On my radar: Ira Glass’s cultural highlights
The US radio journalist on a bold coming-of-age movie, Elle King’s singing, podcast Reply All and George Saunders on Donald TrumpThis American Life host Ira Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland and...
View ArticleThe Cyber Effect by Mary Aiken – review
A cyberpsychologist is worryingly persuasive about the potential damage to children of a life onlineNote the doctorate after the author’s name; and the subtitle: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains...
View ArticleThe Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik review – modern parenting is...
We worry too much and do too much for them: children flourish when they are given freedom. When it comes to looking after kids, be a gardener not a carpenterIn 2011, a team of psychologists did an...
View ArticleA Smell of Burning by Colin Grant review – how people with epilepsy have been...
A powerful memoir of the author’s brother tells the story of a condition whose sufferers were killed in the middle ages for communicating with the devilRaphael’s The Transfiguration is a depiction of...
View ArticleHelen Macdonald: the unsettling encounter that inspired H is for Hawk
Ten years ago, a confusing encounter changed Helen Macdonald’s understanding of the connection between humans and the natural worldIt was the autumn of 2006 in Uzbekistan, a few months before my father...
View ArticleA Farewell to Ice by Peter Wadhams review – climate change writ large
The warning this book gives us about the consequences of the loss of the planet’s ice is emphatic, urgent and convincingBecoming a world authority on sea ice has taken Peter Wadhams to the polar zones...
View ArticleHomo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari review – how data will destroy human freedom
It’s a chilling prospect, but the AI we’ve created could transform human nature, argues this spellbinding new book by the author of SapiensAt the heart of this spellbinding book is a simple but...
View ArticlePatient HM review – a botched lobotomy that changed science
When Henry Molaison had his hippocampus removed, it left him with a profound memory deficit. Does Luke Dittrich, the surgeon’s grandson, have other secrets to reveal?Poor Henry Molaison! In 1953, when...
View ArticleWhat is the point of raising a child?
The standard ways of thinking about morality don’t apply well to parenthoodWhy is taking care of children worthwhile? It’s hard work, badly paid if paid at all, and full of uncertainty, guilt and heavy...
View ArticleThe Voynich manuscript: the unbreakable encryption?
A Spanish publisher has won the right to reproduce the manuscript, but are they any closer to discovering what it actually is?This week a small Spanish publishing house secured the right to clone the...
View ArticleShrinking Violets by Joe Moran review – how to understand shyness
Is being shy a boon or a burden? Should it be fought against? This sparkling cultural history ranges from Jane Austen to Silicon ValleyJoe Moran, like many of us, is shy. He is hopeless at small talk...
View ArticleIf technology makes humans into gods, old questions return | Giles Fraser |...
Yuval Noah Harari’s new book Homo Deus imagines a world in which life is painless, purposeless and longWriting in the fourth century, the theologian Athanasius explained the incarnation thus: “He...
View ArticleBooks to give you hope: Adventures in the Anthropocene by Gaia Vince
The declaration of a geological era defined by mankind’s destruction might be cause for despair, but this book inspires with tales of resourcefulness and survival• Why we’re writing about books to give...
View ArticleI Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong review – we are possessed by bacteria
Each of us contains 40 trillion microbes. Their power is enormous, and we are just beginning to realise it, as this thrilling book detailsWe are not alone. We have never been alone. We are possessed....
View ArticleThe Kingdom of Speech by Tom Wolfe – a bonfire of facts, reeking of vanity
The celebrated author challenges Darwin and Chomsky on the origin of human language in an irresponsibly partial account, riddled with falsehoodsWhat separates us from the other animals? The list of...
View ArticleThe Hunt for Vulcan by Thomas Levenson review - Newton, Einstein and the...
It’s a story that has been told many times, but this new take on the revolution in astronomy from Newton to Einstein is a fresh, smartly-paced read Isaac Newton set it up for Albert Einstein: he...
View ArticleHomo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari review – chilling
The epic, widely celebrated Sapiens gets the sequel it demanded: a breathless, compulsive inquiry into humanity’s apocalyptic, tech-driven futureYuval Noah Harari began his academic career as a...
View ArticleA Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived review – popular science at its best
Adam Rutherford’s elegant account of the Human Genome Project brings a note of realism to our dreams of a medical revolutionSixteen years ago, British researcher Ewan Birney launched an unusual...
View ArticleA Prehistory of the Cloud by Tung-Hui Hu review – the reality behind virtual...
From old railway tracks repurposed as routes for fibre-optic cables to cold war bunkers retrofitted to store data, Hu shows that the intangible cloud has a solid infrastructureThe cloud is “a system of...
View ArticleA Brief History of Everyone who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford review – genes,...
This effervescent book contains the latest thinking on the African origins of Homo sapiens and asks what our genes can really tell usIn trying to categorise a new arrival in the film Mean Girls one...
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