Storm in a Teacup by Helen Czerski review – physics for first-timers
The physicist and oceanographer explains the science of everyday things – from popping popcorn to spilling coffee – with erudition and enthusiasmHelen Czerski’s engaging debut book seeks to demystify...
View ArticleThe Fourth Industrial Revolution review – adapt to new technology or perish
In this slim volume by Klaus Schwab, founder of the organisation behind Davos, corporate-speak disguises a harsh realityMuch mirth ensued recently when Jeremy Corbyn’s crack publicity team issued a...
View ArticleBooks in 2017: a literary calendar
Jane Austen’s bicentenary, Arundhati Roy’s first novel in 20 years, and unpublished F Scott Fitzgerald ... the literary year aheadContinue reading...
View ArticleThe Glass Universe by Dava Sobel - review
The bestselling author of Longitude tells the fascinating story of a brilliant all-female team who helped to redraw the universe – and a woman’s place in itJust over a century ago, in the Harvard...
View ArticleJohn Fowles's The Tree is a humble revolt against 'usefulness'
His meditation on nature and creativity encourages readers to turn away from purposeful activity and embrace the ‘profound harmlessness’ of natural lifeI picked up John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s...
View ArticleEat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism – review
Bill Schutt’s book features a few psychopaths but dwells on the functions of cannibalism in human and animal societiesCannibalism, suggests the biologist Bill Schutt in his entertaining but slightly...
View ArticleA Field Guide to Lies and Statistics review – timely but limited
Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin delves into how the brain processes big fat fibs – but leaves some stones unturnedPolitics has always required lies, but it’s hard to think of a democratic leader who has...
View ArticleTestosterone Rex by Cordelia Fine review – the question of men’s and women’s...
The psychologist provides more evidence that the inequality of the sexes in society is cultural not naturalCordelia Fine is an optimistic writer. In her two earlier books of popular neuroscience (A...
View ArticleSearching for alien life with Jim Al-Khalili – books podcast
As 21st-century telescopes transform the hunt for extraterrestrials from SF to hard science, physicist Jim Al-Khalili examines the prospects for finding life in spaceIs there anybody out there? It’s a...
View ArticleReality Is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli review – physics versus certainty
The author of the million-selling Seven Brief Lessons on Physics rails against Richard Dawkins and the science-arts splitCarlo Rovelli’s slim poetic meditation Seven Brief Lessons on Physics managed to...
View ArticleElizabeth Blackburn on the telomere effect: ‘It’s about keeping healthier for...
The Nobel winner says keeping telomeres – the ends of our chromosomes – in prime condition can stave off diseases associated with ageingYou won your Nobel prize for medicine for your discoveries...
View ArticleThe Big Picture by Sean Carroll review – the meaning of life, the universe...
The theoretical physicist has written a bold book that deals with the biggest questions, taking in quantum theory and free will along the waySome fundamental truths don’t bear thinking about. It is a...
View ArticleFrom Bacteria to Bach and Back by Daniel C Dennett review – consciousness...
There is no ‘hard problem’ and consciousness is no more mysterious than gravity, Dennett claims in this study of the evolution of mindsDon’t be fooled by the title; there is little about bacteria, only...
View ArticleThe World-Ending Fire by Wendell Berry review – a lyrical Luddite
Farmer-writer Berry works with horses on his Kentucky farm, and writes with pencil – but has a lot to say about the modern worldWendell Berry is the poet laureate of America’s farmland. A prolific...
View ArticleQuantum Mechanics: A Ladybird Expert Book by Jim Al-Khalili – digested read
‘Planck’s constant is a tiny number. It is even smaller than 1. Wow!’By the end of the 19th century, many physicists believed there really wasn’t any more to learn about the workings of nature and the...
View ArticleSteven Johnson webchat – post your questions now
The pop-science writer behind Everything Bad is Good for You and Wonderland will answer your questions in a live webchat on Monday 13 February – post them in the comments below3.06pm GMTAt best, video...
View ArticleThe Way We Die Now by Seamus O’Mahony review – a doctor’s view
A searingly honest, humane and challenging book to prompt a wider conversation about death and dyingAbout half a million people die in England each year, more than half in a hospital and only 5% in a...
View ArticleEat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism – review
Forget Silence of the Lambs: Bill Schutt’s book reveals the evolutionary reasons we may end up eating each otherOne of my husband’s high school friends had a human placenta in his freezer. Neatly...
View ArticleThe Story of Pain by Joanna Bourke review – from prayer to painkillers
Wince-inducing stories of amputations without anaesthesia and sinister policies to withhold drugs from sections of societyBefore reading this book, I had lived a life in utter ignorance of the MGS....
View ArticleSnowball in a Blizzard by Steven Hatch review – the complexity of diagnosing...
A fascinating and very readable study suggesting that we should redefine the doctor-patient relationshipSteven Hatch, an American specialist in infectious diseases, wants to redefine the relationship...
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