Nothing Matters: A Book about Nothing

by Ronald Green

Is nothing everything? As strange as that question looks at first sight, it will definitely make sense after reading NOTHING MATTERS. Provocative and accessible, free of jargon, NOTHING MATTERS shows that there is more to nothing than meets the eye. History, the arts, philosophy, politics, religion, cosmology - all are touched by nothing. Who, for example, could have believed that nothing held back progress for 600 years, all because of mistaken translation, or that nothing is a way to tackle (and answer) the perennial question 'what is art?

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

291 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Ronald Green is the author of "Nothing Matters – a book about nothing" (iff-Books). Philosopher, linguist, university lecturer and ESL teacher, with 13 ESL books published, Ronald has lectured and given workshops in Europe, North and South America and the Middle East on linguistics, ESL and the use of the Internet in education. His short stories have been published in Nuvein magazine, Tryst, Aesthetica, the Sink and Unholy Biscuit. He has completed a philosophical novel and co-authored a psychological thriller with strong philosophical underpinnings. For the past five years he has been thinking seriously about nothing, culminating in his recently-published book.

Reviews

[David Gregory Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until I read this book, I hadn't given much thought to "nothing". But Ronald Green's book has changed all that.

This is very in-depth and comprehensive study of the concept of nothing, both from a historical perspective and how this concept has been perceived and presented in the arts, religion, philosophy, and so many other areas.

What is specifically fascinating is how Ronald builds a case for "nothingness" - versus "nothing", and in doing so, provides us with a new insight into "something".

After reading this book, you will never use the term "nothing" lightly again.

[ibN YoSF · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is indeed handling a huge and phenomenal subject, that's "NOTHING".
I had a huge expectation on this book, but it fails to be crispy and racy often and it goes on to drag through dull terrains.
Had to stop it amidst.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books!

[Mohamed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would chose to give this book a 3.5 star rating. My impression throughout reading the book ranged between 3 and 4 stars based on the different ideas presented and how they were handled. I was impressed by the amount of thought and research that was behind the making of this book about "nothing". It's really very interesting to find somebody who was so, may be obsessively, interested in "nothing" to the extent of looking for it in almost everything around us, and putting it on the forefront to try to make us stare at it, hear it, feel it, and sense its "filling" effect in many areas we might've interpreted as empty! It was even more interesting for me to know that there were so many prominent people throughout history who did the same! At some points, the discussions seemed to be somewhat redundant or repetitive, and these are when I felt I might downgrade my evaluation to 3 stars. But it was probably the way the author tried to make sure he is delivering some ideas that were not easy to comprehend, accept or be considered important enough to keep pondering about. Overall, apart from these few sections, the book was actually interesting "in its own way". Although the book probably adds "nothing" much to my everyday life and practice, I enjoyed most parts of it. I certainly gained very interesting information about historical events, arts, philosophy and religious beliefs that I didn't expect to find in a book about "nothing"!

[Stephie Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I gave the book high marks in general, I had a number of issues with it . The first of which is that it was on the repetitive side. Other than that, I had no real problem with the first three parts. There was some interesting things in them. The real difficulty I had was with his philosophical exploration. For one, I found his separation of “nothingness” from “nothing” to be rather over emphasized. He also seemed to ignore “nothing”'s language use in general. While not necessarily, an advance on understanding the concept, there are lots of usages that seem important. One is it's role as in “oh, it's nothing.” For the conceptualization of “nothing” I think Green got hung up it trying to compare it to something else. The high marks are because of how I became engage with the book and no other great merit. One more criticism is his handling of infinity. While he spends a little bit of time on Hilbert's Hotel, Cantor was speechless.

[Vince · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one ever really thinks about nothing, or at least you don't think you do!

[Ali Villegas · Rating 4 out of 5]

[JB]

This is filler for a book I read and am not sharing to Goodreads 🙃