Posted April 12, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Museum of the Wood Age, Max Adams
The Museum of the Wood Age sounded like a fascinating concept: a thought experiment about how to gather together the proof of mankind’s use of wood, what kind of exhibits should there be? How would you make people understand the importance of wood throughout the ages? How can we preserve the ways of working with wood that have been passed down to us?
In practice… it was kind of slow. I don’t usually mind obscure details about things outside my usual field of interest, so it’s not that I wasn’t interested. In the end, perhaps it was just too detailed — or Adams’ writing just isn’t engaging enough.
Overall it was a bit of a slog, sadly, and things I was really interested in (like Seahenge!) were more touched upon than really discussed. If you’re fascinated by wood and the things you can make with it, the ubiquity of it in our society, I think there are definitely bits you’ll enjoy. It’s just all a bit long-winded.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, Max Adams, non-fiction
Posted April 9, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 3 Comments
Rattling Bone, Jordan L. Hawk
I didn’t realise this was coming out, and leapt on it as soon as I did! It’s lovely to revisit Oscar and Nigel, and see them a little further into their relationship — in fact, with Oscar taking Nigel to meet his parents. It’s… predictably awkward, especially as soon as they discover Nigel’s job and what the two of them work on together. I like that the contention isn’t about Nigel being trans or about it being a queer relationship, and there’s no tension about the non-binary character either; instead this is pure family dynamics, secrets being kept, etc. I enjoyed that there were complexities there, that it wasn’t just both parents being a united front of anger for exactly the same reasons.
Of course, those secrets are relevant to the story, and Oscar finds himself having to use his newly acknowledged talents to help his family — whether they want him to or not.
I was a little worried that the jealousy/inferiority complex stuff so characteristic of Whyborne in the early Whyborne & Griffin books was going to come out here with the references to Oscar’s childhood friend, but luckily it didn’t really go that way too much. The ending is cute, too.
So much more I’d like to know about the background stuff and their sponsor…
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Jordan L. Hawk, queer fic, romance, SF/F
Posted April 7, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Chosen and the Beautiful, Nghi Vo
I’m really sad this one didn’t work for me, because I love Nghi Vo’s work usually. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m not a huge fan of The Great Gatsby, and only ever read it once, a long time ago. Perhaps it’s that I’m not familiar with the American culture surrounding The Great Gatsby — some readers from the US seem to have such strong feelings around it!
Vo’s writing is great as ever, really easy to read, but I just couldn’t quite make myself care about Gatsby or Daisy or what they were up to. Jordan Baker herself is more interesting, at least as portrayed by Vo, but so much revolves around Daisy and Gatsby. The magic and wonder is an interesting surrounding to the story, but I felt like I never got a close enough look at it.
All in all, just not one for me. Siren Queen was great, with a lot of similar worldbuilding going on, so I’m inclined to lay it at the feet of The Great Gatsby.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Nghi Vo, SF/F
Posted April 5, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Models of the Mind: How Physics, Engineering and Mathematics Have Shaped Our Understanding of the Brain, Grace Lindsay
I’m probably slightly misquoting, but there’s a bit in Dorothy L. Sayers’ Clouds of Witness where Peter’s sister is explaining things to him, and asks him if she isn’t making his head hurt. “Damnably, but I like it. Go on,” Peter says. I felt kind of that way, when reading this — I wasn’t always 100% understanding what was going on, for sure, but I was intrigued and I wanted to read more. Each chapter helped build my understanding up a little more, too: I found it was well-written in that way, even if math really isn’t my thing.
I doubt I’ve retained a great deal of the information, sadly, but it was nonetheless an enjoyable reading experience. The brain is so complex and so fascinating, and Lindsay tries to show how mathematics has been able to illuminate parts of how it works — where squishy biologists like myself might shrug and say it’s too complex. (Maybe that’s just me.)
Most likely math can’t answer all the questions on its own, but Lindsay makes it clear that it’s offered some useful insights and paths to go down.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Grace Lindsay, non-fiction, science
Posted April 2, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
A Taste for Poison, Neil Bradbury
This book didn’t start quite where I expected it to, with the most conventional poisons — arsenic or cyanide or even digitalis. It began with insulin, which was an interesting way to approach the topic, and that gave it a certain amount of freshness. Each poison is illustrated with two or three stories about how it’s been used by someone or other, historically, and how they were caught (of course, cases where no one was caught are harder to prove).
It talks a little about how each poison works — not in exhaustive detail, but enough to give you a pretty good layperson’s understanding of why it should prove a poison.
It’s interesting how often doctors and medical professionals are the culprits in these stories. It makes sense — access to the poisons, and trust from patients — but it’s a little disheartening to read, actually!
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, Neil Bradbury, non-fiction, science
Posted March 31, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Green for Danger, Christianna Brand
Green for Danger is one of those classic crime novels that definitely doesn’t feel cosy. That’s not just because it’s set during the Second World War — writers were perfectly capable of writing normality-restoring, comforting crime fiction then; in fact, it was a great time for it. The war setting doesn’t help, though, because the unease creeps around the story: consider the fact that all the doctors have morphine to take in case they should get buried alive during a bombing.
Mostly, though, it’s the mystery itself that’s unsettling. The potential culprits are all an inner circle, a limited group, and you watch their insecurities and their foibles playing out as you suspect each in turn. Could it be this one, or that one? Could it be because of a dark past, a horrible secret? Why is one’s voice recognised by various patients? Was there something suspicious about that previous event? And there’s the detective, putting pressure on them all to make them confess…
It all ends up being very uncomfortable, because it’s a group of friends, and nobody wants to believe anyone else has done it. There’s a web of jealousies and friendships between them that doesn’t stop them wanting the best for each other — but someone is a killer.
