Something for the weekend

Books, TV and a truly astonishing quote from a 1970s Tory whip

Books

A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? By Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

First off, a deeply funny book. There’s a gag about the science of artificial wombs being “in its infancy” that I particularly enjoyed. But it’s also a cogent, thoroughly researched and even-handed investigation into whether we should actually do this. Or at least, do it now.

Flesh by David Szalay

A warning — your relationship with the word “Ok” will never recover after this. And I think that’s… fine. Winner of the Booker Prize 2025, this is the story of a man through the ups and downs of life, from childhood to adulthood and from Hungary to West London via Iraq. I suppose I’m duty-bound to describe the prose as “minimalist” but it’s more gentle than that.

Television

Looking (2014)

It was badly miscast as the ‘Gay Girls’, but the HBO comedy drama, following the lives of three men living in San Francisco, meant a lot to me as a twenty-something Hackneyite. Though it would be an exaggeration (as well as cliché) to call the rewatch an emotional rollercoaster — more an emotional Disney’s “It’s a Small World”.