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