Having your children make their own teacher gifts would pay for the cost of the book, and would also be a lovely way to encourage them to participate and take pleasure in gift giving in a way that just doesn’t happen with bought gifts. Come to think of it, there’s no reason why your children couldn’t make their own holiday and birthday presents either, as well as cooking up their own parties.
Category: Non fiction reviews
A review of Brain Cuttings by Carl Zimmer
Zimmer conducts us through a world that possesses many of the qualities of fantasy. For example, we keep track of time, more or less through the medium spiny neurons eavesdropping on the cortex. This could easily be the subject of a ballet by Merce Cunningham and John Cage.
A review of The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow
If Hawking and Mlodinow are proved to be utterly wrong within the next decade, then I’m sure that, being the consummate scientists that they are, they will thrill to the answer and accede to those that will have used their theories to step up to the next level. In the meantime, I’m all for cracking the champers and toasting the multiverse. There’s so much more to love.
A review of Speaking Volumes conversations with remarkable writers by Ramona Koval
Always Koval begins the process by establishing a sense of safety and trust in the author which leads to a tremendous intimacy and honesty on the part of the interviewee. Every interview is a pleasure, full of insight and wisdom. This is a delightful book that bridges the gap between author and reader.
A review of How to Turn Your Book Club Into A Spectacular Event by Mayra Calvani
Although How to Turn our Book Club Into a Spectacular Event is targeted to young adults, there’s no reason your social nine or ten year old couldn’t use it, to create a club for younger readers. It’s a good excuse for a little regular party after all, and as long as your child is reading on par with his or her friends, a chance to work through jointly read books in a fun, structured manner has got to be one of the best learning experiences you’ll ever find.
A review of Here on Earth: An Argument for Hope by Tim Flannery
It would be tempting to look around at the extreme and growing polarities, and persistent poverty so evident in the world today, and shrug. Flannery doesn’t do that, and in fact quite clearly eshews such negative “self-fulfilling prophecies”. Instead he offers a range of solutions from electric vehicles, smart grids, and satellite surveillance of environmental trangressions, along with the suggestion that the ultimate answer lies in governments being willing to cede power for the common good.
A review of Listen to This by Alex Ross
His piece on Björk has the advantage of the concrete and the seeable. There are mysteries here but they are the mysteries of the tangible, the creative mind grappling with and solving problems. It is a stark contrast with the murkiness of his piece on Schubert.
A review of New Kinds of Smart: How the Science of Learnable Intelligence is Changing Education by Bill Lucas and Guy Claxton
The discussions of meta-cognition and self-efficacy were interesting, and also the notion of ‘communities of practice’: if you ignite fervour for learning and it ceases to be simply ‘being taught’, then you’re on a roll.
A review of The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction By Dean Young
Throughout, there’s a lot of luminous polemic, a slue of terrific poems (Man Ray’s ‘Untitled’ was a new one on me), a bevy of insights about art and poetry. If you are looking for a classy thought-provoking rant, if you want something to stir and shake you up and perhaps inspire you to start writing poems (if you don’t already) then The Art of Recklessness is prescribed.
A review of Reading Modernist Poetry by Michael H. Whitworth
Although the price is rather steep, even for a textbook, this isn’t a book you can just read through, put back on the shelf and forget. For those that want an insight, both as reader, and perhaps more valuably, as writer, into the techniques of poetry in general, and those specific to the giants of poetry that make up the ultra-influential modernist movement, this is a book that can be returned to regularly. It is well structured, well researched, clearly written, and full of innovative insights.