Review


Cover the book Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sachs

Uncle Tungsten – Oliver Sachs

The story of the chemical fascination of a young boy growing up in London in the 1930s in a large Jewish family flickers in and out between biography and a history of chemistry itself. As a precocious child, Oliver Sachs, under the guidance of the title’s Uncle Tungsten, a lightbulb […]


Terror and Dream – Moscow, 1937

Moscow, 1937 by Karl SchlögelMy rating: 5 of 5 stars The original title, Terror und Traum (Terror and Dream), really summarises the book perfectly. Schlögel paints a wide tapestry over Moscow and the Soviet Union at a time when it had emerged from the civil war and the future looked […]


You Look Like a Thing and I Love You

You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It’s Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane My rating: 4 of 5 stars A very entertaining introduction to what artificial intelligence does and what it doesn’t. Full of hilarious examples of AI […]


A Rover-ful of Science

I just finished reading Emily Lakdawalla‘s “The Design and Engineering of Curiosity: How the Mars Rover Performs Its Job“. It’s a remarkable book, even though it’s not quite the book that I expected. The first few chapters describes the general design and mission of the rover – how it came […]


A table full of tales

If you’re going to write a book from a collection of anecdotes it helps having a hook to anchor the stories to. And what better hook than the periodic table of elements? I just finished Lars Öhrström’s “The Last Alchemist in Paris: And other curious tales from chemistry” the latest in a […]