Two smart people with the same goal: to tell you about space, the universe, the cosmos in roughly 100 pages. They both use the same gambit in their titles. Dr Smethurst’s 14 billion years for people short on time and Mr Tyson’s for Young People in a Hurry. And they both cover a lot of …
Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco
I read this in a day. I couldn’t stop reading. It starts slowly, with Jacinta - the American-born daughter of undocumented Mexican immigrants living in Colorado – wanting a mentor so she can be part of the white world, the ‘barrio blanco’ of the title. She wants to take gym lessons, learn French, go to …
The Wolf Wilder
My copy of this children’s story comes with three pages of fulsome praise from writers as accomplished as Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson, and publications as noted as the Spectator, the New Statesman and the Sunday Times. They must have seen something I didn’t. To me, this reads as though it were made up as …
The Memory of All That
In a long and busy career, Bryan Forbes (1926 – 2013) wrote novels and films, acted in television and films, directed films and, for a time, ran the film production unit at EMI. It’s safe bet to say he knew his subject. So it’s a little sad to say that this story of a struggling …
