Some of the best science writing I have read recently was in the novel Red Plenty: Inside the Fiftie’s Soviet Dream by Francis Spufford.  There is a passage on the behaviour of electrons in a vacuum tube that is vivid and beautiful (Part Two, Chapter 2), and a rather frightening description of lung cells mutating under the influence of carcinogens (Part Six, Chapter 1).  The novel overall is a fascinating treatment of science and economics at the height of the Cold War in the USSR.

Here’s a Soviet joke from Spufford’s website:

Yuri Gagarin’s daughter answers the phone.  ‘No, mummy and daddy are out,’ she says.  ‘Daddy’s orbiting the earth, and he’ll be back tonight at 7 o’clock.  But mummy’s gone shopping for groceries, so who knows when she’ll be home.’