{"id":3301,"date":"2015-03-27T09:00:55","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T09:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/?p=3301"},"modified":"2015-03-27T15:09:39","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T15:09:39","slug":"in-which-charles-fernyhough-comes-to-fiction-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2015\/03\/27\/in-which-charles-fernyhough-comes-to-fiction-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"In which Charles Fernyhough comes to Fiction Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the great things about being the LabLit Guru™<\/a> is that I am constantly receiving interesting books to look over.<\/p>\n

\"Stack<\/a>
\nA stack of lab lit, yesterday<\/i> – plus an intriguing hanger-on<\/a> there at the bottom<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the not-so-great things is that (A) I am always desperately behind on my reading, and (B) it doesn’t leave me time to read anything else except novels with scientists in them. (I think the last non-science-y novel I read was Gone Girl<\/em> back on summer holiday two years ago.) <\/p>\n

Still, there’s nothing that makes me happier than a stack of books. And I’d like to direct your attention to the third-from-top volume: A Box of Birds by Charles Fernyhough<\/a>. I am delighted that Charles has agreed to be our guest at the next Fiction Lab<\/a> – my monthly lab lit book group at London’s Royal Institution.<\/p>\n

Charles is a brilliant writer and a fascinating person<\/a>. I first met him a few years back when I was researching my third novel and wanted to understand a little bit about what it ‘sounds’ like when people experience auditory hallucinations. This being London, you can find an expert on absolutely anything within just a few city blocks, and so it was that we ended up in a coffee shop in Farringdon talking about all sorts. Charles is a Professor of Psychology at Durham University, a novelist, a popular science writer, a broadcaster and a whole host of other things too. To whit, I picked up my copy of the novel from him last month at the Wellcome Trust Collection, where he is (enviably) part of the first group of Residents in the Hub<\/a>. <\/p>\n

I enjoyed his first (non-lab lit) novel The Auctioneer<\/a> immensely, and am still haunted by some of its images. So the prospect of reading his latest is exciting – because I can already tell it’s hard-core lab lit from the opening paragraph:<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>

An opening line of beauty<\/p><\/div>\n

As intrigued as I am? Then do read the book and come along to meet Charles and discuss Box of Birds on 13 April at 7 PM<\/a>. It’s free, and all are welcome. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the great things about being the LabLit Guru™ is that I am constantly receiving interesting books to look over. A stack of lab lit, yesterday – plus an intriguing hanger-on there at the bottom One of the not-so-great … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lablit","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}