How close did Hitler come to an Atomic Bomb?
The disturbing answer is “a lot closer than you might think.” The received story of German nuclear development in World War II goes something like this. Hitler and the Nazis…
Book Reviews
Was Charles Ponzi’s scheme a “Ponzi fraud”?
Mention the subject of financial fraud – especially pyramid schemes – and one name that springs to mind immediately is Charles Ponzi. He has given his name to the kind…
Was John Maynard Keynes really the Warren Buffet of his day?
A recently published paper by David Chambers, Elroy Dimson and Justin Foo of Cambridge University examines the investment record of eminent economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes…
Double crossing the Nazis
Most people interested in the Second World War know of the Double Cross organisation – the brilliant initiative by British Intelligence in which all the German spies who…
Perfume: the story of a murderer
Perfume is one of those books that stands almost completely alone in literature. Perhaps Crime and Punishment or American Psycho might be found on the same shelf but even they…
Three essential ingredients of a story
Every story must have its own DNA Everything that happens in the narrative – every incident, every character, every plot twist, every reversal, every surprise – must…
Illuminatus! Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
In 1969, Robert Shea and Robert Wilson were working as associate editors for Playboy magazine. Part of their job was to deal with letters from the public on the subject of civil…
The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins
The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life by Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins is a scientist. Or rather, he was a scientist 40 years ago when, as a postgraduate…
Fata Morgana by William Kotzwinkle
William Kotzwinkle must be the most idiosyncratic (some might say the weirdest) writer active today. One of his books, for example, is “The Bear who went over the mountain”, a…
Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham
Until it was re-published recently, Nightmare Alley was all but forgotten, its story better known as a famous film noir of 1946 starring Tyrone Power in the role of Stanton…