Tag: book reviews

Review – Catching Breath

Posted October 4, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 3 Comments

Cover of Catching Breath by Kathryn LougheedCatching Breath: The Making and Unmaking of Tuberculosis, Kathryn Lougheed

Or mostly the making of it, since unmaking it has been so far beyond human powers.

If you think of TB as something that happens to other people, in other countries, or even only in the past, then this is a necessary corrective. It highlights the disease burden borne in particular countries (usually where poverty and poor nutrition support it), among particular groups (refugees finding it hard to access care; homeless people in London) and in people already suffering reduced immune function (people who have HIV). TB is still very much with us, and there are already strains out there which are completely drug resistant.

Let me say that again: we’re so far from beating TB that there are completely drug resistant strains out there which can only be treated with a Hail Mary approach of toxic antibiotics like kanamycin or surgical intervention. And there have only been two new anti-TB agents in recent years, and neither of them are ready to deploy on a large scale. Oh, and by the way, we don’t even have sufficient global supply of the current first line drugs.

I appreciated Lougheed’s focus on mentioning the fact that this drug resistance isn’t due to people not complying with their medication schedules. Antibiotic resistance naturally arises in TB, even if a patient is observed 24/7 and every pill or shot is administered on a precise timeline. We can’t just put this down to people being careless, though there’s no doubt that in some cases that could cause antibiotic resistance.

If you’re a fan of UKIP, you won’t like Lougheed’s commentary on racism, etc; she shares my views, as far as I can tell from this book, but she’s very vocal in giving little respect to that area of the public. I found her likeable for it, but your mileage will no doubt vary.

Anyway, all in all, this is an interesting, timely, not too technical history of the science of TB, and it’s a bit of an eye-opener even for someone relatively aware of the state of things. I found it very readable and illuminating.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , , , ,

Divider

Review – Leonardo: The First Scientist

Posted October 3, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 3 Comments

Cover of Leonardo by Michael WhiteLeonardo: The First Scientist, Michael White

I’ve found myself quite enjoying White’s biographies, and this is no exception. I think it’s difficult to argue that da Vinci wasn’t a scientist, when you look at the kinds of things he was interested in and the methodical way he went about it, including (as White points out) using the scientific method. I have to confess I picked up this biography after playing Assassin’s Creed II, and I did spend the entire time trying to work out how the chronology fit in with Ezio’s adventures…

White’s books are definitely very readable, and they seem to be sourced and well thought out. I’ll probably pick up other biographies written by White in the future; I enjoyed his one on Machiavelli, too.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – A Rare Book of Cunning Device

Posted October 2, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of A Rare Book of Cunning Device by Ben AaronovitchA Rare Book of Cunning Device, Ben Aaronovitch

Narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, this is a short story set in Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London world. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is a great narrator and sounds just perfect for Peter, and while it’s a short story, it’s fun and features Toby and Postmartin… and the British Library. And, of course, a rare book of cunning device.

I won’t spoiler you if you haven’t listened to it, but it really is fun, helped by Holdbrook-Smith’s delivery. If you enjoy Peter Grant and his brand of humour, you’ll be in for a treat. And as I recall, it’s free on Audible…

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

Review – Mask of Shadows

Posted October 1, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Mask of Shadows by Linsey MillerMask of Shadows, Linsey Miller

Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 29th August 2017

I was intrigued by the sound of Mask of Shadows, because the main character is non-binary and throughout the story, asks to be addressed by pronouns that match what they’re wearing — and by neutral pronouns (they/them/their) if they’re ambiguous. I thought it was reasonably well done; people didn’t get too obsessed with finding out, and not everyone was a total douche about it either. The narrative didn’t linger on it, either.

On the other hand, it’s basically Throne of Glass with a bit of The Hunger Games, apart from maybe the figure of the queen, who is intriguingly ambiguous in the end, although she starts as a saviour figure. There is some interesting world-building — the shadows — but really, it feels so much like Throne of GlassI enjoyed Throne of Glass well enough, but I don’t want to read it again.

There’s a couple of issues with pacing too — sometimes the story seems to jerk forward, leaving me wondering where something came from. But for the most part, it’s fun; just not original.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – The Wimsey Family

Posted September 30, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Wimsey FamilyThe Wimsey Family, C.S. Scott-Giles, Dorothy L. Sayers

This is quality piffle, right here. It’s a short volume, and perhaps better in concept than actually in execution, at least as something to read straight through. It assembles a bunch of stories that Sayers and her correspondents came up with, explaining Peter’s family and where exactly he came from. It untangles some inconsistencies, and basically rationalises everything.

