Roger Highfield
They Came from Outer Space
Incoming! Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Meteorite
By Ted Nield
Granta Books 271pp £20 order from our bookshop
The sky is falling. Every day, around 160 tons of rubble rain down on us.
Most of it originated in the vast cloud of dust and gas that gave birth to the solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago. At first, budding planets and asteroids were formed by material swept up from this cloud. As our solar system matured, chance collisions between the asteroids caused them to spiral into chaotic orbits and crash into planets.
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
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me
In this month's Bookends, @AdamCSDouglas looks at the curious life of Henry Labouchere: a friend of Bram Stoker, 'loose cannon', and architect of the law that outlawed homosexual activity in Britain.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-gross-indecency
'We have all twenty-nine of her Barsetshire novels, and whenever a certain longing reaches critical mass we read all twenty-nine again, straight through.'
Patricia T O'Conner on her love for Angela Thirkell. (£)
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad