The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest: the search for the solution of how to calculate longitude and the unlikely triumph of an English genius. A fascinating look at a defining moment in technological development. Full of intrigue, double-crossing, maths, and science. It cracks along at a fair pace, sometimes lightly skipping over details. I would gladly have read this if it…
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Death’s End (死神永生) is a science fiction novel by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin. It is the third novel in the trilogy titled Remembrance of Earth's Past, following the Hugo Award-winning novel The Three-Body Problem and its sequel, The Dark Forest. This is an unforgiving book. Did you remember every detail from the last two novels? No - better go back and take some notes! It is epic sci-fi. Boun…
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Welcome to 97-hour weeks. Welcome to life and death decisions. Welcome to a constant tsunami of bodily fluids. Welcome to earning less than the hospital parking meter. Wave goodbye to your friends and relationships... Welcome to the life of a junior doctor. I saw Kay perform his delightfully disgusting parody songs on the Amateur Transplants tour way back in 2008. The humour in this book is m…
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Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the film’s release, this is the definitive story of the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey, acclaimed today as one of the greatest films ever made, including the inside account of how director Stanley Kubrick and writer Arthur C. Clarke created this cinematic masterpiece. This is the ultimate "DVD Extra" of a book. Every single detail of the genesis and r…
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Exploring issues from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, Reni Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge and counter racism. It is a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary exploration of what it is to be a person of colour in Britain today. …
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With over twenty years of research, Esslinger, author of Alcatraz: Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years, has salvaged and compiled an extraordinary collection of inmates' letters, many never before published. A grim and uncompromising read. Page after page of letters written by barely-literate violent offenders. Each trapped on Alcatraz, each pleading with someone for a little mercy,…
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A gripping literary thriller set in post-tsunami Japan, where a missing child continues to haunt his parents long after the waves have receded. The secrets will out... My Twitter pal Zelda has written a curious - and troubling - novel. If you could use a natural disaster to escape the confines of your marriage, would you? The book drifts in and out of fantasy and reality. I can't comment on …
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The Merchant Princes is a science fictional examination of parallel universes whose societies exist at different points of development, as one woman from “normal” Earth discovers her true bloodline and the ability to walk between these worlds: I met Stross in a crypt in London several years ago. He was unknown to me as an author, so I brashly asked him what he'd written. He politely told me "qu…
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Fire gave us power. Farming made us hungry for more. Money gave us purpose. Science made us deadly. This is the thrilling account of our extraordinary history – from insignificant apes to rulers of the world. Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it: us. Where did we come from? How did we get here? Where are we going? …
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When a recklessly idealistic girl in a dystopian future society dares to test the perimeters of her tightly controlled world, she is punished by being sent back in time to a region of North America Wainscotia, Wisconsin’ that existed eighty years before. Cast adrift in time in this idyllic Midwestern town, she is set upon a course of rehabilitation. I have mixed feelings about this book. It f…
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In 1967, four female scientists worked together to build the world’s first time machine. But just as they are about to debut their creation, one of them suffers a breakdown, putting the whole project—and future of time travel—in jeopardy. To protect their invention, one member is exiled from the team—erasing her contributions from history. What a delight! This is a classic murder-mystery wrapp…
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This New York Times bestseller about the 1MDB scandal exposes how a "modern Gatsby" swindled over $5 billion with the aid of Goldman Sachs in "the heist of the century. This book is unbelievable. I have no doubt it all happened - but each page left me agog at the audacity of the characters. This is the story of how billions of dollars were embezzled from Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund. …
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