Elastic by Leonard Mlodinow review – unplug to think creatively
In praise of procrastination and getting drunk … a theoretical physicist and Star Trek writer on the importance of imaginative thoughtEveryone knows we should be concerned about ecosystems, but what...
View ArticleLucy Cooke: ‘I loved to drink, smoke and have a good time. Getting cancer at...
The zoologist talks about how breast cancer was a positive experience for her, and how she’s now a lot healthier thanks to the joys of gardeningMy job is so varied. I am a presenter, filmmaker and a...
View ArticleThe Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli review – a worthy heir to Stephen Hawking
Is time real or simply a useful measurement of change? The author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics takes us to the limits of our understanding with clarity and styleIn Hitler’s Germany, a handful of...
View ArticleAll That Remains by Sue Black – a life investigating death
A professor of anatomy and forensic anthropology, who works in war and disaster zones, considers questions of mortalityIn 1999, Sue Black – one of the world’s leading forensic anthropologists – found...
View ArticleIn Byron’s Wake and Ada Lovelace reviews – computing reputations
Annabella Byron is rescued from more than a century of bad press, while three mathematicians consider her daughter’s particular genius“Oh! What an instrument of torture I have acquired in you,” Byron...
View ArticleDean Burnett: ‘Happiness shouldn’t be the default state in the human brain’
The neuroscientist and author of The Idiot Brain on the difficulty of trying to explain happiness and what he learned from Charlotte ChurchDean Burnett, 35, is a Cardiff-based neuroscientist, blogger...
View ArticleThe secrets of resilience: what one woman’s extraordinary trauma – and...
Carmen Tarleton was so badly beaten and burned by her ex-husband that she needed 38 operations and a face transplant. Yet she found a path back to happiness. What helps her – and others like her –...
View ArticleCurlew Moon by Mary Colwell review – a pilgrimage for the wading bird
An account of a walk of 500 miles from the west of Ireland to the east coast of England to raise awareness of the bird’s endangered statusThe bubbling call of the curlew, heard across the fields at...
View ArticleThis Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay – review
Frank and funny, this is a moving tribute to the people who keep the NHS goingIn 2010, after six years of training and six more on the wards, Adam Kay hung up his stethoscope. A few months earlier,...
View ArticleThe Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli review – no difference between past and...
The author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics has written a vivid account of how we make time and other profound puzzlesTime is a commodity: ours to buy, spend, save, keep, mark or waste. Time has...
View ArticleChernobyl: History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy review – Europe nearly...
A compelling history of the 1986 disaster and its aftermath presents Chernobyl as a terrifying emblem of the terminal decline of the Soviet systemThese days, European travel agencies offer trips to...
View ArticleMark O’Connell: five books to understand transhumanism
Will humans ever conquer mortality by merging with technology? The 2018 Wellcome prize winner shares his favourite books on transhumanism, from a cyborg manifesto to a Don DeLillo novelAs humans, we...
View ArticleShapeshifters by Gavin Francis review – bristling with insight into our bodies
The award-winning writer and Edinburgh GP combines patient case studies with cultural history in this profound study of how humans change“My aim is to sing of the ways bodies change.” Ovid, in The...
View ArticleSleep Demons by Bill Hayes review – an insomniac’s memoir
Reissued with a new preface, this intimate and beautifully written book brings scientific research alive in a heartfelt and deeply personal narrativeBill Hayes has struggled with insomnia since...
View ArticleCringeworthy by Melissa Dahl review – why feeling awkward is good for us
This lively study explains how embracing embarrassing conversations or exposing situations can improve your lifeI read part of this book in somebody else’s reserved seat on an overbooked train; do...
View ArticleTop 10 books to understand happiness
The science of happiness is complex, but alongside psychologists and neurologists, larks from the likes of Spike Milligan and Terry Pratchett have useful things to impart Everyone knows it. Everyone...
View ArticleHow to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollan –...
Pollan’s illuminating history of hallucinogenic drugs reveals that their mystical and medical benefits are indivisibleIn 1938, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, seeking a new drug to stimulate blood...
View ArticleThe Lost Boys by Gina Perry review – the experiment that made boys vicious
In 1954 the American psychologist Muzafer Sherif set out to prove that hate was learned with the help of two groups of warring 11-year-oldsAt the beginning of the 1950s, while William Golding was a...
View ArticleOur Place by Mark Cocker review – can Britain’s wildlife be saved?
British people have long expressed a love of wild nature and the countryside. So why is much of it being allowed to disappear?Outside a church, a board welcomes visitors to “The Unkempt Churchyard”....
View ArticleFrom pregnancy to eating disorders: Gavin Francis picks five books on human...
The doctor and author recommends some of his favourite books that provide personal and profound insights into pregnancy, the menopause and genderOur bodies and minds are in ceaseless transformation and...
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