On Further Reflection: 60 Years of Writing

This collection of entertaining and enlightening writings from the famous comedian, neurologist, and intellectual is "dazzling from beginning to end" (Oliver Sacks). Actor, doctor, sculptor, TV personality, director of both film and opera--Sir Jonathan Miller's career covers a vast range of artistic and intellectual pursuits. But common amongst all of these trades is Miller's exceptional talent for writing about them. On Further Reflection gathers together Miller's best and most memorable excerpts, articles and essays written over the last six decades. The collection features his reflections on the famous comedy revue Beyond the Fringe, which he cowrote and performed with Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, and Alan Bennett; as well as fascinating explorations of everything from mesmerism to Dickens; neurology to art history; and opera to epistemology. In these pages, Miller contemplates how we interact with our own bodies, and how television changed in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. For each extract he provides a small introduction, placing the writing in the context of his work in the arts and sciences. A celebration of one of our finest minds, On Further Reflection brings together the best of Jonathan Miller for the first time in one collection.

About the Author :
Jonathan Miller first came to public attention as a performer in the very successful comedy review Beyond the Fringe. He became a doctor, but was soon seduced by television, presenting and directing arts programs, including a memorable Alice in Wonderland. He has directed plays for the BBC, the National Theatre, operas at the ENO, the Metropolitan in New York, and La Scala, Milan. He has also curated art exhibitions, as well as producing his own artworks in painting, sculpting, and photography. Underlying all his cultural work has been an interest in human behavior, how the brain works, and the philosophy of mind, and in media interviews and platform discussions he is still an important thinker in British cultural life.

Review :
"[Miller] is as playful and full of humour as he is serious and profound, ranging easily from the ways in which minute body movements inflect a performance to his abiding interest in artists' representation of the human form. Miller is equally at home with physiology, philosophy, and psychology, and what he has to say is always surprising and insightful. On Further Reflection is dazzling from beginning to end." --Oliver Sacks, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat