There was a sound of something spreading as an area of seven flagstones became hidden from view beneath a catalyptic mass of wine-drenched blubber.
This is the phrase that really sticks in my head from tge bbc radio adaptation of Gormenghast in the early 80s, with Sting as Steerpike, that made me realise the descriptive power of language .
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”
― Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
― Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
“There was a sound of something spreading as an area of seven flagstones became hidden from view beneath a catalyptic mass of wine-drenched blubber.”
― The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy
― The Illustrated Gormenghast Trilogy
“it was widely known that the gene-carrying chromosomes within cells contained DNA, but most biologists thought that DNA was too simple and boring a molecule to be responsible for such a complex phenomenon as heredity.”
― What is Life?: Understand Biology In Five Steps
― What is Life?: Understand Biology In Five Steps
“Taiwan complained that in late December 2019 it had given important clues about human-to-human transmission to the World Health Organization – but as late as mid-January, the WHO was reassuringly tweeting that China had found no evidence of human-to-human transmission. (Taiwan is not a member of the WHO, because China claims sovereignty over the territory and demands that it should not be treated as an independent state. It’s possible that this geopolitical obstacle led to the alleged delay.)8”
― How to Make the World Add Up : Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers
― How to Make the World Add Up : Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers
Andrew’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Andrew’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Art, Classics, Cookbooks, Fiction, Graphic novels, Music, Non-fiction, Science, Science fiction, and Humanism
Polls voted on by Andrew
Lists liked by Andrew




























