One of the biggest events on the Edinburgh calendar is the
EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE
FESTIVAL happening from
SAT 3 — SAT 18 APRIL.
For more information, check out our special feature on page 106, or phone 0131 473 2070 for a free Festival programme. We have got together with the organisers of the Festival to give LIST readers the following special offers.
edinburgh international science festival
Each of the following three events at the Science Book Festival have 70 signed cepies of the relevant book to give away to the first 70 people to present a copy of THE LIST on the door at each event.
(note - NOT the Science Festival Box Office)* Each claimant will also receive a complimentary Penguin "Little Book of Science”
M ELVYN BRAGG SCEPT RE
"On Giants' Shoulders" Wed 7 April, 8pm Royal Museum of Scotland
JOHN MCCRONE "Going Inside"
Fri 9 April, 8pm
Royal Museum of Scotland
PROF STEVEN ROSE
"From Brains to Consciousness" Thurs 15 April, 7pm Old College one, University of Edinburgh
PROF IAN STEWART
"Life’s Other Secret" Mon 12 April, 8pm Royal Museum of Scotland
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' 20 books offered for this event
LIFE'S OTHER SECRET
IAN SI IWARI
WThin
"DISCOVER THE WRITTEN WORD"
off Science Books when you spend or more.
Only one voucher per transaction. Offer ends 30 April 1999.
Edinburgh, Dumfries, Ayr, Perth, Dundee, Inverness
FTLMHOUSE
FREE tickets
Films include
* Taxi Driver (4/4, 5/4), t Falling Down (7/4),
* Dialogues with Madwomen (10/4) * Lost Highway (17/4 and 18/4). For full details, check the Science Festival Programme itself.
available to the first person to go along to the Filmhouse on the day of each showmg of films in the Science Film Festival
One pair per person
96 THELIST l—lSApr 1999
' over-ripe for getting duped, while it is
BOOK REVIEWS continued
: Herbert’s overt message against
: exploiting those with deformities, his
husband, while Brian only wants a one night stand; Marcus is a sugar—daddy
Donald’s turn to see the other side of the coin. But it is the nameless ’l’ or
. ’She’ who provides the sweetest twist
of them all. (88)
HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY Tough Jews
Rich Cohen (Vintage £7.99) 1k ir * it All gangsters are Italian. Or so we like to think. Ray Liotta slicing ~ garlic With a razorblade in Goodfe/las is : just one of the images that prove this over and over for a generation whose history lessons come from movies. But Rich Cohen’s funny, enthralling book hauls the spotlight away from Hollywood's favourite hoods and trains
‘ it on the lesser-known, but at one time
almost as powerful, American Jewish underworld of the Depression
As the son of a generation where Jewrsh gangsters ran the streets, he is well-placed to sprinkle the pages With tales as rich as any Mafioso’s tomato sauce. This meticulously researched biography cements the gaps left by our Robert De Niro iixatrons, as well as blitzrng what Cohen sucmnctly describes as 'the stereotype that fits the entire Jewrsh COrrtinunity into the middle—class'. An eye-opening read that deserves its cover credit from Martin Scorsese. (EC)
HORROR FICTION
Others James Herbert (Macmillan £16.99)
.**
.
3 ’ n: .L, ,- ,. 3”,
Early on in this deioriiiity shocker, the protagonist Dis gets beaten up while walking along Brighton beach on the way home from his work as a private investigator. As a devrce, this tense episode makes several relevant pornts,‘ firstly, severely crippled Dis is not a strong man- making his later feats douny heroic and subject to constant humiliation; secondly, James Herbert can write well. And, when it is revealed just who the attacking youths are, it is a warning that nothing in this book Will be as it seems
That warning is but a red herring. What, from the outset, seems completely gratuitous remains so. Dis's search for a client’s son, mysteriously stolen at birth, is deftly plotted and full of tension and pace But (It‘SplIt'
main objective seems to be to create : an excuse to spend endless pages . describing the most hideously
deformed people in lurid, loving and kinky detail. (TD)
FICTIONAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
. The Astrological Diary
Of God
E 80 Fowler (Cape £10) it
- ‘ . B o r 0 ii R Somewhere between the conception and production of this novel, something went horribly, horribly wrong. The bones of what could have been a great work of fiction can just about be glimpsed. Unfortunately, they are obscured by a morass of failed humour, irritating ’quirkiness' and half- baked philosophical ramblings.
As the title implies, the book is set out like a diary. complete with astrological readings and ’interesting’ facts for each day, somewhat akin to those which irritating DJs resort to when they have nothing else to say.
The plot revolves around a retired kamikaze pilot — Japs Eye Fontanelle, by name — who discovers that he is, in fact, God. At the time of writing, he is awaiting trial for killing Time, and the diary is an account of his life (both before and after discovering his Divinity), and of the events surrounding the trial. It also includes photographs of, among other things, God's genitals. You have been warned. (KK)
GAMBLING VIGNETTES Shut Up And Deal
Jesse May (No Exit £6.99) * *‘k‘k Not so much a novel as a series of
vignettes chronicling the life of a poker pro among the stale sweat and smoke of America’s casino card rooms, Shut Up And Deal is a gritty account of one man’s inevitable rise and fall.
From Mickey’s first tentative Wins, to gorng pro, Via riding high at the big stakes tables before finally becoming the sad sucker waiting to be bled, he rides the poker switchback with the tenacin and blind determination of a bucking bronco cowboy.
.’ l
. a ‘
STAR RATINGS * it it a: * Outstanding it 1i: * * Recommended t ‘k * Worth a try t * 50-50 1? Poor J