āJust delicious, great celebrations of life. A tonic for a really bad-tempered person like me,ā says writer Jenny Diski of Stephen Jay Gouldās essays. Diski based one of her novels ā Monkeyās Uncle ā on an essay of Gouldās, she says. She has just bought I Have Landed (Vintage) and notes sadly that this is Gouldās final collection. In theory the book is for her holiday, but she says she wonāt be able to resist reading it that long.
Sheās just finished Wittgensteinās Poker: The story of a ten minute argument between two great philosophers by David Edmonds and John Eidinow (Faber, 2002). Itās āa clever hook and a witty summary [of] two opposing and irascible thinkersā: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper.
Time of Death by Jessica Snyder Sachs (Arrow) is Diskiās current read. Itās a review of forensic ecology, supposedly for research purposes (for a book rather than planning a murder) she says, but actually because āIām a ghoul.ā
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