Simon Branford

Simon I am a thirty-something researcher in the Evolutionary Biology Group, which is in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading. I am currently researching the factors that influence the rates at which languages evolve.

I am the website coordinator for Sirens, which is a conference, part scholarly examination and part networking retreat, dedicated to women in fantasy literature. Sirens is organised by Narrate Conferences.

I like to spend time running, orienteering, and reading.

This blog is powered by WordPress, using a theme that I designed myself. The owls-count.net domain is hosted by Dynamiconomy.

Latest Blog Post

Books 2011

Somehow I managed to read 134 books in 2011. I guess this may be related to how little running I did, especially in the second half of the year. I signed up for a Goodreads account recently and I am putting ratings there at this time. (I may start adding reviews at some point.) Favourite Book of the Year I was about to follow my usual tradition and select several books in this section and … [Read the rest]