Isn't This Fun? - Softcover

Michael Foley wants to understand why he doesn't appear to be experiencing as much 'fun' as everyone else. So, with characteristic wit and humour, he sets out to understand what fun really means, examining its heritage, its cultural significance and the various activities we associate with fun. He investigates pursuits such as dancing, sex, holidays, sport, gaming and comedy, and concludes that fun is not easy, simple and fixed, as many seem to believe, but elusive, complex and constantly changing. In fact, fun is a profoundly serious business - a range of new group rituals evolving in response to cultural developments, often motivated as much by spirituality as hedonism. Also, while fun is a modern phenomenon it turns out to have recreated many of the elements of early ritual. His findings will invigorate you with insights, make you laugh at life, and quite possibly help you to understand why the post-post-modern is actually the pre-pre-modern. Praise for ISN'T THIS FUN?: 'This book is such a wondrous kaleidoscope of rage, based on such a deep reading of all the sources, that I shall be searching out his other works to read forthwith. The man is a marvel.'Daily Mail Praise for THE AGE OF ABSURDITY: 'Reading Michael Foley's THE AGE OF ABSURDITY. I must be the last person in the world to read this but I'm glad I finally have, as it is fascinating. It looks at the quest for happiness and how we are getting it all wrong' Jeremy Vine, Sunday Telegraph 'Genuinely funny, sharp, truthful and intelligent ...striking a blow for the value of ordinariness' Times Literary Supplement 'Irresistible narrative with the sort of irreverent exuberance that carries all before it' Guardian 'Pungent, witty, perceptive ...like Larkin, only sharper, funnier and more cynical' Irish Times 'Not the usual cleverclogs claptrap. Fol