Review : Soft sell

September sees two excellent books out in paperback. The first, Peter Coveney
and Roger Highfield’s Frontiers of Complexity (Faber & Faber, £9.99,
ISBN 0 571 17922 3) is: “A serious, scrupulous book that remains sober at
intellectually intoxicating altitudes”, according to Colin Greenland in last
year’s review. Or try Natalie Angier’s The Beauty of the Beastly (Abacus,
£7.99, ISBN 0 349 10769 6), described as “utterly compulsive” reading by
David Bellamy in his review for New Scientist. It makes even the repugnant
cockroach a star.