FANTASTIC FICTION – Escapes to other places and other times

Aldous Huxley spares no one in his ironic, piercing portrayal of a group gathered in an Italian palace by the socially ambitious and self-professed lover of art, Mrs. Aldwinkle. Here, Mrs. Aldwinkle yearns to recapture the glories of the Italian Renaissance, but her guests ultimately fail to fulfill her naive expectations. Among her entourage are: […]

Andrew Marr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Marr) is a much admired journalist, author and broadcaster with a talent for making serious subjects accessible. Happily, as of April 2013, he is recovering from a heart attack, and has appeared back on our television screens. When it comes to a history of modern Britain he is shrewd enough to know that yet another irenic

From its source in The Lowther Hills to the sea the River Clyde runs through 109 miles in three distinct areas: Clydesdale, The Clyde Valley and ‘Clydeside’. This volume (1999) deals with first of these. Moving from prehistoric and Roman through medieval and Covenanting to industrial and modern times, the book offers an account of

The study of Darwinian theory has attracted many of the brightest minds and best writers during the past twenty years. In Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1996), Daniel Dennett http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/incbios/dennettd/dennettd.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett) attempts to integrate an enormously diverse range of research into a coherent but popularly understandable defense of neo-Darwinian thought. Darwin’s ‘dangerous idea’ is clearly held forth

On first reading this at school in 1978, it took me a while to get fully involved in the narrative. By half way through I wondered if there could ever be a more subtle and penetrating novelist than Mary Ann Evans. 35 years later I’ve not read any fiction finer than that of George Eliot

This First World War novel of 1993 is a staple of reader’s group circuits up and down the country, and for good reason. Set in France before and during the conflict, it is the story of a young Englishman Stephen Wraysford who is propelled through a series of extreme experiences, including a traumatic love affair

This month’s Egghead Choice ‘The Botany of Desire’ (2002) is a radical challenge to the assumption that humans control plants for their own benefit. Perhaps plants co-operate with us (not consciously, of course) in pursuit of their own ends. One is minded of the domestic cat lounging by the fire. Its servant (you) is busy

If this single volume history (1996), at 1392 pages, was a product in McDonalds it would be a quadruple burger with layers of cheese, fries and onion rings on the side. The difference is that long after this meal one feels fully satisfied. Norman Davies has indeed cooked up a whopper of a history book.

Ralph Glasser (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1389641/Ralph-Glasser.html) was born of Jewish parents in Leeds but when only a few months old his family moved to a tenement flat in the Gorbals area of Glasgow that gained notoriety as a one of the biggest slums in Europe. His mother died when he was six and his two older sisters were decamped quickly leaving him