Icon News & Events
‘Grandin tells this exotic tale in a fluent and entertaining fashion’
Posted on 2011/02/25 in General, tagged as
BBC History magazine’s review of Greg Grandin’s Fordlandia – published in paperback in October last year – has just appeared on their website. As the reviewer notes, the book is something of a fable as well as history – ‘the failings of Fordlandia pale in comparison with the current despoliation of the Amazon and its people.’ Read the full review here.
Libraries Gave Us Power
Posted on 2011/02/22 in General, tagged as
Show your support for libraries against the government’s swingeing cuts by helping get the Manic Street Preachers song A Design for Life (of which the first line is ‘Libraries Gave Us Power’) to number one. This follows Manics’ bassist Nicky Wire’s recent piece in the Guardian on the whole sorry debacle. Here’s the Facebook group so get on it!
Jilted Generation authors interviewed at Birmingham Library
Posted on 2011/02/21 in General, tagged as
Ed Howker and Shiv Malik – authors of Jilted Generation: How Britain Has Bankrupted Its Youth – are interviewed here by Social Breakfast at their recent event at Birmingham Library: And on a related note, it’s interesting to see how far the phrase ‘jilted generation’ has become lingra franca to describe today’s younger and troubled people – here’s a piece on the Brit Awards last week in the Belfast Telegraph which describes Plan B’s music as ‘Wes… Read more »
Jilted Generation publicity nominated for PPC award
Posted on 2011/02/18 in General, tagged as
Icon Books Publicity Director, Najma Finlay, was nominated for a PPC (Publishers Publicity Circle) award for her work on promoting Jilted Generation, Ed Howker and Shiv Malik’s book on how those born after 1979 have suffered from the wake of the baby boomers. She was nominated for the Foyles Award for Paperback Original Non-Fiction. Jilted Generation author Shiv Malik recently appeared on Al Jazeera talking about the jilted generation.
‘The gendering of children, (“the pernicious pinkification of little girls”) affects every aspect of their lives. An ironic book with a serious message, it points out that adults also obey this rigid code.’
Posted on 2011/02/18 in General, tagged as
Delusions of Gender is reviewed in the Independent today – you can read the full piece here. Cordelia Fine, the author, has also recently campaigned to have the word ‘neurosexism’ entered into had the The Macquarie Dictionary, ‘Australia’s National Online Dictionary’. You can read about this here.
Common sense?
Posted on 2011/02/16 in General, tagged as
John Farndon, author of The World’s Greatest Idea, writes for Soapbox, Nature magazine’s science blog, on how certain ideas come to assume the mantle of common sense knowledge. Read his full piece here and read here about about John Farndon’s appearance at the Brighton Science Festival on Saturday 5th March.
When is it acceptable to discriminate against evolution sceptics?
Posted on 2011/02/16 in General, tagged as
God’s Philosophers author James Hannam provokes the inevitable full and frank exchange of views on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site today with this article about the merits or otherwise of employing scientists who don’t neccesserily believe in evolution. Read the full piece and wade in here…
‘There’s more to it than sugar and spice or slugs and snails’
Posted on 2011/02/14 in General, tagged as
The paperback edition of Delusions of Gender, published earlier this month, is reviewed by the Independent on Sunday. ‘Dense with research, and backed up by extensive footnotes (which are, slightly annoyingly, all at the back), it debunks bad science and shows how gender stereotypes and gender behaviour are mutually reinforcing to an alarming degree. Girls do measurably worse in maths tests, for example, when they are told that boys do better. Th… Read more »
‘Will the new US-Russian arms treaty blunt the nuclear threat?’
Posted on 2011/02/11 in General, tagged as
Dead Hand author David Hoffman writes in the Independent today about why it’ll take much more than a treaty to end the atomic age. Here’s the full piece.
David Hoffman at the University of Birmingham – video
Posted on 2011/02/11 in General, tagged as
Here’s David Hoffman – author of The Dead Hand – giving the Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Lecture at the University of Birmingham earlier this week:
