I first came across Mary Delany’s intricate paper flowers at an exhibition held at one of London’s great treasure troves, the Sir John Soane’s Museum, in early 2010. Though at the time I recognized the flower mosaics as gorgeou...

For those of us whose university days are in the past, for whom books are now non-obligatory, what is the point of reading? Is it now just an escapist leisure activity, or should it be a tool for continuing one’s learning? So: ...