Prose and Passion

Sometimes reading a new word or phrase opens a whole new perspective on problems that we may already have known about in a less focused way....

I quite enjoyed learning about all the alumnae of Marie Curie's lab by reading: The elements of Marie Curie Dava Sobel Fourth Estate 2...

The Neues Rathaus (new townhall) of Elberfeld was new in 1900, when it was inaugurated by Kaiser Wilhelm II together with the famous suspen...

When I'm visiting flea markets in Germany, I sometimes see zithers, and have always passed them by. One day in September 2023, however, ...

Humans have been crossing the Mediterranean for millennia, even before the Phoenicians invented the ways and means to build proper ships. I ...

Some thoughts on The bookbinder of Jericho Pip Williams Vintage Paperback 2024 I loved Pip Williams's Dictionary of lost words ,...

Pirate Luthier update What happened in June? I haven't quite launched the big give-away I was planning , but the Freegle ad looki...

I used to get quite a few stories from Earthwatch Europe back in the noughties, when they sent expeditions to lots of places around the wor...

As an armchair explorer of life under extreme conditions, I always enjoy reading the accounts of people who dare to go to these dangerous pl...

Some thoughts on Dvorak in Love: A light-hearted dream Original title of the Czech edition: Scherzo capriccioso 1984 Josef Škvorecký I h...

Ten years ago, I looked into the story of the miners migrating from Fischbach (Nahe) to Markirch (Sainte Marie Aux Mines) and mentioned sev...

Today's issue of Current Biology contains a special theme section on fungi, with lots of fascinating fungal facts. My contribution is f...