The Radleys by Matt Haig
17 Orchard Lane, in Bishopthorpe is a quiet, residential spot. Home to the respectable types; doctors and architects. You know that sort of *respectable* English street. But one of the families...
29 August 2011
Rise of the planet of the apes dir. by Rupert Wyatt
Okay, so we all know what is going to happen in this film. Don’t we? I mean, we all have heard of Planet of the Apes and pretty much every one,...
28 August 2011
Wolf by Gillian Cross
Cassy lives with her grandmother. Her practical, sensible, responsible grandmother. Her mother is a dreamer, unable to look after herself let alone her daughter. And her father, well, no one ever...
21 August 2011
Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
The sequel to Leviathan No recapping on account of this being the second in a series, and if you haven’t read Leviathan then you’ll be spoiled, and I wouldn’t want to...
21 August 2011
Heartless by Gail Carriger
An Alexia Tarabotti novel, The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Fourth The first book in this series introduced us to our heroine, Alexia Tarabotti, and in some ways the very first line...
19 August 2011
The lost art of reading by David L. Ulin
It is strange, I’ve often come across media stories on the “decline” of reading as a result of modern technology. Social networks, texting, these sort of things are bringing about the...
16 August 2011
Captain America : The First Avenger dir. by Joe Johnston
Too short, too unfit, too ill for military service, all Steve Rogers wants is to join up and serve his country in fighting the Nazis. He has been picked on all his life, but refuses to back down, once you start running, he believes, you’ll never stop. When Dr. Abraham Erskine discovers this desire he begins to pull strings and gets Rogers into the army, into a special, experiemental unit, to be precise. Soon Rogers is no longer too small, or too unfit, he is in fact a super-soldier. Although what can one man do? Well, propaganda. He is sent off touring the states in an effort to try and persuade the public to buy war bonds. And then, on to Europe to entertain the troops. But they aren’t interested in his performance, they want to see the girls. Rogers, however, is very interested in the news that this is the 107th, the very same unit his best friend joined, but of Bucky there is no sign. Rogers decides that he has had enough of Captain America the stage hero and decides to go in and rescue the missing soldiers.
But you don’t really need that back story do you? I mean, we’ve all heard of Captain America, the superhero who fought the Nazis, right?
14 August 2011
The moral animal by Robert Wright
What does the theory of evolution have to do with morals? Can it explain why we feel guilt or love? Or why men cheat?
Evolutionary psychology is an attempt to use evolution to explain why people are the way they are. The theory posits that the many many cultures have many items in common, these commanalities cannot be explained by conicidence alone, there must be some reason that humankind has developed these cultural norms. Wright, and other evolutionary psychologists would argue that as human beings evolved certain psychological traits were more conducive to an increase in descendents and therefore became the norm.
9 August 2011
Flashback by Dan Simmons
It is the year 2036 and the world is in ruins. The United States of America, in particular, is one of those once-great countries that have fallen off the rails. Their...
3 August 2011
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