Mythomania (tales Of Our Times, From Apple To Isis)

By (author) Conrad, Peter; By (author) Conrad, Peter
Short description/annotation
Building upon his much-praised BBC Radio 4 series `21st Century Mythologies’, Peter Conrad examines the enduring place of myth in contemporary culture and society.
Description
Peter Conrad’s exhilarating book exposes the absurdity and occasional insanity of our godforsaken, demon-haunted contemporary culture. Conrad casts his brilliant beam upon subjects from the Queen to the Kardashians, via Banksy, Nando’s, vaping, the vogue of the cronut, the mushroom-like rise of Dubai, the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, the growth of the Pacific garbage patch...

In Judge Judy, he shows us a matronly Roman goddess dispensing justice with a fly swatter. In the metamorphosis of Caitlyn Jenner from Olympic athlete and paterfamilias into idealized female form, he sees parallels to the deeds of the residents of Mount Olympus themselves. Finally, after surveying advances in biomedical engineering and artificial intelligence, he asks whether we might be on the brink of a post-human world.
Review quote
''Conrad has vast erudition and a playful style … he always has something interesting to say'' - Guardian
Review quote
''Magnificent … Conrad’s writing is fuelled by an amused purview and written with a playful wit'' - Dublin Review of Books
Biographical note
Peter Conrad taught English literature at Christ Church, Oxford, from 1973 to 2011. He has written more than twenty books, including How the World Was Won: The Americanization of Everywhere; Creation: Artists, Gods & Origins; At Home in Australia; and Modern Times, Modern Places: Life and Art in the Twentieth Century, all published by Thames & Hudson.
Promotional headline
Building upon his much-praised BBC Radio 4 series 21st Century Mythologies, Peter Conrad examines the enduring place of myth in contemporary culture and society