Time-travelling with Michael Brooks and Britt Wray – books podcast
We examine the ethics of de-extinction and the origins of quantum mechanics with two science writers reaching across the centuriesThis week we’re heading back in time to find a mathematical pioneer and...
View ArticleAnimals Strike Curious Poses by Elena Passarello review – brilliant essays on...
The meanings of Dürer’s rhino, Mozart’s starling, Darwin’s tortoise and others explored with wild imagination and pyrotechnic proseElena Passarello starts this extraordinary book with the image of...
View ArticleInto the Mountain: A Life of Nan Shepherd – review
The Scottish writer’s social concerns and love of nature are at the heart of Charlotte Peacock’s intriguing biography It was through reading The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane that Charlotte Peacock...
View ArticleThe Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook by Michael Brooks review – maths contests...
This superb book by Michael Brooks is in part a biography of the mathematician Jerome Cardano. But it delves into the most fundamental questionsWhat, you might ask, is a quantum astrologer? This...
View ArticleDarwin's annotated copy of On the Origin of Species goes to auction
Christie’s expects volume, which shows the author refining his theory in light of new research, to fetch between £300,000 and £500,000After eluding scholars for decades, a copy of On the Origin of...
View ArticleBest books of 2017 – part one
‘Funny, outrageous, touching, intimate, gorgeous’ … writers from George Saunders to Ali Smith pick their favourite reads of the past yearPart two: Sebastian Barry, Paula Hawkins and others share their...
View ArticleBest books of 2017 – part two
From moving memoirs to far-reaching fiction, the wonders of science and the lessons of history, novelists, poets and critics pick their best reads of the yearPart one: George Saunders, Ali Smith and...
View Article21st-Century Yokel by Tom Cox review – entertaining ramble through English...
Cox ponders the relationship between people and place in this amusing hybrid of nature writing, memoir and historyUnbound’s fastest-ever crowdfunded title, reaching its target in just seven hours, Tom...
View ArticleMax Tegmark and Ken MacLeod on artificial intelligence – books podcast
How would it feel to be outperformed by a machine? We discuss the AI revolution with physicist Max Tegmark and science fiction writer Ken MacLeodAs big data drives a sudden increase of artificial...
View ArticleThe best nature books of 2017
We celebrate a trio of debut authors, a dramatic account of bird breeding and an evocative memoir of free-range childhoodIn some ways, 2017 has been a quiet year for fans of the publishing phenomenon...
View Article'If only I'd been warned!' - writers choose books to give to their younger...
Julian Barnes, Margaret Drabble, Tessa Hadley, David Nicholls and others choose reading matter that would have been useful when youngContinue reading...
View ArticleRobin McKie’s best science books of 2017
Why good health requires good sleep, the role our senses play in what we choose to consume, and some mind-boggling maths about the air that we breatheThink of anything that ever breathed – from...
View ArticleSleepwalking to Armageddon: The Threat of Nuclear Annihilation by Helen...
A collection of essays that focuses on the US president as the source of our greatest dangerWhen Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2009 there were grumbles, later justified by an...
View ArticleDawn of the New Everything by Jaron Lanier review – virtual reality patter
The techno-sage and Silicon Valley insider sees VR as emancipatory and liberating but what does ‘shared lucid dreaming’ actually mean?I experienced virtual reality for the first time the other day, at...
View ArticleThe Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young – digested read
‘Every summer we would have a sports day, as cows are very athletic. One year, Bob the Bull twisted his ankle while jumping over the moon’My family started rearing cattle in 1953 and since that time I...
View ArticleThe 100 best nonfiction books: No 98 – The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert...
This compelling and occasionally comic study of melancholy became cult reading in the 17th century and has inspired artists from Keats to Cy TwomblyFrom the eccentric compulsion of its full title...
View ArticleTop 10 books about the unconscious
From BF Skinner’s behaviourism to Milan Kundera’s existential comedy, these are some boldly counterintuitive guides to the part of ourselves we know leastTo what extent are our conscious intentions and...
View ArticleA New Map of Wonders by Caspar Henderson review – scientific approach akin to...
A wunderkammer of amazing facts inspires a better appreciation of the world and celebrates the wonder and explanatory power of science‘The fate of our times,” wrote the sociologist Max Weber in 1917,...
View ArticleNonfiction to look out for in 2018
Spies, suffragettes and Mary Shelley feature heavily in next year’s nonfiction lists – along with essays from the likes of Zadie Smith, Graham Swift and Amos OzGlance even for just a moment at the...
View ArticleThe 100 best nonfiction books of all time: the full list
After two years of careful reading, moving backwards through time, Robert McCrum has concluded his selection of the 100 greatest nonfiction books. Take a quick look at five centuries of great...
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