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by Charlotte Greig
Susannah's official boyfriend, Jason, is the perfect foil for her student lifestyle. He is ten years older, an antiques dealer, and owns a stylish apartment that prevents her from having to live in the seedy digs on campus. This way, she can take her philosophy major very seriously and dabble in the social and sexual freedom of 1970s university life.
But circumstances become more complicated than Susannah would like when she begins to have an affair with her tutorial partner, Rob. Soon she is dating two men, missing her lectures, exploring independence and feminism with her girlfriends, and finding herself in a particularly impossible dilemma: she becomes pregnant. Forced to look beyond her friends and lovers for support, she finds help and inspiration from the lessons of Kierkegaard and other European philosophers.
A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy is a delightfully insightful, bittersweet coming-of-age romp, in which love is far from platonic and the mind—body predicament a pressing reality. It even succeeds where many introductions to philosophy have failed, by effortlessly bringing to life the central tenets of the most important European philosophers of modern times.
"Susanna is, like so many student philosophers, equal parts endearing and insufferable, and even if her dilemma isn't the most original, Greig makes it uniquely hers." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. The uncertain ending may not satisfy those who read for escape, but it certainly feels true. Women's fiction that expects an intellectually adventurous and emotionally honest reader." - Kirkus Reviews
"A debut novel that's long on male philosophers but short on feminine insight." - The Independent (UK)
"Despite the quiet, understated tone, this is genuinely moving, catching precisely the era's claustrophobia." - The Observer (UK)
"Though the narrative meanders, Greig succeeds in making you care about Susannah’s plight, elevating what would otherwise be a rather flimsy entrant into the campus novel genre to something a little more memorable and engaging." - The New Statesman
This information about A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
After reading philosophy at Oxford, Charlotte Greig became a songwriter and folksinger with five recorded albums. She is also a playwright for radio and stage, and the author of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?: Girl Groups from the 50s On. Greig and her family live in Cardiff, Wales, UK.
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