytyy vain opetella elintapoja, jotka vastaavat paremmin omaa historiallista kehitystämme. Vybarr Cregan-Reid on kirjailija ja Kentin yliopiston tutkija. Hän on aiemmin julkaissut mm. Footnote: How Running Makes Us Human. Hän on kirjoittanut moniin julkaisuihin lukuisia artikkeleita ympäristön vaikutuksesta terveyteen, mm. The Guardian, The Independent, The Mail, The Washington Post.

Covers four texts from the 1890s that helped to crystallize the idea of the 'New Woman' during a period where the role of women was increasingly debated and challenged, not least due to the growth of the suffrage movement.

Running is not just a sport. It reconnects us to our bodies and the places in which we live, breaking down our increasingly structured and demanding lives. This book explores human desire to run. It shows why feeling the earth beneath our feet is a necessary and healing part of our lives.

Covers four texts from the 1890s that helped to crystallize the idea of the 'New Woman' during a period where the role of women was increasingly debated and challenged, not least due to the growth of the suffrage movement.

Covers four texts from the 1890s that helped to crystallize the idea of the 'New Woman' during a period where the role of women was increasingly debated and challenged, not least due to the growth of the suffrage movement.

In 1872, a young archaeologist at the British Museum made a tremendous discovery. While he was working his way through a Mesopotamian ‘slush pile’, George Smith, a self-taught expert in ancient languages, happened upon a Babylonian version of Noah’s Flood. His research suggested this ‘Deluge Tablet’ pre-dated the writing of Genesis by a millennium or more. Smith went on to translate what later became The Epic of Gilgamesh, perhaps the oldest and most complete work of literature from any culture. Against the backdrop of innovative readings of a range of paintings, novels, histories and photographs (by figures like Dickens, Eliot, James, Dyce, Turner, Macaulay and Carlyle), this book demonstrates the Gordian complexity of the Victorians’ relationship with history, while also seeking to highlight the Epic’s role in influencing models of time in late-Victorian geology. Discovering Gilgamesh will be of interest to readers, students and researchers in literary studies, Victorian studies, history, intellectual history, art history and archaeology.

Covers four texts from the 1890s that helped to crystallize the idea of the 'New Woman' during a period where the role of women was increasingly debated and challenged, not least due to the growth of the suffrage movement.

Covers four texts from the 1890s that helped to crystallize the idea of the 'New Woman' during a period where the role of women was increasingly debated and challenged, not least due to the growth of the suffrage movement.

Covers four texts from the 1890s that helped to crystallize the idea of the 'New Woman' during a period where the role of women was increasingly debated and challenged, not least due to the growth of the suffrage movement.