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If you’re looking for ideas that are intellectually rigorous, and don’t
depend on leaps of faith, there are some excellent titles making their first
appearance in paperback. On evolution, try Daniel Dennett’s Darwin’s
Dangerous
Idea (Touchstone/ Simon & Schuster, $16, ISBN 0 684 82471 X) or
assuage your fear of being the last person in the country to read Richard
Dawkins by reading River Out of Eden (Phoenix, £5.99, ISBN
1 85799 405 1).
Mental Leaps by Keith Holyoak and Paul Thagard (Bradford/MIT Press,
£12.50/$15, ISBN 0 262 58144 2) is a demanding look at analogy and
its role in creative thought. Frivolity and technology combine in Robert
Friedel’s Zipper (W. W. Norton, £9.95, 0 393 31365 4), a
wonderful history
of the zip.