As a big fan of world-ending dystopias in my fiction, I was delighted to be sent a copy of . This 400-page coffee-table book does what it claims, educating you about everything from how to make rope from willow bark to how to grow penicillin, complete with gorgeous illustrations.
Created by Vsevolod Batischev and Timur Kadyrov, with Lewis Dartnell at the University of Westminster, UK, as its scientific and technical expert, The Book isn鈥檛 cheap (it costs 拢99), but it is a thing of beauty and I will be grabbing it if any disasters come my way.
A family birthday also meant a trip to (pictured above) in London, a multi-sensory experience that saw us, sometimes in darkness, putting our senses to the test. We tried to identify foods (from crickets to chickpeas), darted through a laser maze and experienced 鈥渁nti-gravity鈥�. It was a lot of fun, despite the screaming when we had to put our hands into a box of slugs.
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Alison Flood
Culture editor
London
