Sepulchre by Kate Mosse 'Enfin. At last. Meredith heard the word as if she'd spoken herself. It was so sharp, so loud, that she turned around, thinking that perhaps a person had come in behind her. There was no one there. Things shifting between past and present.' I first read this novel several years ago …
In Black and White
The Joys of the Grand Piano [Perfection of Art and Science] by Andrew G. Lockhart I have two confessions to make: I love pianos, most pianos; I hate digital keyboards. When mankind has spent three centuries designing and building a product that is, at once, delightful to look at, a joy to play and …
The Order of Time
by Carlo Rovelli A Review 'Things are transformed one into another according to necessity, and render justice to one another according to the order of time.' [Anaximander c. 570 BCE] This delightful little book makes us look again at many of the concepts we take for granted. In childhood, we learn to think of reality …
Brave New World Postscript
Further Thoughts on Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan Sometimes you just have to read bits of a novel again. Machines Like Me is that kind of novel. (reviewed here) I mused for a long time over the title. What does it mean? Is it a reflection of the fact that we humans, just like …
Brave New World
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan A Review 'We create a machine with intelligence and self-awareness and push it out into our imperfect world ..... such a mind soon finds itself in a hurricane of contradiction. We may be confronting a boundary condition.' I was delighted to learn in yesterday's news that a portrait of …
To a Lighthouse?
Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist ‘The sea has given and the sea has taken away.’ Harbour is Lindqvist’s third supernatural novel. This one is set on the fictional island of Domaro in the Swedish archipelago, where Anders and Cecilia have a holiday cottage. One winter day, the couple set out with their six-year-old daughter Maja …
A Matter of Time
The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov The possibility that we might visit our planet’s history – and maybe influence it – is the most tantalising of all fantasies. Perhaps, instead, we might travel into the future and, as observers, discover whether our descendants are still reading books, or watching films. What new mythologies can …
