The publisher said it’s Hawking’s first major new work in nearly a decade. His previous books include “A Brief History of Time.” Hawking’s co-author is another physicist, Leonard Mlodinow. He teaches at California Institute of Technology, and previously wrote “The Drunkard’s Walk.”

In “The Grand Design,” they examine evidence of “a unified theory” that can “describe and explain all the forces of nature.”

CSMonitor

A note to those who don’t know we have all the recommended stuff here or just click on the recommended links for a more extended list, ideal for the truly hardcore, hopefully the links haven’t died. Anyone who has got through that lot deserves a medal and some new shelves.

We will be updating and adding more stuff when we can – shouldn’t be too long.

Also a reminder that the art store now features ALL of Derren’s prints at every size. More updates coming soon with 2 new releases and it looks like certain sizes will sell out never to be released again.

Most artists would be upset if their vision started to go. John Bramblitt was the opposite – he saw it as a challenge and used art as an outlet for his feelings. He paints with his fingers and feels the shapes using “slick paint” – a medium that dries very quickly so he can feel the shapes.

His art is truly incredible, the images are powerful and striking and considering his condition looking at them is quite moving. This small documentary is featured on his site along with his artwork – do check it out.

Relatively few peple are aware that alongside Charles Darwin, another Scientist was busily working with the idea of natural selection. Alfred Russell Wallace not only spent even ore time than Charles Darwin collecting specimens, but pushed Darwin into publishing his Theory of Evolution by writing up his own findings on natural selection.
While Darwin has become a posthumous champion of skeptics, Wallace dabbled in spiritualism and pseudoscience. His ideas of natural selection also differed quite a bit from Darwin’s, as this biography shows.

In Darwin’s Shadow: The Life and Science of Alfred Russel Wallace – A Biographical Study on the Psychology of History

They do concentrate on a lot of the subjects we do here as well – so you’ll see the familiar names like Richard Wiseman and his wonderful books, Carl Sagan and James Randi – plus also a few more including the fabulous Atheist Guide to Xmas featuring our very own Derren Brown. We’ve sent them Derren’s books to read and they have promised us they will be reviewing them soon.

So far it’s small but growing rapidly and they’ve told us that commenters will be picked at random to receive a book each month – so if you’ve read anything on there, leave a short review in a comment and you could win some free stuff. They’re also open to suggestion so if people want new categories researching they’ll do the hard work for you.

You can follow them on @whydoweread and each book reviewed pops up on there. You can send in your reading requests (apparently they have over 450 books waiting to go up) for any subject they cover and we have received news that possibly the most incredible competition you’ve seen in a while is on it’s way to win an extremely expensive magic book worth over £130. Keep your eyes peeled.

Why Do We Read

We have had so many losses, delays and foul ups via her Majesties service that we decided to hold back during the strikes. We have seen delays of 2 months on some items and we are striving to get things to you. At the moment we’re averaging 10-15 days for a 1st class delivery – we expect this to increase.

If you have ordered anything more than 3 weeks ago and not received anything please email us on lostatsea@derrenbrown.co.uk

We are very sorry about this and are hoping it will all go away soon. Please accept our full apologies, please mount all blame on Phillis for everything and not Derren, Coops or Abeo (they are just too lovely).

Anyone entering in to the (now not so) hidden competition should email Lost at Sea for a temporary poster number and an entry form.

Enigma Crew

Just finished reading The Drunkard’s Walk. It’s very science based but is really quite amusing – it deals with the science of probability and randomness. There’s also a mention of winning lotteries and roulette wheel gambling.

Amazon

The book featuring passages from the likes of Charlie Brooker (sigh), Bed Goldacre and our very own Mr Brown has hit the Amazon best seller list. How ironic if this makes the Christmas best seller list – that would equal a nice bit of xmas w1n.

With the Royal Mail the way it is – Amazon has chosen to drop them. So not sure if you’ll have to order your copy in early in order to get it in time for the celebration of the birth of our Lord.

Amazon

Also remember you can also follow the wonderful @lordcoopy on twitter for DB Art updates, insider info and nice pictures – otherwise you can follow @phillisdorris for further reading, stuff and a nice helping of sillyness.