Posted November 7, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Plants: From Roots to Riches
Genres: History,
Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 368
Rating: 
Synopsis: Our obsession with plants and gardening goes back a long way and Plants: From Roots to Riches takes us to where it all began. Taking a journey through the scientific life of a uniquely British institution across 25 vivid chapters, this book explores how the last 250 years have transformed our relationship with plants for good.
Based on Radio 4âs landmark series, Kathy Willis, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Carolyn Fry, the acclaimed science writer, will take us from the birth of modern botany right through to the modern day. Delving into Kewâs archive and its world-class collections â including the Herbarium with over 7.5 million preserved plant specimens â they start with Carl Linnaeus and his invention of a universal language to name plants, through Joseph Banksâ exotic discoveries and how Charles Darwinâs fascination with orchids helped convince doubters about evolution. And as the British Empire painted the atlas red, explorers, adventurers and scientists risked their lives to bring the most interesting plant specimens and information back to London, and to Kew. From the lucrative races to control rubber, quinine and coffee to understanding the causes of the potato famine, the science of plants has taught us fascinating and enormously valuable lessons.
Full of amazing images from the archives, (some never reproduced before) and packed with history, science, memorable tales of adventure and discovery, politics and conflict, changing economic and social preoccupations, each chapter tells a unique and fascinating story, but, gathered together, a great picture unfolds, of the development of a most remarkable science, the magic and beauty of plants and ultimately our dependency on them.
Plants: From Roots to Riches is based on a series that was on Radio 4, written by Kathy Willis and Carolyn Fry. I never caught the radio version, but the book version is well-organised into a bunch of pretty bitesize chapters, following the development of botany as a modern science through the lens of Kew Gardens. It has some illustrations, though the colour plates seem quite muted and faded (not sure if this was always so or whether it was the age of the book — it’s a library book).
I don’t think it goes into enormous depth, so if this is your pet topic then likely there isn’t much new for you here, but it was an enjoyable read for me. The focus on Kew and the part Kew has played in the development of botany helped to focus things, and because of the various characters that have been historically involved with Kew, added a bit of human interest too (though none of them seem totally eccentric, alas).
It was a surprisingly fast read, I think because it is basically skimming the surface in a radio-friendly way. I learned some things, but nothing that terribly surprised me.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Carolyn Fry, history, Kathy Willis, non-fiction, science
Posted November 1, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments
The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women
Genres: Historical Fiction,
History,
Non-fiction Pages: 336
Rating: Synopsis: In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior in a high-status grave in Birka, Sweden, was actually a woman. The Real Valkyrie weaves together archaeology, history and literature to reinvent her life and times, showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians have imagined. Nancy Marie Brown links the Birka warrior, whom she names Hervor, to Viking trading towns and to their great trade route east to Byzantium and beyond. She imagines Hervorâs adventures intersecting with larger-than-life but real women, including Queen Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings, the Viking leader known as the Red Girl, and Queen Olga of Kyiv. Hervorâs short, dramatic life shows that much of what we have taken as truth about women in the Viking Age is based not on data but on nineteenth-century Victorian biases. Rather than holding the household keys, Viking women in history, the sagas, poetry and myth carry weapons. In this compelling narrative, Brown brings the world of those valkyries and shield-maids to vivid life.
This is a much-belated post for a book I read and reviewed a while ago, and realised I never reviewed here. My memory of the book’s contents isn’t the sharpest now, but I can try, if anyone has questions!
The Real Valkyrie is about 40% fiction by volume, which is not entirely what I expected. The author has chosen to name and give a fictional biography to the Viking warrior found in Birka who was, after DNA testing, proven to be a woman. The author names her Hervor, and vividly reimagines her life using a mixture of information gained from archaeology and information gained by reading the sagas that have been recorded and handed down.
It’s well-known that the sagas contain quite a lot of truthful detail and history, e.g. in making it clear that Vikings went as far as the Americas in their voyaging, and Brown makes the very good point that the number of female warriors in them probably doesn’t reflect pure fantasy either. I think she’s at her most interesting while discussing the sagas, to be honest: her fictional biography of Hervor made her lose sight of how little she actually could say about the real warrior, and she kept believing far too much in her own story. (The Birka warrior and Ragnhild probably never met, so that’s why they didn’t stay friends…)
It’s an interesting reconstruction, but I’d have preferred to stay focused on the facts (even including those picked from sagas).
