＊作者是英国最受欢迎、最尊重的思想家之一。他在2007年被The Independent封为Brains of Britain的50人之一，评语是： “One of Britain’s greatest intellectual all-rounders…Someone who comes closer than most ever will to knowing everything” 。他在2004年被Prospect杂志选为英国最顶级的知识分子之一。
 
你有没有停下来思考过我们人体的头以及脸一天会经历多少改变？你看镜子、流汗、笑、打哈欠、打喷嚏、亲吻的时候，到底在发生什么事？我们害羞的时候脸为什么会红？很痛的时候留下的眼泪跟伤心的时候留下的眼泪里面成分不同，你知道吗？接吻的时候，我们的嘴唇又会传达什么信息给我们的大脑？作者在书中探讨这所有不同的现象，让读者发现自己脖子支撑着是一个多么神奇的王国！作者希望证明我们耳朵之间不只有我们的意识，其实人体及大脑比我们聪明多好多！
 
“The Kingdom of Infinite Space gets the reader to think afresh about everyday experiences such as staring in the mirror, vision, breathing, speaking, hearing, face recognition, laughter, tickling, yawning, sweating, eating, spitting, smoking, vomiting, ageing, sex and death. The pages burst with an entertaining mixture of intriguing facts and thought-provoking observations.” – New Scientist
 
“An amazing book about the human head, and since its chief stated purpose is to amaze, there can be no higher compliment…I’ve never seen anything like it…A very heady, heady experience…Thrilling.” Lynn Truss, Sunday Times
 
“Fascinating…A wonderful treasury of stupefying facts, a sort of ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not’ compendium of the extra-ordinary processes that go on inside our fragile skulls…This is a wonderful book, full of passages to make the reader stop and stare, if only in the mirror.” –Michael Simkins, Mail on Sunday
 
“A sparkling tour of our sense and the way in which we are embodies…[It] makes the world seem a more interesting place and life that much more important.” –Nicholas Fearn, Independent
 
 
书名：《米开朗基罗的食指：探讨日常的超越》Michelangelo’s Finger: An Exploration of Everyday Transcendence
作者：Raymond Tallis
出版社：Atlantic Books（英国）
出版时间：2011年1月
类型：科普、哲学
页数：192页
 

 
人类能利用食指去指某个方向其实是一个在动物世界非常独特的特征。在这本书中，作者探讨了这个我们从来不去考虑的“技能”意义有多非凡，在人类的进化历史上扮演了多么重要的角色。类似这种特征或许多我们人类会认为是小事情，但其实就是这些不同之处分别了人类与动物。作者讨论随着时间的过去，这些一直重复的小事情最后有了大大的影响力，而我们的食指就是最好的范例。人类能够“指”有多重要，你可能没去思考过！
 
“Pointing out, pointing the way, pointing at, and (usually worse) being pointed at are things we all understand. Their deeper meaning, though, may be another matter. This versatile gesture, Raymond Tallis tells us, is unique to humans. That tells us something about what makes humans special.... with the nature of human being, with what it feels like to be a person... Remarkable.”-- Independent
 
“Divertingly eccentric... takes in interludes on autism... the philosophy of language and... evolution... Glows with curiosity and good humour.” -- Steven Poole, Guardian
 
“Raymond Tallis has something in common with Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. He grabs readers as they pass and regales them with extraordinary accounts of impressive journeys... Fascinating.”-- THS
 
书名：《黑镜：人生的讣告》The Black Mirror: Fragments of an Obituary for Life
作者：Raymond Tallis
出版社：Atlantic Books（英国）
出版时间：2016年3月
类型：哲学
页数：352页
 

 
＊本书被《卫报》选为2015年文学精选书
＊适合喜欢Alain de Botton及Oliver Sacks的读者
 
在这本书中，作者思考了人生以及生活的意义。我们存在的最基本概念就是人生是有期限的。作者受到E.M. Forster的引言“Death destroys a man but the idea of it saves him”（死亡能毁掉一个人，但是死亡的理念能拯救他） 邀请读者回顾他們自己的人生，但是这次是透过一个独特的视角：以自己未来的尸体的角度去思考。从这个视角，你才能清楚的看到已离开的世界有多丰富及复杂。
 
作者使用自己独特的幽默风格及哲学理论去探讨生与死，邀请读者一起衡量生命的脆弱及价值。
 
“Strikingly original…The Black Mirror succeeds in capturing the smallness and simultaneous vasteness of a single life.” – Financial Times
 
“A tremendous, inspiring book…Raymond Tallis is one of the very few contemporary thinks whom I would unequivocally call a genius.” – Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday
 
“Original and enlightening…It is difficult to summarise what makes this book so appealing. It comes down, as all the best writing does, to the sensibility of the author. Tallis’s is not only a wide and judicious sensibility but a funny, acute and modest one…Wonderful.” – Sally Vickers, Observer
 
“Full of striking, thoughtful insight, defamiliarising the everyday things we all take for granted.” – New Scientist
 
 
关于作者：
Raymond Tallis曾是University of Manchester 的老年医学教授。他是一位诗人、小说家以及哲学家。他在2000年出版过The Raymond Tallis Reader、2004年出版Hippocratic Oaths、2008年出版The Kingdom of Infinite Space、2011年出版Michelangelo’s Finger，2016年出版The Black Mirror。