Thought-provoking and infuriating.
Author: Richard Carter
A fat, bearded chap with a Charles Darwin fixation.
Tufnils
MAJOR SCOOP: I have unearthed rare footage of Nigel Tufnel from out of Spinal Tap playing drums for Nils Lofgren from out of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band!
The Green Road Through the Trees
by Hugh Thomson A Walk Through England. Näively judging this book by its cover (and title), I assumed it would be about walking through woods, waxing lyrical about trees, and so forth. Although trees do crop up in The Green Road Through the Trees, they are mainly incidental. This is a book about following the… Continue reading The Green Road Through the Trees
Names for the Sea
by Sarah Moss Strangers in Iceland. This book wasn't at all what I expected. It tells of Sarah Moss and her family's one-year transplant to Iceland. I was expecting it to be all about glaciers and volcanoes and the northern lights—all of which feature in this book—but Names for the Sea is far more about… Continue reading Names for the Sea
The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins Why Faith is not a virtue. Although I don't agree with everything he has to say, I greatly admire Richard Dawkins as a writer. But, when it came out, I decided not to read The God Delusion, because I didn't expect to get much out of it: I was already an atheist,… Continue reading The God Delusion
The Book of Barely Imagined Beings
by Caspar Henderson A 21st Century Bestiary. The Book of Barely Imagined Beings is a modern take on the medieval idea of a bestiary of wonderful animals. As anyone interested in the natural world knows, all animals are wonderful in their own way, so Caspar Henderson's choices of which beasts should appear in his book… Continue reading The Book of Barely Imagined Beings
Compare and contrast
‘Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit’ c.1620-5, by Sir Nathaniel Bacon.
British Summer Time
What precisely is ‘time’? Philomena Cunk, the thinking man's Brian Cox, visits the world-famous Greenwich Clock Museum to find out.
Open letter to Chris Martin
Dear Chris Martin...
Book review: ‘After Nature’ by W.G. Sebald
Three long-form poems, best read as prose.