The world shall perish not for lack of wonders, but for lack of wonder.—Haldane
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‘Think of mitosis as trillions of slightly near-sighted, plagiarizing students’
The world shall perish not for lack of wonders, but for lack of wonder.—Haldane
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‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
Richard Powers is the author of nine novels including Plowing the Dark and The Time of Our Singing, which won the W. H. Smith Literary Award in 2004. His most recent novel, Generosity, was published in 2009. His is the recipient of numerous awards including a National Book Award in 2006 for The Echomaker.
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‘When they were working, Old Han held the tongs, Young Han swung the sledgehammer, and Old Third worked the bellows to raise the heat.’
A short story by Mo Yan, translated by Nicky Harman.
‘Are you here to accept punishment on the mayor’s behalf ? This is a great opportunity. People burn incense for a chance like this.’
A short story by Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas.
‘I see a gull in a car park and they can see the place where it metabolised water into feathers, food into energy, oxygen into blood.’ Stephen Rutt on what isotopes can tell us about birds.
‘At school, the primroses were coming out. Brighton was eleven, and every day now there was something new emerging.’
A story by Georgina Parfitt.
‘Now that everyone lives as if in a movie, we begin to forget that once it was only special people who did.’
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