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An interesting story of a two characters on opposite sides of a war fought through time. It begins with Red finding a letter with the words, "Burn before reading," which turns out to be from her adversary, Blue, who teases and challenges her before their next encounter. This time war is fought between two forces, Agency and Garden, who move agents (like Red and Blue) through time to tease and alter events so that, far in the future, victory is theirs.

Each chapter features an event as seen by Red or Blue, in alternate, with a hidden letter discovered by one or the other once victory (or defeat) is tasted by one or the other. But after a few rounds, the tone of the story changes, as both Red and Blue start to talk about their past, and their lives during the war. Then, events happen that show that at some time in the past, their lives have intersected with each other, thought they may not be aware of it at the time. It is then that romance and love being to blossom between the adversaries, an affair that both have to keep hidden from their masters.

At the end, as adversaries, one is given the task of killing the other, with not way out without betraying the other. Yet, there may be a way, and it may involve a shadowy character that has been following their steps, but not revealed until the end of the book.

Kathryn Rundell's wonderful book considers the worlds and perspectives of animals, and does so with a gentle and playful hand. Each chapter takes one creature that exists in our world, and considers how that creature is looked at scientifically, historically and metaphorically. Each is brilliantly and deeply researched, and then edited carefully to be both informative and interesting.

But The Golden Mole is far from a scientific bestiary; instead, it considers story and art on an equal footing with science and history, and for this it is a marvel. It is written beautifully, the words carefully chosen with none wasted. Each chapter concludes with a lament for what would be lost should the extraordinary creature it describes be lost from the world. Then the final chapter uses an old parable to consider all that can be lost, and all that can be saved. With this brilliant stroke of the keyboard, the book becomes not only documentation but a call to action, carefully and perfectly done.

A short but nice book on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), covering its history from conception to launch and commissioning, followed by chapters that look at how the JWST has changed the way we look at the solar system, the stars, the galaxies in the universe and how the universe began.

Starting as a planned next generation telescope after the Hubble Space Telescope, the first chapters cover the various ideas that were discussed over what astronomers want the new telescope to do. Politics and budget considerations would cause changes in the design and management of the telescope. Finally, after numerous delays and near cancellation, the JWST was launched, deployed successfully and began to return data that was better than expected.

The next chapter looks at JWST's contributions to planetary science. At one point, the JWST was not planned to do much observation in the solar system as it lacked a tracker to lock on to moving objects in the solar system. This was overcome by using an alternative method that proved to work better than expected: when the DART probe collided with Dimorphos (a moon orbiting the asteroid Didymos), JWST was able to track it and provided valuable data on the result of the collision. JWST was also able to provide spectroscopic data on the planets and their moons, helping to determine what elements and chemistry was happening on them.

Next, a look at what JWST can say about the nearby stars is covered. The JWST is able to detect exoplanets orbiting the stars by various methods, and even do spectroscopic analysis of the exoplanets' atmosphere. While tantalising signs of potential biochemistry have been detected, none have yet to meet the high standard (5 sigma) that mark a discovery.

Going further, the next chapter looks at the galaxies that dot the universe as seen by the JWST. Details on the evolution of stars and galaxies have helped cosmologist get a better idea of how galaxies have evolved throughout the universe.

Finally, the JWST looks past the galaxies and back in time to the period when the universe was still young. Where there have been headlines about "JWST breaking the cosmos", what JWST has actually done is provide even more data that are helping cosmologist refine their models of the cosmos, helping to give us a better picture of how the universe works.

A wonderful collection of three novels of a "China that never was", featuring the narrator, Number Ten Ox, and Li Kao, an ancient sage and scholar with "a slight flaw in his character". Originally published in the 80s and 90s, this reread still finds the stories enjoyable, humorous and full of wonderful myths and details.

The first book, "Bridge of Birds", is the most enjoyable and introduces us to Number Ten Ox. His village is preparing for a large silk harvest, when disaster strikes. Worse, the children in his village (of a certain age) are struck down with a sickness. Ox is tasked with going to Peking to find a scholar who can figure out what happened and how to cure the children. The person Ox eventually finds is an inebriated Li Kao, which turns out to be the only one willing to listen to Ox and help. From there, the story builds up and gradually turns into a quest to find the Great Root of Power which may be able to cure the children. But this quest is also wound tied up with another quest: the search for the Princess of Birds, for both are part of the same story. Through lots of hilarious twists and turns, and strange coincidences that makes Li Kao wonder if Heaven is also involved, they travel the length and breath of China and finally get a triumphant ending that makes all of China celebrate.

The second book, "The Story of the Stone", is at a smaller scale. The abbot of a village in a valley seeks out Li Kao to investigate the murder of a monk, which the abbot fears may be the work of the Laughing Prince, a historical ruler of the valley that once worked and tortured the villagers for his own gains and amusement. During the investigation, Ox hears a compelling tone (that Li Kao does not hear due to his 'slight flaw'), which Li Kao later deduces is the 'soul sound' of a stone. But the stone that produced the sound that Ox (and other villagers) heard and followed would need an especially powerful 'soul', which Li Kao finds referenced in an ancient tale about a stone that was touched by a Goddess. The story of this particular stone would become linked to the murder when further investigations (including a subconscious trip to Hell) show how that ancient tale is not yet over, but could well cause the deaths of all involved, unless they can separate fact from legend and uncover the reason for the murder of the monk.

The third book, "Eight Skilled Gentlemen", starts with a "vampire ghoul" interrupting an execution. But from there, it builds up into a tale involving "Eight Skilled Gentlemen" and eight special bird cages that arise from the myths of pre-Chinese aboriginal peoples. For some reason, food (cooking and preparation of) plays a large humorous part in the story. The ending would involve a race that would determine whether Heaven would turn its back on Earth, unleashing a calamity.