Husserl Book

This is an exceptionally clear and rigorous introduction to Husserl. Each chapter covers in 10-20 pages a key area of his thought, in ways which progress nicely from the most general elements and basic concepts of phenomenology to the higher-level topic areas and concepts. I'm going to treasure my copy of this book for a while, because Russell makes each main point with reference to a few appropriate places in Husserl's body of works. This means that Russell's 200 page text works beautifully as an index point for the main areas of Husserl's work, across its many volumes.

The combination of this particular philosopher and the brevity of the texts in the 'Guides for the Perplexed' series does, of course, mean that Russell's book is going to be a pretty dense read. Which it is. But I've found that re-reading parts of challenging books can itself become a really pleasurable and rewarding experience - you just have to tarry with the frustration of not yet grasping the subject matter! It's okay to take it very slowly, just reading 5-10 pages per day, while annotating key points which you might take down as notes later in order to solidify your comprehension. Difficult philosophy is difficult... for that reason, I'd never rate down a book, even an introductory one, for being dense and challenging to some extent. I would way rather have that than a sloppy intro which pulls too many punches!

Overall, this is definitely one of my favourite secondary texts in philosophy.