Brand’s a good writer, but it isn’t what I typically look for when I pick up a British Library Crime Classic.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, British Library Crime Classics, Christianna Brand, crime, mystery
Posted March 28, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the World, Bob Brier
I’ve been fascinated by ancient Egypt since I was a kid, like many people. One of the books that fed that interest when I was a teenager was Bob Brier’s The Murder of Tutankhamen, so I was intrigued to get this and read about his current take on the state of Tutankhamun studies. I also knew he said some things people found controversial and unnecessary about Howard Carter (highlighting what appeared to be thefts from the tomb), which… I was curious about, and not too surprised about.
Brier writes engagingly, and there’s a lot of fascinating stuff. I did find it not always entirely clear when a theory was considered solid or not — sometimes he’d report a recent theory and say that this and that were found on experimentation, and give all positive-sounding evidence about it… and then sort of step back and say well, we can’t trust that evidence. It’s probably easier to digest if you discuss both the positives and the negatives all in one go! (In particular I found this with the chapter aDNA testing on the mummies to establish familial relationships. Brier sounded like he was behind their conclusions, at least to me, and then in the next chapter mentioned how obviously it couldn’t be true.)
It’s definitely an interesting update both on the understanding of Tutankhamun and on Brier’s understanding of Tutankhamun, especially if you read his popular book, which suggested that Tutankhamun was murdered, when it was current. He’s completely disavowed all those theories now, but makes brief reference to them here.
It remains a popular book and biased, I think, to the author’s specific interests and view of the world. For example, he repeatedly conflates disability with frailty, which may or may not be true (someone with a club foot may still be fairly hale in other ways, for example). He’s very keen to portray Tutankhamun a certain way, and it’s important to remember that Brier is not neutral (no one is) in those interpretations. Some of this stuff we just don’t know, and is very difficult to know now thanks to the poor condition of Tutankhamun’s body.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: Bob Brier, book reviews, books, history, non-fiction
Posted March 13, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Blue Jeans, Carolyn Purnell
This is a sort of non-fiction I really like — something that focuses on an everyday object and unpicks it. Here it’s blue jeans, and goes into the colour, the garment, how they became combined, and the fashions around them and perceptions of them. Parts of it, like the creation of indigo, I already knew about, but it’s different to have the facts marshalled together like this and get a really clear view on how the creation of synthetic indigo has led to huge pollution from the jeans industry.
Carolyn Purnell writes well and clearly, and without personal anecdote getting too much in the way — rather, the glimpses of her personal opinions and her family’s history with jeans helped to illuminate the topic.
I really enjoyed it.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Carolyn Purnell, history, non-fiction
Posted March 11, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Personal Stereo, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow
I love the idea of this series, but I chose this one somewhat at random — and it was a winner for me! I’m just old enough to have used a Walkman for a while before I started using things like CDs and a minidisk player, before moving onto an iPod. I was that kid blocking out all the other kids, as a teenager, though by then it was definitely CDs/minidisk/iPod: I was the one in my own little world, and I needed it amidst all the bullying at my school — an aspect of why people might have chosen personal stereos that doesn’t quite get covered here, though the concerns about people going off into their own little world, as well as the pleasures thereof, are covered.
The author has quite the nostalgia for personal stereos, but tries to look at them critically and pick apart the nostalgia to see what they really were. In some ways, the societal reaction to them was very similar to that toward mobile phones: they were making people anti-social, they were ruining all kinds of things, they were dangerous, etc. Always funny to see that we’re the same throughout generations…
It’s a short read, and I found it worthwhile. Surprisingly touching in some ways (the story of the co-founders of Sony, both having had strokes, communicating silently and remaining friends, for instance). I was absorbed enough to read it in less than an hour, without putting it down.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, non-fiction, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow
Posted March 9, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Tutankhamun’s Trumpet: Ancient Egypt in 100 Objects, Toby Wilkinson
I love this style of history, selecting objects and focusing in on what they tell us, and I was hugely into Ancient Egyptian history when I was a teenager (obsessing in particular over Christine Desroches-Noblecourt’s book on Tutankhamun). So it’s no surprise that I really enjoyed this in a partly nostalgic way.
Unlike some other books of this type, it doesn’t explicitly mention at the start of each section which object is being discussed. Sometimes the object introduces the history that Wilkinson wants to explore; sometimes there’s a description of the state of affairs too, and then Wilkinson brings in the object that illustrates that from the tomb. Sometimes the object is mentioned rather glancingly, which is somewhat disappointing: I love it when historians and archaeologists really focus in and look at the object as an object as well as a symbol of hundreds of years of history.
Overall, I found this enjoyable, and despite eagerly reading many books both specifically about Tutankhamun and more generally about Ancient Egypt, I definitely found new information and (perhaps even better) new interpretations here. I’m reading Bob Brier’s Tutankhamun and the Tomb that Changed the World right now, for example, and he only mentions the usual theory that the tombs of many past pharoahs were looted by robbers and their mummies rewrapped and rehidden by the state “to protect them from further desecration”. Wilkinson instead mentions state-sanctioned looting in Ramesses XI’s reign to fund General Paiankh’s campaigns — something I don’t recall reading about anywhere else before.
Definitely got on better with this than A World Beneath The Sands, which bodes well for the other Wilkinson book I have on my TBR pile.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, Toby Wilkinson
