In his characteristically iconoclastic & original way, Stephen Jay Gould argues that progress & increasing complexity are not inevitable features of the evolution of life on Earth. Further, if we wish to see grandeur in life, we must discard our selfish & anthropocentric view of evolution & learn to see it as Darwin did, as the random but unfathomably rich source of 'endless forms most beautiful & wonderful'. Any rational view of nature tells us that we are a simple branch on an immense bush; & that life on Earth is remarkable not for where it is leading, but for the fullness & constancy of its variety, ingenuity & diversity. ...

This marvellous book is one of the most ingenious works of modern fiction, an entire microcosm brought to life in a Paris apartment block. Serge Valène wants to create an elaborate painting of the building he has made his home for the last sixty years. As he plans his picture, he contemplates the lives of all the people he has ever known there. Chapter by chapter, the narrative moves around the building revealing a marvellously diverse cast of characters in a series of ever more unlikely tales, which range from an avenging murderer to an eccentric English millionaire who has devised the ultimate pastime ...

Today, genes are called upon to explain almost every aspect of our lives, from social inequalities to health, sexual preference, political orientation & criminality. In this incisive & original account, Steven Rose confronts the fashionable ideology of ultra-Darwinism, which reduces humans to little more than machines for the replication of DNA. Whilst recognising the importance of genes & natural selection, Professor Rose argues that the trajectory of life (lifeline) depends on the complex interactions that occur within cells, organisms & ecosystems through time & space. By placing the organism rather than the gene at the centre of life, he offers a bold new perspective on biology that acknowledges the essentially complex nature of life. ...

An elderly Pole sits in a cafe in Krakow. At another table a young man with a ravaged face is drinking wine & reading Werner Heisenberg's Physics & Philosophy. They begin to talk. All through the night as they go from bar to bar the young man tells the story of the great love of his life, of how in the midst of their rapture the woman inexplicably disappeared, & of how he is now driving across Europe in a desperate attempt to find her. After they part in the pre-dawn light the old man returns to his rooms & finds himself beset by questions. Why can he not forget this young man? Who was the woman he was with & why did she leave him? These questions lead him back through his own life, from pre- & post-war Pol&, to his membership of the Communist Party & his own life-altering love affair with a woman he met in Berlin & then ran away with to the sand dunes of the Baltic coast until she, too, left him without explanation. Through the years that followed he wandered the world trying to escape from the memory of her. Now, back in a small town in Pol&, he begins to assemble stories both from his own past & that of the young man & the woman he loved & lost until he finds himself on an unexpected quest. Light traverses Europe & parts of America, the history of physics & political changes in Central Europe. It is about love & ruin, East & West, friendship & betrayal, the search for certainty & the consequent disillusionment. It is, too, about the making of stories & how they can lead, inadvertently, to revelation. ...

A man goes on a journey in search of love & returns to his village carrying death, in the form of a plague-ridden rabbit. The village is ravaged by sickness &, when the dead have been buried, the only survivors are three men, three women, a pig, a few cows, goats & countless rabbits. But no one is left who knows anymore how things are supposed to be ...

A man goes on a journey in search of love & returns to his village carrying death, in the form of a plague-ridden rabbit. The village is ravaged by sickness &, when the dead have been buried, the only survivors are three men, three women, a pig, a few cows, goats & countless rabbits. But no one is left who knows anymore how things are supposed to be ...

Evacuated from Blitz-battered London, shy & genteel Elizabeth White is sent to stay with the boisterous O' Connors in Kilgarret, Irel&. It is the beginning of an unshakeable bond between Elizabeth & Aisling O' Connor, a friendship which will endure through twenty turbulent years of change & chaos, joy & sorrow, soaring dreams & searing betrayals ...

Evacuated form blitz-battered London, genteel Elizabeth White is sent to stay with the boisterous Irish O' Connors. It is the beginning of an unshakeable bond between Elizabeth & Aisling O' Connor which will survive twenty turbulent years. Writing with warmth, wit & great compassion, Maeve Binchy tells a magnificent story of the lives & loves of two women, bound together in friendship ...