Monthly Archives: December 2021

Books of the Year

One final look back before I turn to face 2022. Following a practice started last year, I have maintained a thread of tweet-sized reviews of the books that I read in 2021 – all of them. There are only eighteen in … Continue reading Continue reading

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My Reads of 2021

Yes, the time is coming up to the top of rapidly fast approaching when I list my favourite reads of the past year.  I’m amazed I’ve managed 54 books this year given that I have been very busy elsewhere. Going … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in ali smith, antisemitism, asimov, batman, bring up the bodies, children of dune, clarke, coraline, david baddiel, delia owens, dracula, dune, dune messiah, Erebus, frank herbert, frankenstein, golden age of SF, heinlein, hilary mantel, jekyll and hyde, jews don't count, kate atkinson, life after life, lost in math, matt haig, michael palin, my books of 2021, needful things, neil gaiman, peter rabbit, philip ball, sabine hossenfelder, star wars, stephen king, struwwelpeter, terror, the accidental, the big bang theory, the midnight library, the mirror and the light, the modern myths, thomas cromwell, where the crawdads sing, wolf hall | Comments Off on My Reads of 2021

Photographs of 2021

Continuing the theme of gently exercising the writing muscle by composing posts made mostly of pictures, I present here the round-up of what I think are the best photographs that I took in the past year. 2021 has been a … Continue reading Continue reading

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In the garden

What is it about living through a pandemic that has quelled the motivation to write? I suspect is may have something to do with the unstructuring of time, or rather its reduction through confinement to rhythms that bore through repetition. … Continue reading Continue reading

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PR

First, I’d like to wish you (both) a happy holiday. Second, I’d like to share with you my recent experiences promoting my latest book. My agent advised spending a chunk of advance on hiring a PR company for the US … Continue reading Continue reading

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In which pandemic storm clouds gather – again

A number of months have slipped past since I last wrote here, two seasons under the bridge as my ramped-up academic life has consumed most of my free time. Then, it was the height of optimistic summer; now, the year … Continue reading Continue reading

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Self Confidence Amidst a Pandemic

I am sure readers share my gloom at the necessity of re-introducing tighter restrictions in our lives as Omicron spreads. It’s almost two years since the virus first swam into public view in the UK, twenty-one months since academics rapidly … Continue reading Continue reading

Posted in Communicating Science, ECRs, Omicron, Science Culture, seminars, webinars, Zoom | Comments Off on Self Confidence Amidst a Pandemic

Level Up and Multiply

As we await the delayed Levelling Up White paper, to my mind it is encouraging that Michael Gove (Secretary of State for Levelling up, Housing and Communities) is drawing together a cabinet committee to focus on these matters, drawing membership … Continue reading Continue reading

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