Scott's Book Review – Page 48 – The Lanark Website

The Conscious Brain by Jesse Prinz

EGGHEAD CHOICE - Crack open for a hard boiled think

Are you paying attention? Attention, according to Jesse Prinz (http://www.subcortex.com/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Prinz), is the key to understanding the phenomenon of consciousness. We don’t know for sure how the crumpled 3 pound gelantinous mass inside the skull produces the magic lantern show which is our waking experience. There are many theories. Synthesizing decades of research, The Conscious Brain advances […]

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The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant

LITERARY BENT - Writing at its best

Sarah Dunant (http://sarahdunant.com/) is probably best known for presenting the live BBC nightly culture programme The Late Show (1989-1996). After that she presented the BBC Radio 3 programme Night Waves. She is the author of 10 novels to date. One of her most enjoyable is The Birth of Venus (2003), set in late 15th Century Florence. The

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The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss

LITERARY BENT - Writing at its best

The novelist Molly Gloss (http://mollygloss.com/) has earned numerous awards, including an Oregon Book Award, a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, the PEN West Fiction Prize, the James Tiptree Jr. Award and a Whiting Writers Award. If you want a really ‘feel good read’ set in Oregon, The Hearts of Horses (2007) is for you. In the winter

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Devoted in Death

CRIMINALLY MINDED - Tales of the behaviourally challenged

The prolific Nora Roberts (aka J.D. Robb, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_Roberts and http://noraroberts.com/ ) is entertaining us again this Autumn with Devoted in Death. The 51st title in this police procedure detective crime series, Robb’s world is clearly a dangerous place. There have been more murders than during an average sunny afternoon in Midsomer. The summary is as follows. It’s

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The Time of My Life

LIVES WELL LIVED? A pick from biography and memoir

Denis Healey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Healey) died on Saturday (3rd October 2015). He was a British politician of huge gravitas who found himself in government during a highly dangerous time for Britain, economically, in the 1970s. Standardly described as ‘the best Prime Minister Britain never had’, Healey possessed what a great many politicians today lack, namely a hinterland of

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The Happiness Industry by William Davies

EGGHEAD CHOICE - Crack open for a hard boiled think

Have you noticed recently in bookshops how the shelves are groaning with self-help guides on happiness? This is accompanied by endless newspaper and magazine advice columns on how to be a happy (or happier) bunny. Whereas at one time the church and religion instructed us on how to pursue a rich and fulfilling life, now secular

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Cassandra by Christa Wolf

LITERARY BENT - Writing at its best

Christa Wolf (née Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929, Landsberg an der Warthe – 1 December 2011, Berlin, http://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/christa-wolf/ ) was a German literary critic, novelist, and essayist. She was one of the best-known writers to emerge from the former East Germany. In Cassandra (1983) the author retells the story of the fall of Troy, but from the point of

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The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan

LITERARY BENT - Writing at its best

Amy Tan (born February 19, 1952, http://www.amytanauthor.com/) is an American writer whose works explore mother-daughter relationships and the Chinese-American experience. Her best-known work is The Joy Luck Club, which has been translated into 35 languages. In 1993, this book was adapted into a commercially successful film directed by Wayne Wang. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107282/?ref_=nv_sr_1) The brief outline of The

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Make Me

FANTASTIC FICTION - Escapes to other places and other times

Fans of Lee Child (http://www.leechild.com/) and his detective Jack Reacher will be delighted that the author has delivered again in 2015. Here is a summary of the detective’s 20th adventure to tempt you away from doing anything useful. Jack Reacher wants to know how a town could come to be called ‘Mother’s Rest’. But no one will tell him.

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