Kirjahaku

From humble beginnings as a small desert laboratory in Tucson, Arizona, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Carnegie Institution's Department of Plant Biology has evolved into a thriving international center of plant molecular biology that sits today on the campus of Stanford University. In the last hundred years it has witnessed immense changes in biological thinking, and been at the forefront of innovative research. This fourth in a series of five histories of the Carnegie Institution touches on the tangled beginnings of ecology, the baroque complexities of photosynthesis, the great mid-century evolutionary synthesis and the adventurous start of the plant molecular revolution.

'The only wise prediction to make about a new Brian Moore novel is that it will be unpredictable and wise,' wrote Christopher Ricks reviewing "Black Robe", one of the twenty magnificent novels which put Brian Moore into the first rank of world writers. Northern Ireland may have shaped him, as he grew up one of nine children in a Catholic doctor's Belfast household, but World War II took him to Africa and war-ravaged Europe, and Canada freed him to become a writer. In 1955 he published "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne", the first of many novels which led steadily to international critical acclaim. He was a writer's writer, baffling contemporaries with how he pulled off his literary feats. Patricia Craig, who began this authorised biography with the help and blessing of Brian Moore himself, and his wife Jean, pieces together the colourful life that lay behind the novels. She also reveals the droll, romantic, cant-hating, affable and brilliant man who so disarmingly enhanced twentieth-century letters.

From humble beginnings as a small desert laboratory in Tucson, Arizona, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Carnegie Institution's Department of Plant Biology has evolved into a thriving international center of plant molecular biology that sits today on the campus of Stanford University. In the last hundred years it has witnessed immense changes in biological thinking, and been at the forefront of innovative research. This fourth in a series of five histories of the Carnegie Institution touches on the tangled beginnings of ecology, the baroque complexities of photosynthesis, the great mid-century evolutionary synthesis and the adventurous start of the plant molecular revolution.

This third volume of Patricia Craig’s trilogy or memoir – following her celebrated Asking for Trouble and A Twisted Root: Ancestral Entanglements in Ireland – takes its title from Louis MacNeice: “My diehard countrymen like drayhorses/drag their ruin behind them”. A memoir of her upbringing in Belfast and life in London, from the 1960s onwards – but with scenes from childhood, adolescence, and later. A view of the Troubles from elsewhere but based on a strong familiarity with Belfast attitudes and exigencies. Some dramatic incidents not in the public sphere – for example, the funeral of hunger-striker Joe McDonnell – are included. Much brilliant literary content is covered, as well as personal involvement with some notable Belfast characters, such as Sinn Féin’s Rita O’Hare, a close friend from schooldays (though later estranged).