Harlan Coben (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_coben, http://www.harlancoben.com/) has a dedicated following. He is a New Jersey based writer of mystery and thriller novels. He won the 1996 Anthony Award in the “Best Paperback original” category for his début novel Deal Breaker, which also received an Edgar award nomination in the same category. Why not try his 2014 novel Missing You. […]
January can be a bit flat. The festive season recedes whilst debt obligations loom large. Whuppity Scourie seems depressingly distant. What you need is an escape of the thriller variety. Paula Hawkins delivers. The summary is as follows. Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past
The Girl on the Train Read More »
This Life follows the evolution of Dr David Livingstone’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone) aspirations from his childhood in Blantyre to his death beside a swamp in Central Africa, and finally to his posthumous apotheosis. The author conceals none of Livingstone’s blemishes whether in dealings with his wife and family or in his psychotic approach to those whom he felt had opposed,
Journey to Livingstone Read More »
Amazingly, it will soon be 4 years since the original publication on 11th June 2011 of Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James. It was a publishing sensation, setting a record in the United Kingdom as the fastest-selling paperback of all time. Together with the second and third volumes, Fifty Shades Darker (2012) and Fifty Shades
Have you ever fancied, in an idle moment, that you’d like to live forever? Or just a little longer than the apportioned three score year and ten? According to Dr. Stephen Cave (http://www.stephencave.com/) (and with apologies to Eddie Cochran) there are actually 4 steps to heaven. These are not sequential – they are alternatives. Cave sets out
Immortality by Stephen Cave Read More »
From the tens of thousands of books and papers on human evolution, where should one start? I would recommend Robin Dunbar’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Dunbar) 2014 introduction Human Evolution: A Pelican Introduction. The past 12,000 years represent the only time in the sweep of human history when there has been only one human species. How did we alone survive?
To kick off 2015 why not head for London – in a work of fiction that is? In this first novel by Tom Grass, Oliver Twist is brought up to date. Eighteen-year-old Twist, one of the most daring street artists in London, doesn’t have much. No money, no home and no family. When he finds
It’s an ingenious, if risky, premise to propose to tell the story of a single season in a single year that will somehow illuminate the character of a nation. Other years have their own popularity – 1922 as the ‘year of modernism’ perhaps, or 1963 as the year ‘sex began’ (according to Philip Larkin). Narrowing
One Summer: America 1927 Read More »
Adrian William Moore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._W._Moore_(philosopher) and http://users.ox.ac.uk/~shug0255/) studied under Michael Dummett and is President of The Aristotelian Society (2014-2015). He has published (1990) The Infinite (London: Routledge). A revised second edition, with a new preface, was published in 2001. (1997) Points of View (Oxford: Oxford University Press) (2003) Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty: Themes and
The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics by Adrian Moore Read More »
