Warped Passages by Lisa Randall

So you understand 3-dimensions – up and down, side to side, in and out. Now add in time as a fourth dimension. That’s what you need to understand Einstein. He showed that these dimensions, including time itself, can be stretched. Now Lisa Randall, one of the world’s top Physics professors, has done research that shows that the maths that describes our universe works better in many more dimensions. String Theory seems to need an 11-dimensional universe. Lisa Randall’s own theory has us on a 4-dimensional membrane surrounded by a fifth dimension in which gravity can operate. It all sounds like Science Fiction but the theory predicts the existence of particles that might appear soon in the CERN experiment in Geneva. Lisa Randall is a great writer who explains difficult ideas with great clarity. She uses stories and allegories to get the ideas across. Don’t expect to understand it all at once but do let your mind be opened to the cutting edge of theoretical research in Physics.

A Month in the Country by J L Carr

At only just over 100 pages long, this novel is really an extended short story. It is set just after the First World War and is about an ex-soldier who was wounded in the war. As part of his recovery process, he is employed to travel to a village in the Yorkshire countryside. His job is to chip away at the walls of the church to find a hidden Medieval painting. In a way, this is a metaphor for him peeling away the layers of mess in his life to find his old self. I loved the book. It is about redemption and so is uplifting, but at the same time there is a sort of nostalgic melancholy feel that has a part in English culture. I love both aspects.