I picked up a copy of Bad Advice by Paul Offit a few months ago but have only now started to give it a proper read. Offit is a paediatrician and vaccine specialist, but the focus of this book is to discuss the importance of science and science communication. Offit is...
Covid in the UK hasn’t been quite as polarised as Brexit or the political landscape of the United States. But it is polarised enough. At one extreme are the zero-Covid advocates; at the other, the lockdown sceptics. Who is right? Some lockdown sceptics have advanced a...
I am a sucker for Alex Bellos books - they're just such fun, full of unexpected ideas and charmingly written. (My very favourite is Alex's Adventures in Numberland (in the US, titled Here's Looking at Euclid).) His latest offering is The Language Lover's Puzzle Book,...
A confession: I’ve been feeling rather down of late. I am well aware that I’m not the only one. It is 2020, after all. This is a year that is finally delivering on the dystopian promises of late-20th-century science fiction. And I should be clear that by “rather down”...
Not for the first time, I picked up Of Dice & Men: The Story of Dungeons and Dragons and the People Who Play it by David Ewalt. I've been researching the history of role-playing games and found Ewalt's book a useful complement to Jon Peterson's 720 page brick,...
The headlines tell the story. “Thousands in Madrid to lock down”, “New Covid-19 rules for more parts of North and Midlands”, “Can a ‘circuit break’ halt the second Covid wave?”, “‘Voluntary lockdown’ plea to university’s students” and “Further Covid-19 measures...
The 99% Invisible City by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt. A beautifully-illustrated guide to the miscellanea of our everyday surroundings. Roman and Kurt have produced a cornucopia of miniature essays on topics ranging from the slip-base (an elegant piece of design...
How far can common sense take us in the field of statistics? At first glance, not very. The discipline may be vital but it is also highly technical, and full of pitfalls and counterintuitions. Statistics can feel like numerical alchemy, incomprehensible to muggles —...
Annie Duke, How To Decide. A workbook that talks through all the essentials of decision theory & behavioural science - the outside view vs the inside view; analysis paralysis, pre-mortems, "resulting" - while offering exercises & and self-tests. This is a book...