
Why read a book (let alone write one)?
It’s not new to ponder the demise of reading and the printed page, to note that reading has become exotic – that the printed page is going the way of woodblock prints. It’s certainly not new to bemoan the demise of literary writing and the state of publishing, the relegation of challenging long-form fiction and...

Reading and righting
Ben Ambridge’s Psy-Q is a mind-bending miscellany of psychometric puzzles, quizzes, jokes and visual illusions that help us to understand and appreciate the workings – and occasional failings – of the human brain. Topics include whether eye colour denotes trustworthiness, if Rorschach’s famous inkblot tests really work, what your musical preferences say about you, how psychology...