Scott's Book Review – Page 53 – The Lanark Website

Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language by Robin Dunbar

EGGHEAD CHOICE - Crack open for a hard boiled think, EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE - Science & Technology

I’m assuming you don’t spend a lot of time picking out unwanted insects from your best friend’s fur. Yet the function of that activity in apes is exactly what Robin Dunbar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Dunbar) believes language does for us. Apes and monkeys, humanity’s closest kin, differ from other animals in the intensity of their social relationships. All their […]

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The Gracekeepers

FANTASTIC FICTION - Escapes to other places and other times

Sometimes you just want to slough off the old world and dance around the bluebell wood in gay abandon. Anything new, anything fresh will do. Why not give Kirsty Logan (http://www.kirstylogan.com/) a go? The summary of her fantasy is as follows. As a ‘Gracekeeper’, Callanish administers shoreside burials, sending the dead to their final resting place in the

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All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

LITERARY BENT - Writing at its best

Anthony Doerr (http://www.anthonydoerr.com/biography/) was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of the story collections The Shell Collector and Memory Wall, the memoir Four Seasons in Rome, and the novels About Grace and All the Light We Cannot See, which was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was a finalist for

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Spirals in Time

EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE - Science & Technology

There is a delightful scene in the film Pretty Woman (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100405/?ref_=nv_sr_1) with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Roberts plays a hooker who has been hired by Gere as an escort to accompany him to a business meeting dinner. She is beautifully presented in cocktail dress but lacks table manner etiquette. On been presented with escargots she is

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Memory Man

CRIMINALLY MINDED - Tales of the behaviourally challenged, FANTASTIC FICTION - Escapes to other places and other times

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,

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Cuckoo

EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE - Science & Technology

The familiar call of the common cuckoo, “cuck-oo,” has been a harbinger of spring ever since our ancestors walked out of Africa many thousands of years ago. However, for naturalist and scientist Nick Davies, the call is an invitation to solve an enduring puzzle: how does the cuckoo get away with laying its eggs in

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Violence by Richard Bessel

EGGHEAD CHOICE - Crack open for a hard boiled think

After the daily, and lengthy, reading from Scripture in her home in Lewis my Grandmother was in the habit of glancing at a framed photo permanently positioned on the mantlepiece. It was of her brother who had been killed in The First World War. As often as not she would mutter ‘Wars and rumours of wars, for

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Don’t Try This at Home

FANTASTIC FICTION - Escapes to other places and other times

So here we are on the 2nd May 2015. Witness the ludicrous pantomime surrounding the ‘royal’ family. The establishment, and their fawning sycophants, the London media, are in a frenzy. Continuous breathless commentary oozes around a flipping hospital doorway! What has happened? A woman has given birth. It does tend to happen. Over 350,000 babies will

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Time of Death

CRIMINALLY MINDED - Tales of the behaviourally challenged

Multi-talented Mark Billingham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Billingham#Novels_2, http://www.markbillingham.com/) began attracting admirers for his crime and mystery fiction in the early 2000’s with Sleepyhead (2001), Scaredy Cat (2002) and Lazybones (2003). He has produced a novel a year since that time, as well as writing for TV and being involved in comedy. His latest is Time of Death. The summary

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