REVIEW, 16 SEPTEMBER 2005

The vanishing point, book review by Ian Hacking, of The 21st-Century Brain: Explaining, Mending and Manipulating the Mind, by Steven Rose, Cape, 344 pp, in the 16 September 2005 edition.
A look at what consciousness is, and how it might be what you and I are, how being aware of our surroundings and our thoughts and feelings makes us who we are. Diseases such as Alzheimer's alters our perception, though, and it's feared more than cancer. Alzheimer's disease not only causes suffers to be forgetful, it also alters their behaviour as well. Do we fear losing control of our consciousness, so that we can't do anything about what we do?

http://afr.com/articles/2005/09/15/1126750071952.html

Roll Up! The academy is in town, by Michael Dirda of On Beauty, by Zadie Smith, Penguin, 446 pp, in the 16 September 2005 edition.
Yet another novel about the trials of academia, on the academic's relations with his wife, family and work colleagues. Balanced for it though is the fact that it's written by Zadie Smith and it's up for the Book Prize.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/09/AR2005090900654.html

Travelling north: the exotic at home, by David Malouf, in the 16 September 2005 edition.
For a city boy, and a university boy to boot, travelling to the tropical climes of North Queensland was more than an experience, more than an education, it was a vision. A vision of a different world that existed in the same world he lived in. It is a vision he has carried all his life, but he is unable to capture it in words. All he has to do though to regain those feelings is to let the memories flood his mind.

http://afr.com/articles/2005/09/15/1126750072033.html

In search of Will, book review by John Sutherland of Shakespeare: the biography, Peter Ackroyd Chatto & Windus, 546pp, in the 16 September 2005 edition.
The problem about writing a biography ab
http://www.newstatesman.com/Bookshop/300000102780

Five minutes to midnight oil, book review by Mark Hertsgaard of Twilight In The Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, by Matthew R. Simmons, Wiley, 422 pp and The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, by James Howard Kunstler, Atlantic Monthly, 307 pp, in the 16 September 2005 edition.
You think petrol prices are high? Better get used to it. The earth is rapidly approaching a point called 'peak oil', where we will have used half of the entire reserves of oil on the planet. From there, oil will become costlier and costlier, and the lifestyle we know enjoy will soon spiral in costs. In addition, the longer we delay in developing and transferring to alternate energies, the harder and longer it will take.

http://afr.com/articles/2005/09/15/1126750072027.html

Poetry in motion, by Robert Pinsky, in the 16 September 2005 edition.
Poems can have stories. Not just the standard, beginning, middle and end kind of story, but also stories about feelings and emotions. Stories about what they are, how they feel and what they do.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/21/AR2005072101846.html

Can we fix the UN, or should we scrap it?, by Dan Plesh and Tariq Ali, in the 16 September 2005 edition.
The United Nations is at a crucial point of its existence. Despite its best efforts the UN has been unable to prevent genocide and mass murder, and it has been shaken by charges of corruption. States feel fit to bypass the UN for their own pursuits. Is the UN still relevant for the 21st-century, or should it be disbanded?

http://afr.com/articles/2005/09/15/1126750072021.html