Posted November 11, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Bog Bodies Uncovered, Miranda Aldhouse-Green
I’m not sure about the subtitle of “solving Europe’s ancient mystery”. It is a mystery, of course, and it’s comparatively ancient, but I don’t think Aldhouse-Green manages to solve it. Examine it closely and lay out what evidence we have, yes, but that evidence doesn’t convince me that we have enough to make real judgements about what was going on. Especially not because Aldhouse-Green’s book takes in bog bodies all over Europe — places that in many other ways haven’t been demonstrated to have similar beliefs.
The book is strongest when she sticks to the facts. If you’re fascinated by bog bodies, there’s a whole range of them discussed at length, both the forensics of their deaths and the items that were found with them, and even what we know now with modern science about their lives. Even if you’re with me in thinking that some of the theories lean too hard on supposing there are commonalities across huge breadths of space and time, there’s a lot to learn here.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction
Posted November 10, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
I Hate Everyone But You, Gaby Dunn, Allison Rankin
Ohhhh this book was so not my thing. I am not the target age group, for sure, but I’m not sure I would have been the target even then, despite being queer and having anxiety. It’s all hurry-hurry-hurry to have sex, worry about sororities, sleeping with teachers, getting drunk and high, and kicking off the drama. I found the characters unpleasant, the story predictable, and the voices insufficiently distinct from one another.
And when reviews shout about this encapsulating the college experience, I am just confused, because my college experience — albeit in Britain — involved a lot of work. Hard work. I didn’t have time to get drunk and high and have sex with random strangers, even if I’d wanted to (and I did not; my idea of a wild fun time was maxing out my library cards), and I don’t honestly know anyone who did — not this much time, anyway.
Just overall very much not for me. Nope nope nope.
Rating: 1/5
Tags: book reviews, books
Posted November 9, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
The Twilight Pariah, Jeffrey Ford
I am a total wuss. Complete and total. So I expected to have the pants scared off me for picking up a horror novella, and it didn’t really happen. There were a few creepy moments, but mostly I found myself wondering why it felt like an episode of Scooby Doo. (Considering Scooby Doo on Zombie Island gave me nightmares as a kid, that doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be scary, but… I don’t know.)
The actual haunting part seemed solid and interesting. It was the characters and the way they went about tackling the problem that didn’t work for me — it just all felt totally unreal, and like set-up for the three main characters to set up like the Winchester brothers or the Mystery Gang. It felt truncated and just too easy, and some of the action scenes just made me go… “Really??”
If you’re looking for something scary, then this isn’t it, I think. There is a good story somewhere in here, but mostly it didn’t work for me.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, horror, SF/F
Posted November 8, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Adventures in Human Being, Gavin Francis
Gavin Francis’ book is basically a series of essays about the human body and how it works (and how it breaks), from the head down. It’s pretty readable, with anecdotes from Francis’ time as a doctor, though it’s not something that grabbed me as much as, say, Henry Marsh’s Do No Harm. Actually, it’s fading a bit from memory already. It’s certainly readable and filled some time during an epic plane and train ride from Canada through Amsterdam to Belgium; it’s not revelatory, or amazingly written. I’m a little surprised, though, at how ‘meh’ I feel about it in retrospect.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, science
Posted November 7, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
Close Encounters with Humankind, Sang-Hee Lee
Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 20th February 2018
Close Encounters with Humankind is a sort of compendium of various questions about hominid ancestors. It doesn’t try to tackle things chronologically or systematically. Instead, it poses interesting questions — are there cannibals in the line of human descent? How much of a Neanderthal am I? — and then tries to answer them with the best of what we know at the moment. Sometimes the answers aren’t entirely satisfactory or complete, because the evidence isn’t there (yet, or perhaps ever; behaviour, after all, does not fossilise).
It’s a pretty good tour through some interesting topics, although if you’re already interested in this sort of thing, you may well find that there’s nothing much new here for you. But if that knowledge is a bit cursory or out of date, this’d probably be perfect.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction
Posted November 6, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments
A Sting in the Tale, Dave Goulson
I’m not a big fan of insects. If you know me personally, even a little, you’re probably laughing at the understatement there. So okay, the truth is that insects scare me silly. But so did disease at one point, and now look at me tearing through my degree and thinking of working in a lab to study infectious diseases… All through the power of reading enough about it to really pique my curiosity. So maybe I can do the same with insects, and hence this book. Not that bumblebees frighten me that dreadfully; they’re sort of endearing, at their best. But it’s a place to start, and Goulson’s enthusiasm really sold me on it. I even have another book potentially lined up about bees now…
There’s a lot of personal reflection, including talking about what he did as a kid to get involved with bees, and his place in France where he’s rewilding a field to attract more wildlife. It’s not strictly scientific, by-the-book facts, that’s for sure; for me, that added to the appeal. I could almost get excited about bees, through the eyes of Dave Goulson — and I could definitely get excited about his conservation goals and hopes.
