Something that struck me very early on when reading this book was the statement 'The evolution of the new media environment, particularly in the United States, has encouraged a shift for consuming news with the goal of becoming better informed to turning to news for enjoyment.' Only a day or two before I had been listening to a discussion between a couple of friends about how they hated the news these days because it was so miserable. Hardly a source of enjoyment. There is, without doubt an age factor here. These were middle-aged people who, like me, would never think of going to TikTok or Instagram for news. Personally, I've abandoned TV news for news websites (partly because you can get the information far quicker than a boring old bulletin). But given that I am neither American nor of the key age group for newsertainment (my word, not Jennifer Hoewe's) reading this book was rather like reading a sociology text about tribespeople from a totally different culture. Whil...

There is a wide gulf between the worldviews of physicists and philosophers. Many physicists present a rather sweetly naive, child-like view of the world, where philosophers bring a distinctly more adult, cynical tone. This being the case, it can be a little worrying when a physicist dips a toe into the philosophical mire. Infamously, in The Grand Design , Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow told us that philosophy was now dead because science could deal with anything it had previously been needed for. Thankfully, Carlo Rovelli is not trying to do away with philosophy, though it has to be said that when he veers into the topic that physicist's naivety can make it feel like the philosophising of an earnest eighteen-year-old. Take the opening paragraph, which tells us 'electrons and minds, stones and laws, judgements and galaxies do not essentially differ in nature from one another. They are notions that illuminate each other'. I almost expected a Pink Floyd soundtr...

The third novel in a series can be a bit of a let down, but Robert Jackson Bennett makes this the best so far. In his beautifully imagined world which has advanced biological technology while otherwise being near-medieval we once more encounter the unlikely pair of investigator Dinios Kol and his boss, Ana Dolabra whose ability to pull together information from multiple sources to come to deductions isn’t quite human - and whose personality is abrasive to say the least. They are called in to deal with what appears to be a relatively simple murder with a clear perpetrator, but that conclusion risks political instability as the daughter of one leading family is killed by the son of another - the two lines being close to Montagues and Capulets in their hatred for each other, even though their businesses are intertwined. What gradually becomes revealed is a far more complex plot involving a horrendous biological mechanism that, at the same time, gives Bennett a chance to tell us much more ...

Sixty years ago, books about astronomy for general readers were almost unheard of. There were books aimed at enthusiastic amateurs who wanted to explore the night sky with telescopes of their own, but genuine popular science books on the subject are a relatively recent invention. One reason for astronomy’s surge in popularity is a new class of ‘unsolved mysteries’ – always a sure-fire hit with readers – with intriguing names like black holes, dark matter and dark energy.  A second development is the arrival of gorgeously detailed photographs of astronomical objects – which most people will associate with NASA’s Hubble telescope, but can actually be traced back to a book that came out in 1979 called Catalogue of the Universe , which contained the very first true-colour astronomical photograph the general public ever saw. One of that book’s authors was Paul Murdin – co-discoverer of the first black hole, and now a prolific writer whose latest offering is reviewed here. It deals with ...

I've always loved the 'introducing X, a graphic guide' series from Icon Books, with titles such as Introducing Infinity: a graphic guide . They're quirky, pocket-sized books with typically one or two page segments each featuring an eye-catching illustration. However, the publisher also has a set of graphic guides that are full-sized books, the latest being The Universe . I was also very impressed with Jillian Scudder's illustrated Astroquizzical  - she knows her stuff and puts the science across well. The same is true here - it's hard to fault the basics of the text. But I found the book a pain to read because of the way it's laid out and illustrated. Frankly, the layout (and cover) make it look more like a self-published book than one that's professionally produced. The text and image layout is haphazard, with random switching of fonts. Headings are few and far between - there is no apparent structure to the book. In a lot of cases, the illustrations go...

