Genre: Non-fiction

Review – Cultish

Posted February 19, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 3 Comments

Review – Cultish

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

by Amanda Montell

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 309
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power.

What makes “cults” so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join—and more importantly, stay in—extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has . . .

Our culture tends to provide pretty flimsy answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of “brainwashing.” But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear—and are influenced by—every single day.

Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,” revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of “cultish” everywhere.

I read Amanda Montell’s Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism more or less on a whim, and found myself reading it really pretty fast. It helps that she picked some high profile cults to discuss: like it or not, there’s a certain fascination surrounding events like the suicides of Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate. Most people have also come across the lesser examples she discusses, like fitness groups that seem to have their own language.

All in all, it’s a bit of a history of prominent cults and an examination of similar principles in other arenas — analysing what makes leaders of cults compelling, and how the same tactics work in more prosaic contexts. In and amongst all this, Montell discusses her own brushes with cults: the one her father’s family were involved in, and her own experience of an attempted recruitment to Scientology.

I think a lot of this could have been said in a significantly shorter book, but she did identify some interesting commonalities and ways of speaking, theories about “cultish” speech that do seem to hang together.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – The Immune Mind

Posted February 18, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Immune Mind

The Immune Mind

by Monty Lyman

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 233
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Delving into the recent discovery of the brain's immune system, Dr Monty Lyman reveals the extraordinary implications for our physical and mental health.

Up until the last ten years, we have misunderstood a fundamental aspect of human health. Although the brain and the body have always been viewed as separate entities – treated in separate hospitals – science now shows that they are intimately linked. Startlingly, we now know that our immune system is in constant communication with our brain and can directly alter our mental health.

This has opened up a new frontier in medicine. Could inflammation cause depression, and arthritis drugs cure it? Can gut microbes shape your behaviour through the vagus nerve? Can something as simple as brushing your teeth properly reduce your risk of dementia? Could childhood infections lie behind neurological and psychiatric disorders such as tics and OCD?

In The Immune Mind, Dr Monty Lyman explores the fascinating connection between the mind, immune system and microbiome, offering practical advice on how to stay healthy. A specialist in the cutting-edge field of immunopsychiatry, Lyman argues that we need to change the way we treat disease and the way we see ourselves. For the first time, we have a new approach to medicine that treats the whole human being.

I adored the majority of Dr Monty Lyman’s The Immune Mind, but the final section lets it down. For most of the book he’s talking about fascinating research, which is pretty well sourced and matches what I can easily fact check (in part because I can always ask my mother’s opinion of What’s Going On With Schizophrenia research, with which she’s been involved for years as a psychiatrist and investigator).

That part was fascinating and exciting: I can report that as recently as right now, infectious diseases and immunology classes are still teaching that the brain is an immune-privileged site where no immune reactions can occur — at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, no less. What he says on that front makes absolute sense, and my knowledge agrees  with what he says as far as my it goes (BSc in natural sciences, near completion of MSc in infectious diseases, general voracious curiosity).

Buuut the chapters about how improving your health felt pasted on, like someone told him that you can’t finish the book on the point that we may understand the mechanisms behind some diseases yet, but you can’t get treated for them because it’s still experimental. It’s basically regurgitating exactly the same advice you find elsewhere, and the authorities he quotes have been… questioned. (See Alexey Guzey’s essay, which at the very least asks some pertinent questions.)

So that was a bit disappointing, because the rest of the book was pretty fresh and exciting.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma

Posted February 13, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

by Claire Dederer

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 257
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Can we love the work of Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson, Hemingway and Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is history an excuse? What makes women artist monstrous? And what should we do with beauty, and with our unruly feelings about it?

I’d been meaning to read Claire Dederer’s Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma anyway, but it became suddenly very topical for me after the in-depth reporting of the allegations of rape and abuse against Neil Gaiman. I hadn’t been a major fan of his in years, but I loved Good Omens, and connected deeply with Crowley as portrayed by David Tennant and that feels deeply tainted now — so what do I do?

(I try not to discuss anything too in-depth about specific types of abuse and monstrousness, but if you’re not in the right place for any of that, I suggest leaving this review for now.)

