Solar

By Ian McEwan,

Book cover of Solar

Book description

Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. Trading on his reputation, he speaks for enormous fees, lends his name to the letterheads of renowned scientific institutions and half-heartedly heads a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. A compulsive womaniser, Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering.…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Solar as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I like a good satire and I love Ian McEwan. Set in academia, Professor Beard, with his Nobel prize in physics clutched to his chest, is offended by the idea that art might be as good a tool for curing a sick planet as his analytical facts. For all his scientific knowledge, he fails to understand that art has power. His younger colleague tries his best, explaining how images created by art bypass the modern cerebral cortex and go straight to our ancient limbic brain which controls memory and emotion, the part of the brain where we process value judgments,…

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