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Nonfiction is a strange, alchemical business. In the knowledge that a good writer can make any subject sing, one of the books I’m looking forward to most in 2025 is
The Season: A Fan’s Story
(W&N, November), in which Helen Garner watches her grandson, Amby, play Aussie rules football …Kew Gardens adds over 300 wild seeds in significant boost to living collection
The
Codonopsis clematidea
smells like a skunk, theTulipa toktogulica
has a peculiar, elongated bulb and theFritillaria imperialis
is exceptionally tall. But to the horticulturalists who journeyed to remote alpine meadows and forests to find these rare flowers growing in the wild this year, they are nothing less …A laugh a day to keep the winter blues away: the 31-day comedy diet for January
Amid the cascade of solemn, grimly sensible resolutions we inevitably set ourselves at this time of year, there is a task of universal importance that all too often slips through the net: laugh more. It’s something that more or less all of us agree is a good idea – few …
Defiant and unwavering: Georgia’s president Salome Zourabichvili is focus for hope
In Georgia’s turbulent political standoff, President Salome Zourabichvili has emerged as a defiant figure.
Zourabichvili’s role in Georgia is ceremonial, but far from fading into irrelevance in the twilight of her presidency, she has become a rallying figure for those opposed to the erosion of democracy and the abandonment of …
Extraordinary size and staying power: the unlikely origin of a mighty Australian avocado
Thirty years ago, Ken Spackman cut down an avocado tree planted by his father on the family’s Palmwoods property on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. He planted a seed from the tree in a different spot on the farm, with no expectation it would flourish.
“That seed did it pretty tough …
‘All people could do was hope the nerds would fix it’: the global panic over the millennium bug, 25 years on
Alexei Navalny remembered by Yevgenia Albats
Alexei Navalny had everything that Putin didn’t have. Navalny was tall, Putin short; Navalny handsome, Putin not so much. Navalny had a fabulous wife; Putin was unsuccessful with his personal life. Navalny could talk to people from all walks of life and inspire them; Putin had to force or pay …
From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Pope Francis: the books to look forward to in 2025
January
Nonfiction
: Why Optimists Have the Power to Change the World by Sumit
Paul-Choudhury
(Canongate)
The science journalist, who lost his wife to ovarian cancer, investigates the potent emotional forces that drive us on in the face of great hardship. Why do …
‘Godfather of AI’ raises odds of the technology wiping out humanity over next 30 years
The British-Canadian computer scientist often touted as a
“godfather” of artificial intelligence
has raised the odds of AI wiping out humanity over the next three decades, warning the pace of change in the technology is “much faster” than expected.Prof Geoffrey Hinton, who this year was awarded …