Dederer naturally doesn’t offer any actual answers, instead doing a fair amount of gazing at her own navel about her own heroes and monsters, and herself. I don’t mind that it’s navel-gazing, but I do mind that we have men like Polanski juxtaposed against Joni Mitchell, included because she gave her daughter up for adoption at birth, or Sylvia Plath, because she committed suicide. (Ted Hughes mentioned once, only as Sylvia Plath’s husband, not for his part in that whole situation.)

She does mention Rowling, but sparingly, and the book is seriously lacking a really monstrous female artist in a way that to me suggests lack of research: for instance, Marion Zimmer Bradley may be genre, but still a very relevant and important monster to consider for modern fans of Arthuriana and fantasy. And there have always, will always be women who behave like Amanda Palmer is alleged to have done, who knowingly enable the abuse perpetrated by their husbands and stay damningly silent.

There’s a certain amount of self-hate, I think, in Dederer’s choice of female monsters: really what she keeps trying to tell us is that she( thinks she)’s a monster (because of her alcoholism, and because she sometimes chose to shut her children out in order to work, or found herself just going through the motions and angry at her children — normal things).

In a way, the fact that she struggled to find female monsters may also reflect the fact that we give men a lot more leeway to be monsters, but mostly I think she just didn’t do any research beyond her own narrow frame of reference, and thus served us up women she thinks are monsters because she worries that she’s a monster. That’s pretty uncomfortable to read.

She does make some interesting points, likening the consumption of work by monsters to recycling: the individual agonising about it makes very little difference, almost none, under capitalism. It doesn’t address the question of the “stain” metaphor she uses, the blackening of the work because you know about the crimes of the author — but for those who can divorce the author from the work, it might offer some peace when they can’t stop treasuring something in their heart of hearts.

On which note, Dederer also writes powerfully about the fact that this is about love. We can love terrible people. Abused children often continue to love their parents. It’s hard to let go of, and it asks us to figure out where love stops, and whether we can stop it just by wanting to.

It also leaves me thinking about monsters who were made, who had monstrous things done to them which shaped even the thoughts they could think. What do we do about them? Sometimes it can change the level of culpability… I came to no conclusions there, and Dederer certainly didn’t. The book ends with the same ambiguity and same questions as it began with, or perhaps even more. The only answer can be that every person has to figure out their own answer: there is no calculator to work out how bad someone must be, what mitigations they can have, and then tell us whether to continue to love.

For me, it’s usually fairly clear-cut, but I have some blurred lines and grey areas and (yes) hypocrisy, as many people do. I didn’t find Dederer’s book helpful in clarifying that, really, but all the same, I enjoyed reading it, for a certain value of “enjoy”.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Sing Like Fish

Posted February 12, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – Sing Like Fish

Sing Like Fish: How Sound Rules Life Under Water

by Amorina Kingdon

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 324
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

A captivating exploration of how underwater animals tap into sound to survive, and a clarion call for humans to address the ways we invade these critical soundscapes—from an award-winning science writer

For centuries, humans ignored sound in the “silent world” of the ocean, assuming that what we couldn’t perceive, didn’t exist. But we couldn’t have been more wrong. Marine scientists now have the technology to record and study the complex interplay of the myriad sounds in the sea. Finally, we can trace how sounds travel with the currents, bounce from the seafloor and surface, bend with the temperature and even saltiness; how sounds help marine life survive; and how human noise can transform entire marine ecosystems.

In Sing Like Fish, award-winning science journalist Amorina Kingdon synthesizes historical discoveries with the latest scientific research in a clear and compelling portrait of this sonic undersea world. From plainfin midshipman fish, whose swim-bladder drumming is loud enough to keep houseboat-dwellers awake, to the syntax of whalesong; from the deafening crackle of snapping shrimp, to the seismic resonance of underwater earthquakes and volcanoes; sound plays a vital role in feeding, mating, parenting, navigating, and warning—even in animals that we never suspected of acoustic ability.

Meanwhile, we jump in our motorboats and cruise ships, oblivious to the impact below us. Our lifestyle is fueled by oil in growling tankers and furnished by goods that travel in massive container ships. Our seas echo with human-made sound, but we are just learning of the repercussions of anthropogenic noise on the marine world’s delicate acoustic ecosystems—masking mating calls, chasing animals from their food, and even wounding creatures, from plankton to lobsters.

