He is a writer who doesn't want to write, a traveller who ignores the lessons of a serious earthquake, an urbanite who sees the justly vilified activity of smoking as a solution to social atomisation. Andrew Sant's new essays are those of a contrarian with a darkly amused view about the limits of human ingenuity and, as a consequence, humanity's eventual extinction. This is a various, oblique, upbeat collection — sixteen essays as informative as they are entertaining.