Steven Poole
Steven Poole is the author of You Aren't What You Eat, Unspeak, and Trigger Happy
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Pretentiousness by Dan Fox review – why anti-intellectualism is the real snobberyCalling something pretentious is lazy, vacuous and smug – after all, it’s good at times for our ambition to outstrip our abilities. Those who invoke bluff ‘common sense’ are the actual snobs
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Together in electric dreams: how the art world embraced modern technology firstA wall of TV monitors, a face pixelated in Mondrian colours, a playful selfie … we may all be artists in the social media age, but, as a new exhibition reveals, visual artists were the original tech heads
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Beyond Zero and One: Machines, Psychedelics, and Consciousness by Andrew Smart review – inside the minds of computersHow can we stop superintelligent computers from taking over the world? Feed them a digital dose of LSD, suggests this mind-bending book
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NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman review – an enlightened take on autism and differenceThis sparklingly humane book makes the case that there is no such thing as neurologically ‘normal’
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What you're about to say is stupid – how to get your 'pretaliation' in firstAn MP has accused Sebastian Coe of ‘pretaliation’ in advance of the damning report into doping in world athletics. We asked a language expert for a ‘presponse’ to the new word’s coming popularity
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What does ‘radical’ actually mean? Well, it depends who you ask …Being radical is excellent. Unless you are the wrong sort of radical – an adherent, say, of ‘radical Islam’. How do we know when ‘radical’ means something nice and when it means something nasty?
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Hoverboards: conspicuous consumption or fun glimpse of the future?Usain Bolt and Justin Bieber love them. But though they’re a menace in the street, at least they’re not polluting – or alternatively, smugly saving the planet
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Facebook to roll out a ‘dislike’ button … what’s not to like?Mark Zuckerberg recognises that ‘not every moment is a good moment’. The new function will offer a refreshing antidote to the social network’s relentless optimism
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Arcadia by Iain Pears review – a fantastical extravaganzaThis complex world-hopping caper explores the magic of storytelling, with an app that lets you navigate your own way through the text
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Are we overdoing our use of ‘over’ or would that be oversimplfying?We’re either overexcited or overanxious. We’re never tired, any more, we’re overtired. What exactly is going on?
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Why the Merchant of Venice is on the moneyIn a time of anxiety about debt, the latest RSC production about to be screened in cinemas strikes a nerve. Yet the play also warns against the language of money infecting our lives and loves
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How the French Think by Sudhir Hazareesingh review – from Descartes to Asterix the GaulIt’s true the French have solved all the mysteries of how to live well, but this fascinating book doesn’t always fulfil its debonair promise – and it fails to mention Piaf or Satie
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Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen review – the guru and the ghostwriterA contract writer struggles with a search-engine billionaire’s memoir in a novel laden with startup lore, but lit by flashes of sardonic humour
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London Overground: A Day’s Walk Around the Ginger Line by Iain Sinclair review – an unpredictable voyageFrom Hampstead to Clapham Junction, we’re on the road again with the much-imitated wandering scribe. Long may his legs hold out
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The impossible world of MC EscherHe was dismissed by the art world and venerated by mathematicians … he rejected both Mick Jagger’s and Stanley Kubrick’s attempts to schmooze him. So who was the mysterious MC Escher, master of illusion?
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How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt review – gleeful gonzo tour of an industry’s reckoningA brilliantly written book shows that it wasn’t file-sharing that brought the music industry to its knees, but an organised criminal conspiracy
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‘Offer’ – the latest irritating buzzwordPoliticians talk about policy offers, creatives ask ‘What’s the offer here’?’ It’s a sign of the supermarketisation of our language – and it’s an offer I can refuse
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Professor, clean thyself: a catalogue of irritants at the British LibraryAn influx of students has annoyed the denizens of the stacks. But before they criticise, they should take a long, hard sniff at their own insanitary tweed
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Aspiration nation? The many meanings of a political buzzwordAspiration is breathing, or breathing into: in the earliest usages it was the sort of thing God did to people. It is probably unfair to complain Miliband couldn’t do it
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Seveneves by Neal Stephenson – a truly epic disaster novelStephenson’s sci-fi blockbuster leaps from destruction on Earth to human survival in space, 5,000 years into the future
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Steven Poole’s guide to ElectionspeakAre you a Cameronette or more of a Milifan? Do you like to flex your work in a balanced way? Steven Poole on creative verb use, spads and spin
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The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs the Masters of the Universe by Matt Kennard review – a global capitalist conspiracy?Is our entire world at the mercy of an elite business community who run it in secret? This is a crusading book, but an oversimple one
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Why can’t English speakers say what they smell?Researchers have found a tribe in the Malay peninsula rainforest who are markedly better than westerners at identifying aromas
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Being a desk jockey may be unhealthy, but at least it makes us feel saferAn employee’s desk is an oasis of calm in the horrendous office environment. No wonder we like to stay put
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Taylor Swift’s grammar marked down incorrectlyThe Princeton Review has sniffed at the (misheard) lyrics of the pop star’s song Fifteen. But its ‘correction’ is more than five centuries out of date
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Why end the annual tax return? Giving money to Osborne ought to be grimThis is one budget announcement I won’t be welcoming – paying tax should indeed be a taxing yearly chore, not a low-level everyday worry
Head to head Should children be told to not use exclamation marks?