Amorina Kingdon’s Sing Like Fish is all about the world of sound underwater. At one point humans dubbed it stuff like “the silent kingdom” and stuff like that because we can’t hear well underwater, but in fact lots of fish, marine invertebrates and marine mammals make noises — a lot of them! Whalesong is well known now, but it isn’t the only thing. There are fish that drum their swim bladder to attract a mate, fish who fart (literally expel air from their anuses) to communicate, and of course, use sound to navigate.

Unsurprisingly, pretty much any purpose for sound you can imagine from our lives is also served in the ocean, perhaps through some slightly different physics.

And of course the sounds we make are impacting the ocean. Sometimes that means our installations in the seabed are actually attracting creatures, and sometimes it means that the sounds are actively snapping the cilia involved in hearing and leading to deafened, unbalanced lobsters whose lives are drastically shortened by their injuries.

Kingdon discusses all of this and how we can ameliorate some of it, highlighting things we need to pay attention to for the health of the planet. Like me, you probably didn’t know that sound can harm plankton, but… yep, it can.

Mostly though it’s full of wonder about this world of sound we don’t always understand or know how to investigate. I found it really interesting.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – What An Owl Knows

Posted February 7, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – What An Owl Knows

What An Owl Knows

by Jennifer Ackerman

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 333
Synopsis:

'And if anyone knows anything about anything...it's Owl who knows something about something.' Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne

From prehistoric cave paintings to the prints and etchings of Picasso, owls have captivated and inspired us for millennia. Whether they appear as ancient Athenian symbols of wisdom, ghostly harbingers of death, or the cuddly sidekicks of Harry Potter and Winnie the Pooh, these birds have continued to fascinate and disturb us in equal measure.

Through revelatory new behavioural research, Jennifer Ackerman provides an intimate glimpse into these magnificent creatures' lives. From the evolutionary quirks behind their silent flight and rotating heads, to their romantic relationships and parenting styles, What an Owl Knows brings the rich natural history of owls to life. Deftly weaving together science and art, Ackerman journeys into the owl's moonlit world and asks: what is it about these birds that so enthrals us?

What an Owl Knows, by Jennifer Ackerman, is a fun exploration of owls as a species, how they’re adapted for what they do, how they’re adapting to changes made by humans, etc. There’s a certain amount of “oh wow I touched a bird” personal stuff, and canned biographies of people who’ve interacted with owls for various reasons, but also plenty of facts and discussion thereof.

I learned some fascinating things, e.g. the fact that some owl species will adopt the owlets of other pairs, if the owlet gets into their nest or somehow interacts with them demanding food — even if they don’t currently have owlets of their own. And the fact that some screech owls grab blind snakes (they’re tiny) and use them as nest cleaners, resulting in healthier, quicker-growing owlets.

It also contradicts some other stuff I was reading lately about owls being stupid, pointing out that they have small, densely packed neurons, as some other birds do — allowing a high degree of intelligence, even if their kind of intelligence isn’t as readily measured as that of primates or crows.

Overall, enjoyable and informative, if sometimes a bit padded with filler-statements about the majesticness of owls (you can only take it so often, even when it’s true).

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Stonehenge: The Story of a Sacred Landscape

Posted February 6, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Stonehenge: The Story of a Sacred Landscape

Stonehenge: The Story of a Sacred Landscape

by Francis Pryor

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 208
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

A beautifully illustrated account of the history and archaeology of an iconic feature of the English landscape, as part of the stunning Landmark Library series.

Perched on the chalk uplands of Salisbury Plain, the megaliths of Stonehenge offer one of the most recognizable outlines of any ancient structure. Its purpose - place of worship, sacrificial arena, giant calendar - is unknown, but its story is one of the most extraordinary of any of the world's prehistoric monuments.

Constructed in several phases over a period of some 1500 years, beginning c. 3000 BC, Stonehenge's key elements are its 'bluestones', transported from West Wales by unexplained means, and sarsen stones quarried from the nearby Marlborough Downs.

Francis Pryor is one of Britain's most distinguished archaeologists. In Stonehenge, he delivers a rigorous account of the nature and history of the monument, while also placing the enigmatic stones in a wider cultural context, exploring how antiquarians, scholars, writers, artists, 'the heritage industry' - and even neopagans - have interpreted the site over the centuries.

