Book Reviews
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Silent Spring: a book that made a big noise.
Books are important in so many ways. They can move us, thrill us and entertain us. They can also inform and educate us. ‘Silent Spring’ is one of the most influential books ever to have been published. It kick-started the environmental movement worldwide and established a publishing genre of science writing aimed at the widest of markets. It seemed to be in everyone’s bookshelves as I was growing up, a book that influenced a generation and then continued to influence following generations. Cop 26 has just finished in Glasgow and now our environmental concerns are very different. In 1962, when ‘Silent […]
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Out of This World
Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro, George Orwell, Doris Lessing, Jonathan Swift. What have these writers got in common? One answer is that they are all writers of science fiction…..yet none would feature in most lists of science fiction writers and in bookshops and libraries you are unlikely to find them in the science fiction section. In popular culture science fiction and its cousin, fantasy has long been big brand, big budget entertainment from Dr Who and Star Trek to Lord of the Rings and George R R Martin’s Game of Thrones. Yet in the book review section of most newspapers science fiction […]