Babylon to Chorleywood in thirty-two pages

Oxford University Press’s Very Short Introduction series has staked out a territory for concise introductions to a bewildering variety of … More

Beautiful movement

Running has been a part of me since I was in my early twenties—not competitive running, but thrashing along rural … More

Sweet reasonableness

Having had occasion to excavate some of my East Anglian roots in response to watching The Dig recently, I was … More

Sharing

Rachel Roddy’s second book is full of anecdotes and recollections, little narrative vignettes about her immediate household, the extended Sicilian … 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

For Pete’s sake!

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

Food as illustration

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

Tilting at reality

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

Veils of allusion

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

Other truths in the shadows

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

A pamphlet in disguise

A book is illustrated if it has pictures in it. A history is illustrated if the events it constructs are … More

A life lived in the kitchen

I don’t come from anywhere in particular. I’m a Turkish jew with an Italian name on my father’s side, and … More

Same difference

How To Be Autistic is an important book. There are, I imagine, countless books about autism: medical books, popular science … More

The primacy of the useless

For much of my life I have done ‘nothing’, and for almost all of it I have resisted or involuntarily … More