Doug Beattie’s fine “An Ordinary Soldier”
A little late, I know, I picked this book up whilst hanging around to see a movie. It might have been The Hurt Locker or The Ghost, and either is relevant. Read more...
On books.
RDN on books, fiction and non-fiction, old and new. I have often also reviewed at the Social Affairs Unit website.Page 6
Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Discipline
Drawing on one aspect of Stewart Brand’s new Whole Earth Discipline, this is a rather dense (mercifully short) note about the weakness of most discussion about the merits of action on climate change. Read more...
Casting around in “Fishing In Utopia”
Note: If this were a review, it could have been much shorter and just said: “Buy this book. It’s lovely, sharp and beguiling”. I wanted to write something which drew on the experiences Andrew Brown and I shared, not least but not only at the Independent in the late 1980s. I also wanted to touch on the whole business of memoir- and nature-writing. Read more...
Climate Change (AGW): Let’s take it seriously
Most of the books on global warming science and policy are pretty muddled, hysterical or dreamy by turns. Very few have real quality. Mike Hulme's book, Why We Disagree About Climate Change seems to be in a different class. Read more...
My new book: “Mr Cameron’s Makeover Politics”
Buy Mr Cameron's Makeover Politics: Why old Tory stories matter to us all now at Amazon.
My new book argues that the Cameroons are being a bit timid in ignoring the great Tory back stories which have done the party - and the country - proud in the past. Read more...
RDN on Plimer, Paltridge, Monbiot and climate change
The latest climate change row concerns a book by the "denier", Ian Plimer (an Australian geologist) and its most public critic, climate "alarmist", George Monbiot (of the Guardian). George seems to be winning hands-down at the moment. It happens that another Australian, Garth Paltridge, has also produced a climate change book, and it is sceptical rather than refusenik. I hope my review of the books, below, shows how they are both bad. Read more...