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, historical fiction, history, Nancy Marie Brown, non-fiction
Posted October 20, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Precious: The History and Mystery of Gems Across Time
Genres: History,
Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 316
Rating: Synopsis: Travelling through moments in history and layers of soil and sediment, this is world history as you have never seen it before.
This is the story of precious gems, from emeralds and rubies, to sapphires and pearls. Explore their history and geology, as well as their famous owners, from Elizabeth 1 to Elizabeth Taylor, Marie Antoinette to Marilyn Monroe, Coco Chanel to Beyonce.
Discover the fragile emerald watch that survived cross-continental journeys and centuries under the floorboards of a London house.
Journey back through the generations of women who wore pearls as a signifier of femininity and marvel at the role these glistening objects have played in changing depictions of feminism.
Learn of the Burmese warriors who believed so strongly in the connection between rubies and lifeblood that they embedded them into their skin before battle to protect them from harm.
In this sumptuous and sweeping history of humanity's love affair with jewels, the V&Aâs Senior Jewellery Curator, Helen Molesworth, takes you behind the curtain of museums and auction houses, showcasing some of history's most incredible and iconic jewels and the deeply human stories that lie behind them.
Helen Molesworth obviously loves jewels, and discusses some of the very famous ones she’s had the chance to handle during her career in Precious: The History and Mystery of Gems Across Time. While ostensibly a history of gemstones, it’s also quite personal, with Molesworth discussing her connection to the gems or places where gems are mined, and making her experience quite clear. She’s handled So-And-So’s very famous jewels, you know! And these ones too!
I wasn’t so interested in her autobiography through gems, but where she does discuss the formation of gems and the history of how we’ve seen and used gems, it is interesting. And it’s not that I necessarily dislike someone having a personal connection to the topics they write about, and learning from someone’s experience can be interesting — it just feels like there’s a lot of namedropping, both of famous people and famous gems.
It was definitely a more satisfying read than Lapidarium (Hettie Judah) and went a bit more in depth. I found it compelling enough to read it quite quickly — really, it’s mostly in retrospect I’m rolling my eyes a little at the namedropping.
One good feature is the two sets of colour pages showing off photos of the gems. That helps, as I’ve never been that interested, and thus hadn’t seen some of the famous pieces described before. It gives a bit of context.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Helen Molesworth, history, non-fiction, science
Posted October 13, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Miniature Library of Queen Mary's Dolls' House
Genres: History,
Non-fiction Pages: 160
Rating: Synopsis: A unique look inside the carefully crafted miniature library of the Queen Mary's Dolls' House.
Created between 1921 and 1924, the Queen Mary's Dolls' House is one of the most beautiful and famous dollhouses in the world. The structure was designed by British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and features the craftsmanship of over one thousand artists. The house was meticulously furnished, meant to serve as a representation of a real royal residence. It features electricity, running water, and working elevators, but perhaps most impressive of all is the house's spellbinding Edwardian library, which includes more than three hundred miniature books, curated by the granddaughter of Queen Victoria Princess Marie Louise and the writer E.V. Lucas, who contacted hundreds of renowned authors to solicit original works. From poetry by Thomas Hardy to stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and gardening books to atlases, these works represent British aristocratic life and the best examples of art and literature of the time.
The Miniature Library of Queen Mary's Dolls' House is accompanied by a Foreword by Her Majesty Queen Camilla, making it the premiere guidebook to the Crown's miniature royal residence.
The title of Elizabeth Clark Ashby’s book is a pretty good guide to the contents:Â The Miniature Library of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House — though the book does also include some discussion of other aspects of the dolls’ house, such as the (working) miniature pianos and the decision not to include dolls, those aspects are brief. Mostly it focuses on the books: who wrote in them, how were they chosen, what did they write, and how were the books bound.
There’s some interesting discussion (though brief) of why particular people accepted or declined, and the whole thing is illustrated with colour photographs of many of the small books, including with them carefully opened to show some of the pages.
