Books from Daniel Radcliffe

Inferior

What science has gotten so shamefully wrong about women, and the fight, by both female and male scientists, to rewrite what we thought we knew For hundreds of years it was common sense: women were the inferior sex. Their bodies were weaker, their minds feebler, their role subservient. No less a scientist than Charles Darwin asserted that women were at a lower stage of evolution, and for decades, scientists--most of them male, of course--claimed to find evidence to support this. Whether looking at intelligence or emotion, cognition or behavior, science has continued to tell us that men and women are fundamentally different. Biologists claim that women are better suited to raising families or are, more gently, uniquely empathetic. Men, on the other hand, continue to be described as excelling at tasks that require logic, spatial reasoning, and motor skills. But a huge wave of research is now revealing an alternative version of what we thought we knew. The new woman revealed by this scientific data is as strong, strategic, and smart as anyone else. In Inferior, acclaimed science writer Angela Saini weaves together a fascinating--and sorely necessary--new science of women. As Saini takes readers on a journey to uncover science's failure to understand women, she finds that we're still living with the legacy of an establishment that's just beginning to recover from centuries of entrenched exclusion and prejudice. Sexist assumptions are stubbornly persistent: even in recent years, researchers have insisted that women are choosy and monogamous while men are naturally promiscuous, or that the way men's and women's brains are wired confirms long-discredited gender stereotypes. As Saini reveals, however, groundbreaking research is finally rediscovering women's bodies and minds. Inferior investigates the gender wars in biology, psychology, and anthropology, and delves into cutting-edge scientific studies to uncover a fascinating new portrait of women's brains, bodies, and role in human evolution.
Daniel Radcliffe
Actor
Probably the best book I’ve read this year—well, I was reading it for ages, because I got sidetracked—is Inferior, by a woman named Angela Saini.
Books from Daniel Radcliffe

Good Omens

NOW ON AMAZON PRIME - STARRING DAVID TENNANT, MICHAEL SHEEN, JON HAMM AND BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH'Ridiculously inventive and gloriously funny' Guardian What if, for once, the predictions are right, and the Apocalypse really is due to arrive next Saturday, just after tea? It's a predicament that Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a fast-living demon, now find themselves in. They've been living amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and, truth be told, have grown rather fond of the lifestyle and, in all honesty, are not actually looking forward to the coming Apocalypse. Now people have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it's only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. You could spend the time left drowning your sorrows, giving away all your possessions in preparation for the rapture, or laughing it off as (hopefully) just another hoax. Or you could just try to do something about it.And then there's the small matter that someone appears to have misplaced the Antichrist . . ._____________________CAST INCLUDES: Crowley - David TennantAziraphale - Michael SheenAngel Gabriel - Jon HammVoice of Satan - Benedict CumberbatchVoice of God - Frances McDormand
Daniel Radcliffe
Actor
Because it is why things like Good Omens, the Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman book that I was thinking of earlier, one of the reasons that’s so good is that it just plays with things we sort of already know about Heaven and reinvents them in ways that are pleasing and fun.
Books from Daniel Radcliffe

Selected Poems



Daniel Radcliffe
Actor
“He made me feel something on a gut level that I had never experienced before, and that energized me to write my own.”
Books from Daniel Radcliffe

Germinal

Germinal (1885) is the thirteenth in Émile Zola's cycle of twenty novels about the Rougon-Macquart dynasty. It tells the story of Étienne Lantier, from the illegitimate Macquart branch of the family, who arrives in the mining settlement of Montsou, and witnesses at first hand the appalling conditions in which miners live and work.Gradually becoming embroiled in a bitter dispute between the miners and their employers, he eventually leads the strike which is the centrepiece of the novel. But this is more than the struggle of labour against capital. It is also the struggle of the hungry against the well-fed, against the passivity and resignation passed down over generations of starving people, and ultimately against hunger itself, represented by the fantastical devouring monster of the mine, which swallows up men, just as the beast of the modern industrial economy relentlessly swallows up capital. This apparent pessimism about society is offset by the possibility of rebirth and regeneration. For all the inherited misery of the downtrodden, the old order may some day be overturned.
Daniel Radcliffe
Actor
“It amazes me how deftly Zola captures the idiosyncrasy, the mundanity, and the scale of life among all these different classes of people. Every character feels fully formed and real.”
Books from Daniel Radcliffe

Labyrinths

Forty short stories and essays have been selected as representative of the Argentine writer's metaphysical narratives
Daniel Radcliffe
Actor
“When I read a good book, I sometimes like to think I might be capable of writing something similar, but never, in my wildest dreams, could I write anything that approaches the level of cleverness and intellect and madness of Borges. I don’t think anyone could.”
Books from Daniel Radcliffe

Midnight's Children

Born at the stroke of midnight at the exact moment of India's independence, Saleem Sinai is a special child. However, this coincidence of birth has consequences he is not prepared for: telepathic powers connect him with 1,000 other 'midnight's children' all of whom are endowed with unusual gifts. Inextricably linked to his nation, Saleem's story is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirrors the course of modern India at its most impossible and glorious.
Daniel Radcliffe
Actor
“It is the most enchanting book. And it’s such a brilliant idea: Children born at the same hour who metaphorically encompass all the good and evil attributes of a new society. Rushdie writes with a true patriotism — a love for his country that’s not blind.”
Books from Daniel Radcliffe

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

This cult classic of gonzo journalism is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.Now a major motion picture from Universal, directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.
Daniel Radcliffe
Actor
“This is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, which is the main reason I recommend it to people.”
Books from Daniel Radcliffe

Old Man and the Sea

The last novel Ernest Hemingway saw published, The Old Man and the Sea has proved itself to be one of the enduring works of American fiction. It is the story of an old Cuban fisherman and his supreme ordeal: a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Using the simple, powerful language of a fable, Hemingway takes the timeless themes of courage in the face of defeat and personal triumph won from loss and transforms them into a magnificent twentieth-century classic.
Daniel Radcliffe
Actor
“I have friends who never read books, and so when they ask me what they should pick up first, I always give them this one.”
Books from Daniel Radcliffe

The Master and Margarita

Moscow, 1929: a city that has lost its way amid corruption and fear, inhabited by people who have abandoned their morals and forsaken spirituality. But when a mysterious stranger arrives in town with a bizarre entourage that includes a giant talking cat and a fanged assassin, all hell breaks loose. Among those caught up in the strange and inexplicable events that transpire in the capital are the Master, a writer whose life has been destroyed by Soviet repression, and his beloved Margarita. Their adventures reveal a story that began two thousand years ago in ancient Jerusalem -- and its resolution will decide their fate. Translated by Michael Karpelson.
Daniel Radcliffe
Actor
What's a book that positively shaped you? The Master and Margarita.
Books from Daniel Radcliffe

The Aran Islands

Playwright John M. Synge visited an isolated group of islands west of Ireland, where he drew inspiration from local folklore and anecdotes. This memorable record of Synge's days amid the islanders and their tales of fairies and Celtic heroes offers an enchanting portrait of Irish cultural renaissance.
Daniel Radcliffe
Actor
Cool. What book are you reading? Um, The Aran Islands by James Synge.