Worlds and authorities

I was spurred by the recent BBC TV adaptation of Northern Lights to re-read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, … More

A book to sort you out apiece

A viral disease is sweeping the world, killing indiscriminately. Well, nearly. Its fatal impact is concentrated in a particular minority, … More

In 1983 or 1984, I had a good look around Charles Jencks’s Thematic House, then recently completed. It is now … More

My introduction to fantasy fiction was The Lord of the Rings, which I encountered surprisingly early, while visiting a friend … More

In Western Europe we take holidays on the Mediterranean, we hear about migrants attempting to cross it, we imagine our … More

For a small, softly-spoken country, Scotland carries a large intellectual stick. Voltaire said that ‘we look to Scotland for all … More

My long-interrupted project to read or re-read all of Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion books has at last been resumed, after … More

Illustration is a word that usually implies instrumentality, a visual work that’s auxiliary to something else. More broadly, you might … More

I’ve read a lot of popular science books over the years, but never until now have I felt a real … More

General relativity tells us something enticing about time. It doesn’t tell us what many would like it to tell us, … More

There’s something wonderful about being immersed in the world of a book, something which for me is even more pronounced … More

Iain Sinclair walks London’s sacred geometries, pursuing a dérive that moves obliquely across the familiar, prosaic territories of the city. … More

It’s very unusual for me to read a recently published novel, much less a prize-winning one. This is mainly because … More

I got stressed out reading Logicomix. About halfway through the book there is a discussion of Russell’s paradox, a self-contradictory … More