Andrew Copson & Alice Roberts
The Little Book of Humanism: Universal Lessons on Finding Purpose, Meaning and Joy
Piatkus; 2020

It’s a long time since I’ve written a book review here. That doesn’t mean I’m not reading, but it does mean I’ve not managed to finish enough books to make a review worthwhile: like always there are many books on the go, and most are cast aside at the arrival of something new.

I would never claim to be a humanist. I probably am one, but I don’t profess to know enough about humanism to feel that’s what I am. Besides I try to avoid anything which wants me to believe in some creed, however loose it may be.

So I was motivated to read the recently published The Little Book of Humanism.

Let me say straight away that this book does what it says on the tin: it is a very basic guide to many of the ideas and beliefs behind humanism. Sadly though I found it tediously wanting. It came across to me as a series of would-be-inspirational quotes strung together with some pieces of text made up of platitudes and the obvious. I don’t know Andrew Copson, but I expect more of Alice Roberts – this may not be an academic work, but Roberts can do better than this.

I expected the book to make me stop and think; to present me with deep ideas about humanism. It didn’t. All I seemed to get was a feeling I was being told things which are patently obvious. I expected something with more “bite”, and something rather more formally construed.

As so often though, that is probably very unfair of me as the book likely isn’t intended for someone like me who has spent many years thinking about what they really do believe and their personal morality. It is, I suspect, much more aimed at those who’ve maybe heard of humanism, but don’t know anything about it and who feel disillusioned with mainstream religion. For those people it is probably quite a good route into humanism, without being a dogmatic text full of formal beliefs (which humanism really shouldn’t be anyway).

What also disappointed me was the quality of the production. The copy I have, while hard-bound, looks as if it is glued rather than stitched with the cover also too lightly attached. The content is printed on very rough, off-white paper which resembles thin blotting paper – that’s commendable if the paper is recycled, but the lack of finish to the paper, and the lack of brightness, does make the book a less enjoyable read. The actual text uses a mix of serif and sans serif typefaces, in a variety of point sizes: again something which irritates. I’m also not sure “little” is the right adjective; yes the book is the size of a small paperback but it’s quite thick and chunky; I wouldn’t call it pocketable. This is partly down to the modern fetish for extraneous white space; to quote Ambrose Bierce “the covers of this book are too far apart”. Overall the production looks cheap and as such is possibly not a good advertisement for the humanist movement.

Overall I was disappointed, but maybe unfairly so.

Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