If you already know the web comic xkcd you’ll know what to expect from its creator and author Randall Munroe. You’ll probably have read his earlier book ‘What If?’, or online extracts from it. In this latest publication Munroe applies … Continue reading →
So the fifth-richest man in the world has bought up an entire county in Iowa, rebuilt a small town, recruited top scientists, and is building the world’s most powerful supercollider – one that will dwarf the LHC at CERN. What … Continue reading →
So here it is, the fourth and presumably final book in Dave Hutchinson’s ‘Fractured Europe’ series. Does he pull off the challenge of a coherent and satisfactory resolution to the complex puzzle he’s constructed in the first three? Short answer; … Continue reading →
‘Broken April’ is the other book by celebrated Albanian author Ismail Kadare recommended as ‘approachable’ by my guidebook to Albania (‘Chronicle in Stone’ is the other). Set in the 1920s or 1930s it describes the way of life in the … Continue reading →
If I hadn’t been planning a holiday in Albania later this year I would very probably never have heard of Ismail Kadare. His Wikipedia entry says Kadare is regarded by some as one of the greatest European writers and intellectuals … Continue reading →
This is a book of nine short stories, written at various times and some of them previously published elsewhere. It is impressive that they are all very different: settings range in place and time from mythological Greece to a settlement … Continue reading →
This is one of those must-read books which I somehow never got round to until now. It’s one of Bradbury’s early works, written in 1953 under the shadow of The Bomb and the beginnings of the Cold War; it has … Continue reading →
The best science fiction is more than just whizz-bang intergalactic travel and weird aliens. It explores the implications of real aspects of human knowledge and poses interesting questions about them. This is what Dave Hutchinson does in “Acadie”, though I … Continue reading →
It’s sixteen years since I read and reviewed Tim Moore’s “French Revolutions“, his first cycling book. Since then he’s written several other books including one about the notorious 1914 Giro d’Italia, “Gironimo”, in which he rides a vintage bike around … Continue reading →
Rachel Clarke’s account of life as a junior doctor in the NHS is based around the industrial dispute in 2016/7 which was ostensibly about seven-day working. Reading it you will laugh and cry, and if you care about the NHS … Continue reading →