Notes from Ceylon

I normally enjoy the work of Umberto Eco. A professor as well as a novelist, he all but invented the field of semiology, the study of the me...

The Order of Time Carlo Rovelli A strange, slim, captivating volume. Its scope is wide-ranging, the writing dense in terms of content and re...

She H. Rider Haggard A lowbrow classic,   She  is a book for schoolboys of all ages from twelve to... well, two thousand, I suppose. I can’t...

The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges  A literary bestiary. The Classical monsters, from Kronos to the satyrs, are well represen...

How to Deal With Idiots (and  Stop Being One Yourself) by Maxime Rovère trans. David Bellos All writers struggle with the limitations of lan...

The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester Another of those classics of science fiction (like  this one ) that I should have read when I was a teen...

For what the Protection of Absolute Monarchy is, what kind of Fathers of  their Countries it makes Princes to be, and to what   a degree of ...