It’s a pretty enchanting idea, though a part of me wonders what the point is when it’s all “look and don’t touch”. If nobody ever opens the books to read these stories, was there really any point in making such lovely objects, except to demonstrate devotion to the monarchy requesting it? I don’t know.
As an endeavour, though, it’s really cool, and this book is a good tour of the little library and how it came to be.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Elizabeth Clark Ashby, history, non-fiction
Posted September 23, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment
Around the Ocean in 80 Fish & Other Sea Life
Genres: History,
Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 216
Rating: 
Synopsis: This is an inspiring tour of the world's oceans and 80 of its most notable inhabitants. Beautifully illustrated, the book includes fascinating stories of the fish, shellfish and other sea life that have somehow impacted human life - whether in our medicine, culture or folklore - in often surprising and unexpected ways.
Around the Ocean in 80 Fish and Other Sea Life is in the same format as Jonathan Drori’s books about plants and trees, but has a different author (Helen Scales) and a different artist (Marcel George). Ocean life isn’t entirely my thing, but nor are plants and trees: what matters is the enthusiasm of the author — and in this case, the beautiful illustrations, which aren’t always just of the animal in question, but an interpretation of how humans have interacted with it or legends around it.
The amount of life in the ocean is so immensely rich that you could miss out everybody’s favourites and still have 80 creatures, so it’s hard to say whether the choices are right or wrong, though my prediction is that almost everyone will have a question about some preferred animal that has been neglected. Scales includes some striking stories and some very curious creatures, and the illustrations are (as I expected from this series) really beautiful. There’s no overarching narrative here — one could dip in and out easily, turn to random pages, etc, etc. I read it cover to cover in that order, as is my wont.
As ever, it highlights the effects humans are having on marine life. Many of the creatures discussed are endangered, or have at the very least had their environment affected by humans in some way or another. Scales doesn’t linger on it to a depressing extent, especially as each segment is so short, but it’s unavoidable to notice it in the aggregate.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Helen Scales, history, Marcel George, non-fiction, science
Posted September 16, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Moneta: A History of Ancient Rome in Twelve Coins
Genres: History,
Non-fiction Pages: 384
Rating: Synopsis: The extraordinary story of ancient Rome, history's greatest superpower, as told through humankind's most universal object: the coin.
Moneta traces ancient Rome's unstoppable rise, from a few huts on an Italian hilltop to an all-conquering empire spanning three continents, through the fascinating lives of twelve remarkable coins. In these handcrafted pieces of ancient art we witness Caesar's bloody assassination, follow the legions to the edge of the known world, take a seat in the packed Colosseum, and ultimately, watch as barbarian armies mass at the gates.
The Romans saw coins as far more than just money - these were metal canvases on which they immortalised their sacred gods, mighty emperors, towering monuments, and brutal battles of conquest. Revealed in those intricate designs struck in gold, silver, and bronze was the epic history of the Roman world.
Hold the glory and the infamy of ancient Rome in the palm of your hand.
I picked up Gareth Harney’s Moneta on a bit of a whim, and partly because it had Emma Southon’s endorsement on the cover, and I’ve really enjoyed her books. And indeed, Moneta is just as readable as Southon’s work, and I found it surprisingly engaging: coins in and of themselves aren’t that interesting to me, but using an object to interrogate a wider history is great.
One quibble, I suppose, inasfar as it matters, is that it’s not really just twelve coins. Each chapter mentions plenty of other coins. And I’d have loved more images of the coins, close to where they get discussed in the text — I’m no good at imagining what’s not in front of me, since I have no visual imagination at all.
Still, I found it a really engaging read. I’m not usually a fan of imaginative reconstructions, but Harney has a knack of storytelling that made them interesting (though of course one should take them with several pinches of salt). The coins and scenarios he chooses to highlight are fascinating, and worthwhile in understanding the Roman Empire.