A nice thing for a collector of Sayers’ work to have, and for a major fan of Lord Peter, but perhaps not the most entertaining just to sit and read.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – The Planet in a Pebble

Posted September 29, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Planet in a Pebble by Jan ZalasiewiczThe Planet in a Pebble, Jan Zalasiewicz

There are some authors who can make me feel enthusiastic about reading about geology — Richard Fortey being the obvious name that jumps to mind. Jan Zalasiewicz is not quite on that level, though I found the book interesting enough; sometimes it drags somewhat, but I think that somewhat comes with the subject. There are parts of a rock’s life cycle that aren’t exactly scintillating drama, if any part of the rock cycle could be called scintillating given the pace it happens at.

Probably not the first book I’d recommend for geology, but useful enough for understanding the rock cycle and the history of the Earth through rocks.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider

Review – Starlings

Posted September 28, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Starlings by Jo WaltonStarlings, Jo Walton

Received to review via Tachyon; publication date 30th January 2018

It’s no secret that I love Jo Walton’s work, and I’d better add here that I’ve spent time with her as well — I’d call her a friend. Still, I knew her work first, and this is a fun collection. Jo may say she doesn’t know how to write short stories, but all the same everything here works pretty well. I only knew ‘Relentlessly Mundane’ and some of the poetry before, I think. It was nice to re-encounter the poetry here and spend some time with it — reading it online wasn’t the same at all. I hadn’t read the play, either, ‘Three Shouts on a Hill’; entertaining stuff.

My favourite of the short stories… hmm, possibly ‘Sleeper’, and I liked ‘What Joseph Felt’ a lot too.

Really, I never know quite how to review short story collections: suffice it to say that I enjoyed it, and I think it’s worth it, especially if you’re already a fan of Walton’s work. I’m glad I got to read it ahead of time.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , , , ,

Divider

Review – Neanderthals Rediscovered

Posted September 27, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Neanderthals Rediscovered by Dimitra PappagianiNeanderthals Rediscovered, Dimitra Papagianni, Michael A. Morse

For a book that promises to be all about Neanderthals and not so much about our ancestors, this didn’t totally deliver. The Neanderthals are compared to our (more direct) ancestors in pretty much every chapter, and not just where the two may have met and interacted. Nonetheless, it’s a good survey of what we currently know about Neanderthals thanks to work by people like Svante Pääbo who’ve taken it to the lab, and people who work in the field.

Honestly, it’s not as in-depth as I hoped, but it is an interesting subject and some of the photos in the full-colour plates are well worth a look — reconstructions, sites, skeletons, etc.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – Ninefox Gambit

Posted September 26, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha LeeNinefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee

Received to review via the author and Netgalley; publication date 14th June 2016

I am so late to this one. I’m sorry, and especially sorry because when I finally picked it up, I read it in an evening and immediately formulated a plan to go and pick up the sequel at my earliest convenience or possibly earlier. I didn’t start out that well with it, because the talk of maths blindsided me; once I started treating it like magic, however, and therefore subject to rules I may not understand, I got really fascinated by the whole system. It does keep you on your toes, and often avoids spoonfeeding you the things you need to know, so if you’re looking for something to turn your brain off and settle into, this isn’t it.

However, I got totally caught up in the characters, too. Not so much because they’re likeable — I’m not sure they are — but because I wanted to know what made them tick, what was going to happen, and how they were going to achieve their goals — or indeed, what their actual goals were.

I don’t know how to say more about this without merely describing it or giving spoilers, but suffice it to say I enjoyed it a lot. There’s something of the feel of Ancillary Justice (and the sequels) about it, although in many respects it’s totally different.

Rating: 4/5

Tags: , ,

Divider

Review – Proust and the Squid

Posted September 25, 2017 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Proust and the Squid by Maryanne WolfProust and the Squid, Maryanne Wolf

Despite the exciting-sounding title, this is actually a book about the science of how we read. Unfortunately, it’s been a while since I read it and the review I wrote then is one of the reviews that I seem to have lost in the ether, but I do remember finding it generally entertaining, though I wished at times there were more citations so I could go and read more about the things Wolf claims.

One thing I really want to look up is the results of the study into AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) and how it affects the acquisition of reading skills. It seems a little eyebrow-raising that there should be specific problems with AAVE and not with, say, the Yorkshire dialect in Britain — maybe that’s for lack of studying it, I don’t know. It just seems a little bit suspect when you consider the way people view users of AAVE as uneducated, and all those other racial stereotypes.

Some interesting stuff about dyslexia, though.

Rating: 3/5

Tags: , , ,

Divider