Voyage in the Malay Archipelago and the discovery of evolution by Wallace and Darwin.
Book review: ‘Dispelling the Darkness’ by John van Wyhe
Writing
All of my articles, reviews, notebook entries, and newsletters gathered in one place.
Book review: ‘Victorians Undone’ by Kathryn Hughes
Tales of the flesh in the age of decorum.
Newsletter No. 13: Bramblings!
bramblings · wheatears · Mary Beard · Beaker folk · Meera Sodha · recipes · John Tyndall · Eunice Foote · religion · Ben Myers · Austin Kleon · Walter Benjamin · giant sloths · Shetland · Neil Ansell · Charles Darwin
Book review: ‘In Patagonia’ by Bruce Chatwin
Wandering about Patagonia with no clear plan in mind.
Book review: ‘Heligoliand’ by Jan Rüger
Britain, Germany, and the struggle for the North Sea.
Book review: ‘The Ascent of John Tyndall’ by Roland Jackson
A long-overdue biography of the Victorian scientist, mountaineer, and public intellectual.
Book reviews: ‘Charles Darwin: Voyaging’ • ‘Charles Darwin: The Power of Place’
A magnificent two-volume biography.
Newsletter No. 12: Unspeakable things beneath the shrubs
Mark E Smith · Alan Bennett · Carl Linnaeus · Ronald Blythe · human evolution · flu epidemics · Great Exhibition of the North · Charles Darwin · insects · introverts · Virginia Woolf · John Tyndall
Book review: ‘The Last Wilderness’ by Neil Ansell
A journey into silence.
Book review: ‘Ravilious & Co.’ by Andy Friend
The Pattern of Friendship.