2025 - Book Reviews

Book review: "Age of Doubt" by Tracey Kirkland and Gavin Fang (Eds)
November 27, 2025 in Reviews

Who can you trust? Politicians? The media? Corporations? Scientists? There seems to be a range of "industries" and outlets devoted to spreading, nonsense, doubt and mistrust. The articles in this anthology address these questions and even provide some answers.
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Book review - "Last Will" by Liza Marklund
October 30, 2025 in Reviews

It's not often that you pick up a fiction book almost 20 years old and find that it is immediately topical and relevant to today's current affairs, but this book published in 2006 is just that. It's about the competition to win a Nobel Prize ...
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Book reviews - Two books for kids about science
September 11, 2025 in Reviews

The best way to avoid having adults who don't know how the world works is to start by teaching kids about science before they grow up. These two books are a very good start.
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Three books about knowing things that just ain't so
July 31, 2025 in Reviews

Three books by three very different authors addressing the same problem - the spread and persistence of nonsensical beliefs in the face of facts and evidence.
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Book review: "The Climate Book" edited by Greta Thunberg
July 3, 2025 in Reviews

If you want to read a book that addresses and refutes much of the mis- and disinformation coming from climate change deniers this is the one for you. With 84 articles written by over 100 people who know what they are talking about it's a comprehensive defence of the science and a warning about inaction.
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Book review - "The Doctor Who Fooled The World" by Brian Deer
June 26, 2025 in Reviews

A paper was published in The Lancet in 1998 which strongly suggested that the MMR vaccine caused autism. It was a total work of fiction. It was fraud. This book chronicles the history of the paper and the people who were involved in its production.
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Book review: "Gold" by Matt Murphy
June 5, 2025 in Reviews

There are two things that everyone knows about the discovery of gold in Australia - the location of the first gold discovery and that Edward Hargraves was the discoverer. Wrong ...
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Book review - "Facts and other lies" by Ed Coper
April 10, 2025 in Reviews

Who knows what to believe any more? With people getting their "news" from Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites where the content is virtually uncensored or unchecked it means that telling the truth from the opposite can be a real challenge. This book is about that challenge.
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Book review - "Am I Made of Stardust?" by Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock
March 27, 2025 in Reviews
Updated September 11, 2025

This children's book has 111 answers to questions about space and is a perfect way to introduce children to how scientists think and what we really know about things.

This review was combined with another book looking at the same issues.
Read the combined review here

Book review: "A Short History of Stupid" by Bernard Keane and Helen Razer
March 6, 2025 in Reviews

So you think the world's a sane place dominated by rational thought and actions? Wrong! This book looks at things that should make you go "Umm, what?" while wondering how we survive as a species.
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Book review: Two books about journalism
February 20, 2025 in Reviews

Journalism is back in the news, with talk about the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the generation of content, disappearing local papers, staff layoffs, and with a Federal election approaching, bias and the reliability of content. Here are reviews of two books about journalism written by people who know what they are talking about.
See the reviews here