Also, you get to learn fun things like the fact that bees have smelly feet…
Recommended! Even if bees are not exactly your cup of honey-sweetened tea. (And yes, yes, I know, bumblebees do not actually make honey. I did pay attention to that much, I promise.)
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, science
Posted November 5, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Away with the Fairies, Kerry Greenwood
Phryne’s answer to Murder Must Advertise, and loaded with references to Sayers’ work (Nutrax Nerve Food, you say? smuggling clues in magazine copy, really?) — but also very much a novel in its own right, as Phryne goes above and beyond any of the on-screen heroism displayed by Lord Peter by rescuing her lover, Lin Chung, from pirates. Yep, pirates. As ever, it’s the usual mix for a Miss Fisher novel: a bit of mystery, some very fashionable clothing, some sex, a murder or so, and daring rescues featuring guns and requiring Phryne to get her kit off.
It kind of sounds formulaic when I put it that way, but it doesn’t feel that way when reading. It remains a ‘cosy’ mystery despite the guns and murder, even when it’s not a reread, because you know Phryne’s going to fix things in the end, with only minor damage to those around her. (Though I admit to being sceptical that Lin Chung’s replacement rubber ear is that realistic.)
The mystery part of it is fairly staid in comparison, though I do love the engagement with then-current politics (i.e. the mild background commentary on Mussolini).
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, Kerry Greenwood, mystery
Posted November 4, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
The Brain, David Eagleman
If you haven’t read anything else about the human brain and how it works, you’ll probably find this interesting. It covers the usual points: a lot of interesting stuff about the way our brains work and the way they perceive the world. And it’s definitely presented in a readable, easy to understand fashion; I think it’d definitely be suitable for a layperson.
For me, however, it got boring pretty fast because I know this stuff. It’s hardly even revision for me – this is stuff I just know. I had the same feeling with one of the author’s previous books, so I’d better keep a mental note and avoid in future!
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, science
Posted November 3, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Servants, Michael Marshall Smith
I’m not sure what to make of The Servants, in the end. It sounds like it’s going to be creepy, but isn’t really. It feels like Tom’s Midnight Garden, except that it’s a bit more mature in some ways, and then again in other ways it isn’t. It doesn’t quite seem to all fit together right, producing a story that doesn’t seem to know what it is — one minute it’s deeply real, a boy’s experience of his mother’s sickness and his parents’ divorce. The next, it’s into the Midnight Garden type of fantasy, and in the end comes off as feeling too easy, almost wish fulfilment. I wasn’t sure who the book was really aimed at, either.
It’s not a long or difficult read, but I found it rather puzzling because the elements didn’t come together. I don’t really recommend it, partly because I’m not sure who I’d recommend it to. There’s some great atmospheric bits and description and glimpses into the head of a boy dealing with a stepfather and a mother’s critical illness… and yet.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Michael Marshall (Smith), SF/F
Posted November 2, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie, Kathryn Harkup
I avoided picking this up for quite a while, mostly because I’m just not that interested in Agatha Christie’s work — she wrote some great mysteries, but I’m more interested in characters, and I’m not overly fond of any of hers. (Poirot and his mannerisms drive me mad, sorry.) It turns out that while this does talk a lot about Christie’s work, it also relates her ideas to actual chemistry — of which she’d have been aware of as an assistant in a dispensing chemist — and actual murders that she may have found inspiration from.
All in all, it becomes a rather entertaining little package, not just focused on recounting the plots of Agatha Christie’s books. The chemistry involved was pretty easy for me to follow, but bear in mind that I am in my last year of a science degree! It might get a little too involved for people who are interested in this from the Agatha Christie end of the equation (while not, I think, being worth reading just for the explanations of how poisons work, because there’s a lot of social info and stuff about Christie and her plots as well). Fortunately, if you are a fan of Christie, Harkup doesn’t spoil any of her plots — or in the rare cases she has to for the sake of explaining things properly, she warns you in advance.
I still would’ve liked to see it be about the Golden Age crime fiction in general, and then Harkup would’ve had a great one to analyse in the shape of Sayers’ Strong Poison… but that’s beside the point.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, crime, non-fiction
