Energy and Climate Change: Some Good Reads

This post originally appeared on the New Left Project.  A friend recently asked me for book recommendations on energy and climate change. “I want books” they stressed, “not policy briefing papers or essays or scientific reports. Something to curl up on the sofa with, something that digests and explains the issues and spins a few good yarns … Continue reading »

Book Review: Secrecy and Science

Wanna know a secret? Of course you do. Ok, it’s not really a secret, it’s just a story that’s a bit closed off. It’s an interesting story, about a military research centre which held an open day, but it’s in a niche academic book with a £55 pricetag. It’s a good book, painstakingly researched and … Continue reading »

Review: Maximum Republic

Some of the monarchy-themed street art in London this sumer. A couple of years back, the Royal Institution made their director redundant. There were various reasons why they did this, but part of me enjoyed the basic idea that they didn’t need a director. I wondered if other scientific institutions might follow. I mean, do universities really … Continue reading »

Advertising the Space Race

Book review of Megan Prelinger’s, Another Science Fiction: Advertising the space race 1957-1962 (New York: Blast Books). A shorter version of this appeared in the August edition of Public Understanding of Science. There’s a lot of loose talk about science fiction; about the great influence fiction has on science or, conversely, a great cultural crash between … Continue reading »

You Are Not a Gadget

You Are Not a Gadget, by Jaron Lanier. An arrow key on my laptop broke last week, and I had to send it away for a few days to be fixed. One of the unexpected consequences of being without it was that I kept finding myself itching for a book to read. Jaron Lanier’s You … Continue reading »