I guess the ultimate accolade is that even though it’s non-fiction, I found it pretty unputdownable.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Gareth Harney, history, non-fiction
Posted September 9, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Sarpedon Krater: The Life and Afterlife of a Greek Vase
Genres: History,
Non-fiction Pages: 240
Series: The Landmark Library Rating: Synopsis: Once the pride of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Sarpedon krater is a wine-mixing bowl crafted by two Athenians, Euxitheos (who shaped it) and Euphronios (who decorated it), in the late 6thc BC. The moving image Euphronios created for the krater, depicting the stricken Trojan hero Sarpedon being lifted from the battlefield by âSleepâ (Hypnos) and âDeathâ (Thanatos), was to have an influence that endured well beyond Antiquity.
Nigel Spivey not only explores the vibrant Athenian civilization that produced the krater, but also reveals how its motifs were elaborated in later Greek art and in the Christian iconography of the Renaissance.
He tells the story of a small object, once consigned to the obscurity of an Etruscan tomb â yet a work of art whose influence extends far beyond its size and former confinement. The Sarpedon Krater is a fascinating case-study of the deep classical roots of the ideas and iconography of western art.
Nigel Spivey’s The Sarpedon Krater is part of a series about “landmarks” in world history and art. Obviously that’s a bit of a metaphor when we’re discussing this mixing bowl, since it’s not a landmark in the same way as Stonehenge is — but in metaphorical terms, it seems it (or at least the themes on it) really was a landmark. Spivey discusses not just the origin of the vase, the artist and their context, but also the afterlife, including the burial in an Etruscan tomb, the looting, and the sale to a museum, along with its brief involvement in the Marion True saga. It also discusses how the motifs may have been copied by — or at least influenced — later artists.
I didn’t know much about this specific object before I started, though I knew a certain amount about symposia, Greek vases, etc, so this filled in some interesting gaps. It’s beautifully illustrated, with close-ups of the krater and other artwork that’s related in some way.
In the end, I don’t know how to evaluate Spivey’s claims about how influential this art was, but it does all hang together pretty well and make sense as an argument — and regardless of that, I enjoyed the contextualisation of the krater and its afterlife.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, Nigel Spivey, non-fiction
Posted September 2, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
They Were Here Before Us: Stories from Our First Million Years
Genres: History,
Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 208
Rating: Synopsis: An epic and highly readable investigation into our very earliest ancestors, focusing on the land corridor thorough which humans passed from Africa to Europe and the evidence left behind of their lives and deaths, struggles and beliefs.
This is not a book about archaeological sites. We shall come across flint tools, bones, skulls, surprising structures, and layers of earth that we can date to different periodsâbut they are not the heart of the matter. This book is about us, human beings, and about our place in the world. About what we have done, where we came from, which other humans used to be here, why they are no longer with us, and how and why our lives have changed. Itâs also about where we went wrong. What did early humans do because they had no choice and what is the price we paying for this now?
Taking as the focus ten sites in Israel, the land corridor through which the human species passed on its journey from Africa to Europe, the story ranges far and wide from France, Spain, Turkey and Georgia to Morocco and South Africa, North America, Columbia and Peru. The authors follow the footsteps of our ancestors, describing the tools they used, the animals they hunted and the monuments they built. Fascinating revelations include:
- The earliest evidence of human use of fire;
- The meaning of cave art and the transformative effect of touching rock;
- The woman for whom 90 tortoises were sacrificed;
- What happened in the Levant following the disappearance of elephants;
- The monumental tower built at the lowest place on earth;
- Why we should envy modern hunter-gatherers â and much more ...
This provocative and panoramic book shows readers what they can learn from their ancestors, and how the unwavering ability of prehistoric people to survive and thrive can continue into the present.
There isn’t much in Eyal Halfon and Ran Barkai’s They Were Here Before Us that will come as much of a surprise if you’re already familiar with the stories of humanity’s origin, though they do mention a few new-to-me theories and go into some of the history of how things were discovered which I didn’t know. The broad strokes are familiar, but they write very clearly and explain things well. At times there’s a touch of the travelogue, because they describe visiting various of the sites as part of giving their context, but it’s not the main point of the narrative.
They do some imaginative reconstruction in the course of this, trying to figure out why people might have put a swan’s wing here or built a tower there, but I felt like they didn’t go wild: they presented these ideas as theories, as a way of understanding the data, and it’s pretty clear when they’re guessing and when they’re stating a fact.