This is described as the definitive biography of Charles Darwin - and I really can't argue. It's a condensation of the original two-volume edition, but still a chunky 500+ pages before getting to the notes - as such it is, frankly, longer my preferred length, but though just occasionally there was too much detail, it remains highly readable and gives a brilliant insight into Darwin's family life as much as his work. We get, of course, his academic background, the voyage of the Beagle and the slow move towards Origin of Species , suddenly spurred on by competition. Then there's the later books, with the particularly contentious Descent of Man amongst them. And it's all excellent stuff. But I think the part that really captured me is Jane Browne's insight into Darwin as a person - an invalid for most of his life, and somewhat beset with doubts, especially as his religious beliefs ebbed away; a generally mild man, but capable of acerbic responses to criticism. And...

If there's one big gap in the science writing sphere, it's popular engineering (you can quibble over whether engineering is science, but where else would you put popular engineering?). Alex Davies does the field a real service with this insightful introduction to the world of test engineering. The concept is simple. If we build something and sell it, we need to test it to make sure that it won't fail in a way that's dangerous to the consumer. The most obvious example is airliners, which feature at some length, but this applies to everything from cuddly toys to hair straighteners: someone needs to predict what could go wrong and to put the product through its paces to see if it will survive under any reasonable circumstances. When Davies is telling a story of test engineering in action, the book is a delight. He opens with the way that real bears are used to test if bears can get into coolers and trash cans - and the impressive ways these animals can  circumvent human in...

This is a re-read of a 1964 science fiction novel that in some ways holds up very well, though there are some issues. Sunburst is what you might call an anti-superhero novel. After an accident at the local nuclear power plant, Sorrel Park is now the only town in the US with a coal-fired power plant and is cut off from the rest of the country. Initially this isolation of the town was to stop others hearing more about the nuclear disaster, but when children born after radiation exposure begin to develop psi abilities, the place remains locked down as they prove to be disastrous - after a night of horrendous behaviour they are captured and put in the Dump, surrounded by a field that suppresses psi abilities, stopping them from getting out. As we get into the story the government is getting ready to open up Sorrel Park. The central character, 13-year-old Shandy, who has a had a difficult life after her parents died when she was young, gets pulled into the influence of the scientists who r...

The sub-genre of alternate history has always felt an uncomfortable fit with science fiction - but where else are you going to put it? Two of my favourite classics of the genre both posit a modern England where the Reformation didn't happen and the Catholic Church is still a powerful force. I've already reviewed The Alteration by Kingsley Amis, but I've now re-read Keith Roberts' 1968 classic Pavane . Though usually described as a novel, this is really a linked set of short novellas, featuring an 1960s Britain that follows on from Queen Elizabeth I being assassinated, resulting in a clamping down of Catholicism that also has ended with an iron grip across half the world. The novellas present (mostly) charming snapshots of a rural, low-tech England where steam traction engines pull trains of wagons across the country, long distance communication is largely by semaphore towers and monks work on lithographic printing presses. Roberts does a wonderful job of giving us the ...

This is an oddity. I heard about this book on the excellent Science Fictions podcast, where I was told that anyone with an interest in popular science had probably read this 2017 book - I hadn't, and after hearing their podcast I wouldn't want to, but felt it worth highlighting some key points. As the Science Fictions podcast notes, the book 'said, among other things, that we are living through an epidemic of sleeplessness, that the less we sleep the sooner we die, and that sleeping less than six hours a night doubles your risk of cancer.' No surprise it was a big seller. But it appears that the book is riven with errors and its underlying thesis seems to have little or no scientific basis. A lot of the podcast was inspired by a fact-check by Alex Guzey that only covered the first chapter, yet uncovers a whole host of issues. I'd suggest taking a look at that fact check and, if you want more, listening to the podcast. But if, like me, you haven't read the book...

In the past I've found Steven Pinker's books hypnotic - I drift along enjoying the words and feeling I'm getting something deep from it without anything much sinking in. This one was different - it was sometimes a little harder to get your head around the underlying concept, descending as it tends to into infinite regression, but overall I did feel I'd gained a lot.  Pinker's focus here is 'common knowledge' which is when not only do we both/all know something, but we know that the other(s) know as well and the implications this has for human interactions. One entertaining thing to emerge from this is the ability to get into infinite loops of the 'I know that you know that I know that...' variety. Although we aren't mentally equipped to deal with more than a handful of iterations, we are told that a simple but limited interaction like a text exchange strictly needs the full infinite set to be definitive. For example, if you and a friend are tryin...