The Argonauts: book review
It’s relatively easy to admire a book that acknowledges or expands perspectives you largely share, especially if is skilfully written. That’s not the reason I admire The Argonauts, however. This takes a reader —...
The Wonderful Power of Writing
In addition to being a marketable skill on LinkedIn, writing is — or was — an awe-inspiring technology, representing a power to make language go beyond one person’s limits in terms of time, space...
A Brand of Writing
A couple of months ago I attended a two-day Masterclass in Food Writing at the British Library (for me, always an awe-inspiring institution). Designed and taught by the food writer Mallika Basu, the class...
Absence of Mind: Book Review
Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010. If you’re reading Robinson’s essays, you probably have already read her novels. You may well approach the essays as I did,...
Bateson’s Vision of Unity: Review of Biography
Gregory Bateson: The Legacy of a Scientist. A biography by David Lipset, Boston: Beacon Press, 1982. Gregory Bateson must surely have presented a daunting prospect to his biographer. Lipset takes us on an epic...
Speaking of Matter: Review of Q.E.D.
Feynman, Richard P, Q.E.D.: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Princeton, 1985 I loved many things about this book, but above all the moments when Feynman let own joy, unabashed wonder at the...