Simone Weil - lecturer, political activist, factory worker, Platonic philosopher, Christian mystic, ?saint - was perhaps the 20th century's most original thinker. She in equal measure inspired those who glimpsed her profundity, and alienated those who saw her as a trouble-maker and/or impractical utopeanist. She came first in her year in the Ecole Normale's finishing exam; Simone de Beavoir came second. They did not get on. She put up the refugee Trotsky for the night. She upset him by arguing with him. She fought, very like Orwell, in Spain. Reading George Herbert, Christ "took possession" of her. She worked under de Gaule in war-time London, drafting an analysis of post-war reconstruction based on justice. De Gaule did not like it. We shall read closely this book: "The Need for Roots". It is a marvel from beginning to end. It offers ways of conceptualising our present social and cultural malaise.