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A book by a Turkish author makes me think about national identity.

The first rock album I bought was Bowie’s Station to Station. It’s taken me nearly 50 years to appreciate it.

A three volume history of the wars, politics and intrigues of the Byzantine Empire.

I was born in 1960 and so was 17 when Richard Hell and the Voidoids released ‘Blank Generation’. The title of this post is a play on the title of the song. It wasn’t a huge hit when it first came out and it hasn’t particularly stood the test of time, so I imagine you’d have to be about the same age as me to recognise my wordplay – and quite likely not even then. All generations have stuff that only they can relate to and the memory of which will die out when they do. I suspect Mr Hell’s oeuvre will fall into that category.

Lessons in Chemistry is a well-paced and light-hearted book which is well worth a read.

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences is one of those pieces of writing whose title really sums up the whole thing – basically it does what it says on the tin.  It started life as a lecture and was subsequently published in the mathematical literature in 1960.  It is about something that a lot of people have noticed.  It is really quite surprising how often a mathematical idea developed for a particular purpose, or for no other purpose than simple pleasure in the exercise of the mind, turns out to be a useful tool later for something completely different.