It’s always misguided to say that ‘the book was better than the film’ or vice versa. They are works of art in two different media, each with their own criteria for success and excellence. In the case of The Hours by Michael Cunningham (http://www.michaelcunninghamwriter.com/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cunningham), no false comparison need be made between the novel and the […]
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The fact that we have all moved at incredible speed into a ‘digital age’ is news to no-one. Laurence Scott, a critic and lecturer in English at King’s College London, is not so much interested in technology as the humans that use it – particularly our subtle transformation from analogue to digital beings. The author displays a
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Ever wonder what happens to your mortal remains after your spirit has taken the celestial elevator? Journalist and author Mary Roach (http://www.maryroach.net/) offers us this informative and humorous study of the human corpse. Human beings continue to die with alarming frequency: about 6,350 every hour at the last estimate (http://www.ecology.com/birth-death-rates/). That’s an awful lot of solid
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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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 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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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
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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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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