Francis Pryor’s Stonehenge: The Story of a Sacred Landscape is a good summary of the current consensus around Stonehenge, inasfar as I understand it. It’s not really much of a step forward from Mike Parker Pearson’s book on Stonehenge from ~2012, which is probably a good place to go if you want something in-depth.

Still, it’s presented beautifully here, with photos, art, coloured maps and plans, etc, and it does a good job of condensing down what we know and how we know it, and theorising from what we do know about the reasons for Stonehenge’s building, the phases of activity there, the traces of those who built there, etc. It discusses Mike Parker Pearson’s theory that the people who built Stonehenge built in wood for the living and stone for the dead, and makes that pretty clear (though I think there’s supporting evidence he chooses not to discuss that would firm up that point).

However, I do keep in mind with Francis Pryor that he does deliberately cherry-pick sources that agree with him (he’s said as much, explicitly, in Britain AD), so it’s important to read him sceptically.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Against Technoableism

Posted February 3, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Review – Against Technoableism

Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement

by Ashley Shew

Genres: Non-fiction
Pages: 148
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

A manifesto exploding what we think we know about disability, and arguing that disabled people are the real experts when it comes to technology and disability.

When bioethicist and professor Ashley Shew became a self-described “hard-of-hearing chemobrained amputee with Crohn’s disease and tinnitus,” there was no returning to “normal.” Suddenly well-meaning people called her an “inspiration” while grocery shopping or viewed her as a needy recipient of technological wizardry. Most disabled people don’t want what the abled assume they want—nor are they generally asked. Almost everyone will experience disability at some point in their lives, yet the abled persistently frame disability as an individual’s problem rather than a social one.

In a warm, feisty voice and vibrant prose, Shew shows how we can create better narratives and more accessible futures by drawing from the insights of the cross-disability community. To forge a more equitable world, Shew argues that we must eliminate “technoableism”—the harmful belief that technology is a “solution” for disability; that the disabled simply await being “fixed” by technological wizardry; that making society more accessible and equitable is somehow a lesser priority.

This badly needed introduction to disability expertise considers mobility devices, medical infrastructure, neurodivergence, and the crucial relationship between disability and race. The future, Shew points out, is surely disabled—whether through changing climate, new diseases, or even through space travel. It’s time we looked closely at how we all think about disability technologies and learn to envision disabilities not as liabilities, but as skill sets enabling all of us to navigate a challenging world.

Ashley Shew’s Against Technoableism is a fairly short book divided into chapters that don’t need to be read linearly. It has a few different themes: one is that technology isn’t the cure-all that people are suggesting for various disabilities, and that even if it was, is that really for the best for people with disabilities, and is it what they want? And why, either way, is assistive technology often developed without reference to what disabled people actually want?

It also delves into the social model of disability, and spares a chapter to discuss neurodiversity (though Shew acknowledges that that isn’t her lane, so she does a lot of talking with others). She points out throughout the book that the way we look at people with disabilities is often what is disabling: if we stopped policing how autistic people express themselves, for example, they would be healthier, happier, and more able to contribute in the ways they are interested in doing.

None of it was an enormous surprise to me; I’ve been lucky enough to be exposed to a lot of similar discussion through friends, discussions I’ve followed online, etc. But it’s very readable and clear, and I think a good start if you’re interested in the topic.

As a note, Shew does discuss why she became an amputee, though not immediately, and talks frankly about the cancer that led to it. If you have any health-focused anxiety, it’s worth being aware of that going in!

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Breakfast Cereal

Posted January 31, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – Breakfast Cereal

Breakfast Cereal

by Kathryn Cornell Dolan

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 144
Series: Edible
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

A global history of breakfast cereal, from the first grain porridges to off-brand Cheerios.

Simple, healthy, and comforting, breakfast cereals are a perennially popular way to start the day. This book examines cereal’s long, distinguished, and surprising history—dating back to when, around 10,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution led people to break their fasts with wheat, rice, and corn porridges. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century did entrepreneurs and food reformers create the breakfast cereals we recognize today: Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Cheerios, and Quaker Oats, among others. In this entertaining, well-illustrated account, Kathryn Cornell Dolan explores the history of breakfast cereals, including many historical and modern recipes that the reader can try at home.

