David Baldacci (http://davidbaldacci.com/) began writing stories as a child, when his mother gave him a notebook in which to record them. He wrote for more than two decades, penning short stories and later screenplays without much success. While practicing law, he turned to novel writing, taking three years to write Absolute Power. Published in 1996, […]
The convenience of electrical power is all around us. Like many things it is so much the background to our lives that we take it utterly for granted. Yet, in this case as in so many others, we are standing on the shoulders of giants. One giant to whom we should be grateful is Michael Faraday
The intuition that ‘all is one’ dates back at least to the early Greeks. This sense that there is a fundamental unity to all existence is expressed in Parmenides(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides), and is found in much of the ancient religious tradition of the Far East. In more recent times philosphers such as Spinoza articulated their world view
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Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho (Paulo Coelho – Wikipedia) offered this tale about fear, temptation and responsibility in 2000. The fable is about a man who sets out on a journey to discover the true face of humankind. Viscos is a small village located in France. It has only 281 inhabitants. In the past, the place was crawling with thieves,
The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho Read More »
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
Treasure Beneath The Hearth by Edward Walker Read More »
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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