Ambrose Bierce quipped that love is ‘a temporary insanity curable by marriage’. Body chemistry has to overcome reason to compel the sticky intimacy required for reproduction. It’s the price extracted from the individual for sexual reproduction. The subject of countless narratives in poetry, song, story and novel, the insanity of reading about love shows no […]
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There is scarcely a corner of these damp islands of ours without some beauty or interest value. Even Essex. Holidaying in Colchester last Summer allowed me to enjoy the rich history of the area. Sarah Perry’s (http://www.sarahperry.net/) second novel, The Essex Serpent is set in Victorian London and an Essex village in the 1890’s. It
The world in 2017 seems to be drifting as helplessly towards division and conflict as a log is swept to the rapids in a river. Anything that reminds us of the terrible cost of conflict and war, fiction or non-fiction is to be welcomed. Martha Hall Kelly (http://www.marthahallkelly.com/) has given us a powerful historical novel
In order for you to be reading this sentence you must be conscious. You have a private, direct and intimate possession of consciousness. Awkwardly though, science and philosophy are having a devil of a problem defining what consciousness actually is. There has been a whole crop of theories, some competing, some overlapping and some mutually
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The President of the United States has nominated Neil Gorsuch for The Supreme Court yesterday (1st February 2017). It is known that the composition of The Supreme Court will have far reaching effects on public and private life across the nation. The law and justice affect everyone, so practitioners in this field have to be beyond reproach.
If you enjoyed The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, this psychological thriller by K.L. Slater (https://klslaterauthor.com/about/) will provide an entertaining read. The summary is as follows. Anna lives a solitary existence, taking solace in order and routine. Thirteen years previously someone had injured her very badly. Her only friend is the lonely old
Not many human civilisations, or their seats of power, last thousands of years. Byzantium is one of them. This major place of power and cultural influence has had three instantiations: Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul. In this book, historian Bettany Hughes (https://www.bettanyhughes.co.uk/) describes the bitter clashes of civilisation that have occurred where Europe meets Asia —
It might surprise and horrify you to learn that your whole body is crawling with parasites. This is nothing about not having washed your hair properly! Most of the micro-organisms are beneficial, indeed necessary, to the proper functioning of ‘your’ body. I parenthesise ‘your’ because the organism you prefer to call ‘you’ is really an
It’s a good time to re-read Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel ‘The Remains of the Day’. First published in 1989, the novel can be read as an elegy for England. Much of what made England great derived from her empire (including Scotland). When that receded, her power, wealth and influence in the world declined. It was the
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