I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher's Guide to Wine
Ebook
Ebooks are designed for reading and have few connections to your library.
Overview
Here Scruton explains the connection between good wine and serious thought with a heady mix of humour and philosophy.
We are familiar with the medical opinion that a daily glass of wine is good for the health and also the rival opinion that any more than a glass or two will set us on the road to ruin.
Whether or not good for the body, Scruton argues, wine, drunk in the right frame of mind, is definitely good for the soul. And there is no better accompaniment to wine than philosophy. By thinking with wine, you can learn not only to drink in thoughts but to think in draughts.
This good-humoured book offers an antidote to the pretentious clap-trap that is written about wine today and a profound apology for the drink on which civilisation has been founded.
In vino veritas.
Here Scruton explains the connection between good wine and serious thought with a heady mix of humour and philosophy.
Roger Scruton is wine columnist for the New Statesman.
A wide-ranging book written by a revered philosopher.
The wine market is huge and this book will attract substantial media interest.
Introduction
1. Drugs that are Tolerated and Forbidden
2. Alcohol and its Effects
3. The Ancients and Religious Rituals
4. Wine, Self Certainty and Philosophy
5. Paying Bacchus his Due
6. Wine and the Moral Vacuum
7. American Health Warnings
8. Wine as an Accompaniment to Thought
9. Wine as Something to Live By
If you are searching for an interesting gift for the wine buff in your life, this will last a lot longer than another bottle of wine ... The greatest joy of this book is the appendix where [Scruton] suggests what wines to drink with different philosophers’ works. It is irreverent and funny, but at the same time, wise.
By turns challenging, enjoyable, thought-provoking
[Scruton’s] indisputable passion for wine will send you off to your next glass better informed and more thoughtful than before.
[Scruton] writes deliciously ... this book is a marvellous read - provocative, spicy, balanced and brimful of wise words ... it is hugely recommendable.
A good-natured and witty exploration of the wine-drinking phenomenon, from its place in Christian worship to a sojourn down at the local bar.
I have never met Roger Scruton, though I would like to ... Scruton’s book is for people who are already wine lovers and want to link their pleasure to a greater world outside
They don’t come much more knowledgeable than Roger Scruton ... light-hearted but thought-provoking
He is by turns interesting, fatuous, informative, cranky, outrageous, rhetorically self-indulgent, and insightful...For general readers, and especially Monty Python fans, this book is great fun. Summing Up: Recommended.
[Scruton is] clearly a man of remarkable energy, art and scope ... [An] entertaining experience.
Scruton liberally dispenses nuggets of wisdom throughout his book and very effectively uses personal narratives to make his case... the patient reader and drinker has much to glean by following the author’s gustatory and thought-provoking journey in the world of wine.
A novel approach...there are nuggets of wisdom and insight.
[An] elegant defense of wine and its place in society ... offers a window into an unusually original, subtle, and independent mind: the mind of a gifted philosopher ... all wine lovers should feel compelled to read him.
The third chapter is one of the finest expressions of reverence to French wines I have ever read - perfect for curling up with in front of the fire, with a large glass of claret.
[Scruton] is no slouch when it comes to wine ... the first part of the book combines a memoir of his development as a “wino” (his word) with some useful tips and factoids ... in the book’s second part ... he is good on wine as the expression of a place and community, on the nuances of intoxication and on the social beneficence of buying rounds.
Spendid ... partly a serious guide to the wines of France, Italy, and Spain and (if you must) the "New World", it is also very funny ... this is one of Scruton’s most enjoyable books, uncorking much wisdom, and concluding with a wicked guide to the right drink to take while reading various philosophers.
Witty and philosophical.
[Written with] customary brio
Roger Scruton’s 2009 memoir I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher’s Guide to Wine is a splendidly convivial fireside draught... A sweet hymn to Bacchus.
- Title: I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher's Guide to Wine
- Author: Roger Scruton
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum
- Print Publication Date: 2013
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 224
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781408194690, 9781472969873, 1472969871, 1408194694
- Resource ID: LLS:9781408194690
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T11:21:44Z