Brenda Maddox
I Ate All the Chocolates
James Watson, co-discoverer of the secret of life, tries hard before selecting a final title for his books. The story of his and Francis Crick’s race for the double helix of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid, if you must) was variously titled ‘Honest Jim’ and ‘Base Pairs’ before Watson settled on The Double Helix, published in 1968 and now recognised as one of the past century’s classic texts.
This sequel has passed through various stages on its way to publication. ‘Butterflies and Jitters’ gave way to ‘A Good Fortune’, only to end up with the present alliterative tag, which pays tribute to one of Watson’s scientific heroes, the Russian-born theoretical physicist, George Gamow.
‘I Ate All the Chocolates’ would
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Walk down your supermarket pet food aisle and you’ll be hard pressed to find a single brand that claims to be made with high-welfare meat. More expensive pet food should not be about spoiling our cats but about sparing the farmed beasts we feed them.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/meattoo
'Two things prevent [this book] from collapsing under the weight of its own wayward ambition. Colin Jones, one of the finest living scholars of early modern France, is no ordinary historian. And the day in question, 27 July 1794, was no ordinary day'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/night-of-the-guillotine
The Anatomy of Melancholy 'has never quite become a widely recognised, bona fide "classic". For long stretches, the bulk of its readership has been restricted to bibliophiles and scholars. It has had an air of murkiness and desuetude'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/phantoms-of-the-mind