Books

Last night I was messing about with books and my camera:

Growing up in the Universe

Excellent! Finally! Richard Dawkins' 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lecture will soon be made available on DVD:

Dawkins in geek slur shocker

Today's Independent has an amusing Q&A with Richard Dawkins, many of the questions, and answers, had me smiling.

But I've got to take issue with the following:

How did a science geek like you get such an attractive wife? GARY HAMMOND, London

I suggest you go to salon.com, type "The Sexiest Man Living" in the search box and eat your words. But seriously (of course you knew there had to be a "but seriously"), science has an image problem with young people, and phrases like "science geek" don't help. Isn't it a bit like "kraut" or "dago"?

No, geek has an image problem, applying geek to a fan of all things science isn't the problem.

Richard Dawkins Foundation Introduction

The introduction video for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason has made its way on to YouTube:

The God Delusion

On Saturday I managed to get hold of a copy of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I'm only a couple of chapters in at the moment and so far it's a good read.

Because of the release of the book he was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight last Friday. I managed to miss it but, as usual, YouTube comes to the rescue:

Note that the interview is also currently available on the BBC website — I've been unable to watch it there today because the stream is very choppy.

Doing the Selfish Time Warp

I got a very curious email from Amazon today:

Dear Amazon.co.uk Customer,

As someone who has purchased books by Richard Dawkins, you might like to know that "The Selfish Gene" will be released soon. You can pre-order your copy for just GBP 7.49 ( 50% off the RRP) by following the link below.

The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins

Release Date:March 16, 2006

List Price: GBP 14.99 Our Price: GBP 7.49 You Save: GBP 7.50 (50%)

A URL was also included that pointed here.

I can't remember how long I've had my copy of TSG but the book itself was first published in 1976.

I guess it's supposed to be some sort of 30th anniversary edition or something but the wording of the email seems plain silly.