Imagine my shock when I arrived in England bursting with all that knowledge gleaned from the books I had read and from a few well-behaved British tourists I had met in my town, only to be confronted by the screaming headlines of the tabloids and pictures of scantily-clad models baring most of their assets.

BBC: A Hamster ate my Granny!

Since first taking Chinese classes in the late 80s I have read and accumulated a large collection of books on China.

FORBES: Recommended China Books

I'm a bright enough guy, but all the great books I'll ever read I read in college and graduate school, and my musical tastes are straight down the middle: Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Mostly Mozart, the Brandenburgs, a little cool jazz, a few show tunes.

NPR: Excerpt: 'The Practice of Deceit'

One of the rules of mathematics and physics, as I - a complete non-mathematician - read often in science books, is that when infinity is introduced into a scientific equation it no longer makes sense.

BBC: A Point of View: The pain when children fly the nest