It looks as though a lot of CT readers decided to “join the EFF”:https://crookedtimber.org/2005/11/18/eff-on-bloggers-rights/ as a result of our post a couple of months ago; the EFF is now “listing us”:http://www.eff.org/bloggers/badges/ as one of the ten blogs that brought in the most donations. They’re doing very good work – thanks to all of you for supporting it.

Here’s a bit of not-quite-shameless self-promotion. My new book On Education has been out for a couple of months in the US, and longer in the UK.

I started writing the book around the time I started blogging here at CT, and wrote it largely with a CT-type audience in my head — smart, intellectually serious, and interested, but not necessarily specialists, in Philosophy or in Education. Also a transatlantic audience; I try to develop arguments and positions that will be interesting and useful to people in both the countries I know well. It’s an attempt to argue for a (small l) liberal account of the purposes of education, and to explore some current policy controversies in the light of those purposes — viz, funding of faith schools, teaching patriotism, and citizenship education; all with the aim of being accessible to just about anyone who is interested in these things (unlike some of what I write). It’s not for me to say how good it is, but it was reviewed very favourably in the TES, and the nicest comment was reported to me by the spouse of a teacher who is reading it: “She’s had several moments where her reaction as been that as soon as you said something, she sees that it’s obviously right, had thought about similar things, but had never formulated the point quite that way.” That’s a large part of what I hoped to achieve in the first part of the book.

I can say that it has three unquestionable virtues. It is short, inexpensive, and it has a nice cover (according to my wife, not always my strongest point).

“Whatte the swyve?” you say? “Anothere of myne servauntes hath just dyede of the blacke death.”:http://houseoffame.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/2006/01/abbreviaciouns.html This and other useful acronyms from “Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog”:http://houseoffame.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/. (Via “Making Light”:http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/.)