A while ago I read a history of bread in the US, and found it fascinating, which means that there were some things that just weren’t surprising in Kathryn Cornell Dolan’s Breakfast Cereal: some of the same ideas circulated around plain wholemeal cereals and bread, albeit in slightly different ways. What I hadn’t really appreciated was how very much the modern boxed cold cereals originated from the US, and how ubiquitous they swiftly became: it was really surprising.

The title Breakfast Cereal might suggest Cornell Dolan’s talking about boxed cereal only, but actually she also discusses older and more traditional cereal-based breakfasts (porridge, congee, etc) as well. That said, the real focus is really the boxed cereals, and it’s fascinating that despite their global reach, that is pretty much a US story. Sometimes I quibble about that with the books in the Edible series, where they discuss US history way more than “global” history — but in this case, it seems that the US really was an origin point.

It’s funny to think about how cereal has evolved, and that (like bread) it’s actually a point of contention in terms of health, nutrients, emotional importance, etc, etc.

A slim book, as with all in this series, but interesting.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Penguins and Other Sea Birds

Posted January 27, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Penguins and Other Sea Birds

Penguins and Other Sea Birds

by Matt Sewell

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 128
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Description
Did you know...

The GalĂĄpagos Penguin's speckled markings make each of them as unique as a snowflake?
The Emperor Penguin weighs the same as a Labrador retriever?
The Adélie Penguin takes its name from the sweetheart of a Napoleonic naval captain turned explorer?

From tiny fairy penguins to the regal emperor penguin, street artist and ornithologist, Matt Sewell, illustrates one of the world’s favourite birds in this follow-up to Owls, Our Garden Birds, Our Songbirds and Our Woodland Birds.

I think the major reason to pick up Matt Sewell’s Penguins and Other Sea Birds is really for the art: though it does contain facts about each bird, each bird only gets a short paragraph. There is some neat info included, like the fact that certain birds (male crested auklets, if you’re curious) smell uncannily like tangerines — but it’s mostly just titbits.

The art is cute, though sometimes I think he does choose to emphasise odd features of the animals, probably to give the images more character. So it’s not a great resource for recognising the birds that you might be likely to be able to spot for yourself in the wild.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Selfish Genes to Social Beings

Posted January 23, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Review – Selfish Genes to Social Beings

Selfish Genes to Social Beings: A Cooperative History of Life

by Jonathan Silvertown

Genres: Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 256
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

For all the "selfishness" of genes, they team up to survive. Is the history of life in fact a story of cooperation?

Amid the violence and brutality that dominates the news, it's hard to think of ourselves as team players. But cooperation, Jonathan Silvertown argues, is a fundamental part of our make-up, and deeply woven into the whole four-billion-year history of life. Starting with human society, Silvertown digs deeper, to show how cooperation is key to the cells forming our organs, to symbiosis between organisms, to genes that band together, to the dawn of life itself. Cooperation has enabled life to thrive and become complex. Without it, life would never have begun.

I wasn’t a big fan of Jonathan Silvertown’s Selfish Genes to Social Beings. Ultimately, it’s as the subtitle (“A Cooperative History of Life”) suggests, rather than focusing on the question of how cooperation arises from “selfish” genes, or trying to dissect the evolution of altruism. It’s probably best read keeping that in mind.

Even so, I found it slow, and sometimes strangely organised. It works back through time… more or less. Sometimes it’s more like it’s working back through scale, finding fresh simulated surprise as smaller and smaller living things turn out to cooperate (a fact which should not be a surprise, since we know our own individual genes must cooperate). Sometimes the examples didn’t really contribute to a narrative, and I found the pop-culture references (like references to songs) cringey, like Silvertown was trying to add readability through pasting in some song lyrics.

Whiiiich is the other problem: I couldn’t put my finger on why, exactly, but I constantly found my attention wandering before the end of a paragraph — or sometimes, the end of a sentence. It’s not that I can’t focus on this kind of thing, because I love reading non-fiction. It’s also not that I know it all already (though I did), because I can happily read popular science about my pet subjects even when it contains absolutely nothing new. What’s required is usually just enthusiasm and a will to put across one’s own point of view.

I did find some of his later chapters more interesting, since his discussion of the RNA World hypothesis went deeper into it than my previous reading, but I still found this a very slow read and, ultimately, not for me. The stuff about kin selection has been discussed ad nauseam in many other books, and I didn’t feel that anything particularly fresh was added to the discussion.

Rating: 2/5

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