As I write on 19 December 2015 people across the world are preparing to put an organ in their bodies through an assault course. This annual ritual is known as ‘Christmas’. The organ in question is not much discussed in polite conversation, and preferably not at a sacred time of the year. It is the […]
A myth is not an untruth or a lie. The word ‘myth’ has been hijacked to convey the meaning of falsity in recent decades, but this hijacking has done great disservice to the concept of myth. Myth, rather, is a package, in which deeper truths are contained. Edward Walker argues here that we should recover the value of
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2015 has brought us a whopping, meticulously researched biography of Ted Hughes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_hughes). Academic superstar Jonathan Bate (http://www.jonathanbate.com/) has published extensively on Shakespeare and written the life of John Clare. In Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life he offers what is sure to be the standard biography of Hughes for decades to come. It is also sure
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Sarah Moss is a teacher at The University od Warwick Writing Programme. (http://www.sarahmoss.org/about/) Signs of Lost Children is her 4th novel to date. It is a continuation of the story contained in her book Bodies of Light. It begins in Victorian England. The summary is as follows. Only weeks into their marriage a young couple embark
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‘Vitalism’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism) as a theory of life, and to which the author alludes here, is not part of modern science. Life is a form of matter based on a self-replicating molecule. There is nothing supernatural or metaphysical about it. Nick Lane (http://www.nick-lane.net/) tackles the question of how life evolved on Earth by exploring the deep link between energy and
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The human brain is not an undifferentiated lump of jelly. It is in fact divided into 2 distinct hemispheres, left and right. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_function) These are joined by a bundle of nerve fibres known as the corpus callosum. Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist (http://www.iainmcgilchrist.com/) sets out to inform us about this, and other facts, about the neurophysiology of the brain. Beyond
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The terms ‘gene’, ‘genetics’, ‘genetic engineering’, ‘gene therapy’, ‘GM crops’ etc. have been current in the media and everyday conversation for a good while now. They are bandied around more than the science behind them is understood. Fortunately, there is a good crop of books for the general reader to gain some understanding. Examples are Matt
Have you ever been baffled or intimidated by what physicists tell us about the fundamental structures of the universe? Well, snap. Without a very sophisticated understanding of mathematics most of it is over our heads. Some leading physicists have tried to offer books for the general reader. One was Richard Feynman with his celebrated best-seller Six
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Anne Enright (born 11 October 1962, http://sbr.lanark.co.uk/wp-content/images/The-Green-Road-Anne-Enright.jpg) is an Irish author. She has published novels, short stories, essays, and one non-fiction book. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, her novel The Gathering won the 2007 Man Booker Prize. She has also won the 1991 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the 2001 Encore Award
