Tag: book review

The Fruit Cure
Jacqueline Alnes (Melville House Publishing)

WHEN Jacqueline Alnes was 18, and in her first year at a US college, she was a talented athlete and runner. Two years later, she was using a wheelchair and largely confined to her house following the onset of a debilitating illness.

After collapsing on the running track, Alnes started regularly losing control of her limbs: her vision would swim, her head loll and then she would keel over. Successive doctors found no obvious cause for…

Fluke
Brian Klaas (John Murray (UK) Scribner (US))

IN HIS 1987 bestseller Chaos: Making a new science, James Gleick introduced chaos theory to the public. Basically, it is the study of nonlinear events and how minuscule actions can cause far-reaching disruption. Or, as actor Jeff Goldblum explained in Jurassic Park: “It simply deals with unpredictability in complex systems.”

Brian Klaas, an associate professor in global politics at University College London, is all too aware of the unpredictability of modern life:…

Reason to be Happy
Kaushik Basu (Torva)

I NEED to admit something: at times, I am an angry man.

Perhaps “angry” isn’t the right word – “frustrated” is closer. The sluggishness and inefficiencies of others can spark frustration whether I am at airport security, in the supermarket or on the road. That emotion manifests as a roll of the eye or a rueful comment to myself as I wonder why people make the decisions they do, and I get frustrated when their inefficiencies affect me.…