My Left Thumb: Philosophical Essays by Phillip Hoffmann

 

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“It’s right in front of me as I type. Actually, it’s left. My left thumb. The thumbnail looks like one of those pictures in embryology textbooks of us when we were tiny cauliflowers. You see, I crushed it in a ladder accident a couple of months ago. It’s okay; renovator and thumb are doing fine and resting comfortably. The good news is that there’s no permanent damage, although the looks I get from the staff at Home Depot suggest that I need to sign up for Attention and Survival 101 at the University of Hard Knocks. 

I wouldn’t normally go on about the condition of my left thumb, but something puzzles me. There’s no lasting damage, but why not? If I’d lost my thumb altogether, which I was fearing at first when the ladder and I had our falling out, I would be living with a tangible and abiding disability in what is a resolutely digital world. As it turns out, I’m happy to report that my keyboard skills are no worse than they were before, and my thumb is working overtime on converting the sorry salad of keratin and skin tissue reposing on the space bar back into a normal nail. But how did my left thumb learn project management for thumbnail renewal? And why only the thumbnail but not whole thumb replacement? What does my left thumb know that I don’t?”

Those are the opening paragraphs of the title essay of “My Left Thumb: Philosophical Essays 2nd edn,” BWL’s first, brand new venture into the non-fiction market! I’m honoured and excited to be part of this latest stage in the ongoing BWL success story, although this title is something of a one-off, as BWL intends to focus primarily on genres such as biography, memoirs, history and travel writing on the non-fiction side. As for my collection, I hope this sample gives you a glimpse of my own interests and approach to writing. I have always appreciated essays as a writing form, and I’ve attempted to mirror qualities about the form that grab me most as a reader: lively, engaging, entertaining bite-size writing that illuminates philosophical topics that fascinate me, from science (in this case, biology) to free will to existence to truth and beyond. I hope you’re as interested in finding out more about me and my left thumb as I am finding out about you and your writing!

Phillip Hoffmann 2023