the bestselling novel of all time, with an estimated 200m copies sold. He is certainly the most quoted of writers."He is far more deeply ingrained in the culture than any other writer," says Florian Schweizer, director of the Charles Dickens Museum in London. "Journalists refer to him in the sports pages and even the business pages. People just get it. They know who Micawber is, and football matches between Madrid and Barcelona are referred to as a 'tale of two cities'." Schweizer adds that it is hard to find a contemporary novel that does not, in some way, refer to Dickens. Yet, as little as 40 years ago, the claim that he was second only to Shakespeare would have seemed absurd, even deranged.
from Bryan Appleyard: from The Sunday Times: 1)Shakespeare 2)Dickens. . . . ?
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Lap dancers earn 30% more when they are ovulating. You are safer in a plane when the pilot hands over to the copilot. Men inadvertently touch women with their left hand . . . well, perhaps not all men. The one who tells us all this, Robert Trivers, does--but he's not exactly normal.
In fact, he may be the most abnormal man I have ever interviewed. He is a petty thief with a high sex drive and an inordinate love of Jamaican women, a sucker for con artists and, according to one friend, completely "cuckoo". On the other hand, the cognitive scientist Steven Pinker says he is "one of the great thinkers in the history of western thought", and Richard Dawkins calls him "a uniquely brilliant scientist".
from Bryan Appleyard: from The Sunday Times: Robert Trivers on Deceit
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