The book doesn’t have numbered references, but it does have a solid bibliography including both books and papers, most of which look reasonably well-related to the topic to my eye (though this isn’t my field).
I found it enjoyable, and the translation (by Eylon Levy) is very readable.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Eyal Halfon, history, non-fiction, Ran Barkai, science
Posted August 26, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 3 Comments
Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox
Genres: History,
Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 494
Rating: Synopsis: Discover the tantalizing true stories behind your favorite colors.
For example: Cleopatra used saffronâa source of the color yellowâfor seduction. Extracted from an Afghan mine, the blue âultramarineâ paint used by Michelangelo was so expensive he couldnât afford to buy it himself. Since ancient times, carmine redâstill found in lipsticks and Cherry Coke todayâhas come from the blood of insects.
Victoria Finlay’s Colour: Travels through the Paintbox is an examination of dyes and pigments, rather than colour per se — there’s a bit of discussion of why we perceive colours the way we do, but not in depth. It’s more about how various pigments are mined or made, and it’s also part travelogue and part-memoir. The fact that Finlay couldn’t get coffee in Beirut because of Hafez al-Assad’s funeral is neither here nor there, as with the fact that she wore a broken boot to climb in and had to keep tying it together with string. The book could probably do without a great deal of this flavouring, since it slows it all down.
But, viewed as Finlay’s account of a personal quest to discover the origins of a handful of colours — neither exhaustive nor greatly in depth, in many ways — there’s definitely a lot of interest here: random facts, suggestive examples of tradition that may tell us something about how things used to be done, and an idea of how things are done now. Sometimes Finlay’s choices were more about some kind of personally satisfying quest than about really understanding a colour: were her quests for visas really about the colour, or about being able to say she’d visited a mine in Afghanistan?
I guess I feel a bit cynical about some of her motivations because I’m not the type who must necessarily go and see a thing to say I understand it. When she tried to pick saffron, that was an experience worth having to understand the process — but did she need to travel so far? Does one have to see the “original” place where indigo grew to understand indigo?
It’s very readable and full of anecdotes and imagination, to the point where I couldn’t really say it’s a good read to learn about colour. It’s a good read to understand someone else’s journey to personally discover the origins of a handful of pigments and dyes. It does have a bibliography and full footnotes, too, but primarily it’s about how Finlay feels about colour, and the stories she discovered (and liked enough to recount). That can be very enjoyable, it’s just worth bearing in mind.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, science, Victoria Finlay
Posted August 23, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Book of Looms: A History of the Handloom from Ancient Times to the Present
Genres: History,
Non-fiction Pages: 176
Rating: Synopsis: The handloom--often no more than a bundle of sticks and a few lengths of cordage--has been known to almost all cultures for thousands of years. Eric Broduy places the wide variety of handlooms in historical context. What influenced their development? How did they travel from one geographic area to another? Were they invented independently by different cultures? How have modern cultures improved on ancient weaving skills and methods? Broudy shows how virtually every culture, no matter how primitive, has woven on handlooms. He highlights the incredible technical achievement of primitive cultures that created magnificent textiles with the crudest of tools and demonstrates that modern technology has done nothing to surpass their skill or inventiveness.
It’s hard to rate Eric Broudy’s The Book of Looms as someone who doesn’t really understand weaving and has never handled a loom beyond idle curiosity. There are a lot of technical terms to remember, even when they’ve been defined in the text, and it’s also difficult for someone with aphantasia to visualise the descriptions of how things work mechnically.
That said, it’s very thorough, explains its suppositions, and includes a lot of diagrams and images (in black and white) to help illustrate the text and explain things. I expect for people interested in looms on a more than vague and theoretical level will get a lot more out of it.
I’m not in love with the word “primitive” used a few times, but Broudy does call out that these “primitive” looms were used by people who were perhaps more skilled at weaving than anyone living today. The looms may have seen technical advances, but the weavers were superlative. I did enjoy the titbits in between the technical details about the spread of weaving, how cloth was used, the reactions to new technology, etc.
So, not aimed at me, and for that I can’t rate it highly on enjoyment, but I’d feel bad giving it a low rating. I’m certain it’s good for those who’re interested in a more technical level.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Eric Broudy, history, non-fiction
