Posted October 22, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths and Myth in Greek and Roman Times
Genres: History,
Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 400
Rating: 
Synopsis: Griffins, Cyclopes, Monsters, and Giants--these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact -- in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.
I really enjoyed this exploration and analysis of what the ancient Greeks and Romans thought of ancient fossils that they found and clearly noticed, collected and wondered about; the idea that they were “too big to be noticed” never sat right with me, even though it did seem weird that mostly the major philosophers didn’t comment on the subject (despite that well-known commentary on seashells demonstrating the presence of a long-lost sea in a given location).
I think that sometimes Mayor does go beyond her evidence — we just can’t be that certain, though she lays out some good evidence that tales of the existence of gryphons could’ve been sparked, in Greece, by second-hand travellers’ tales. I found that aspect of her discussion a bit thin, because there’s stuff in Greek mythology that is equally well or better explained by someone making stuff up.
That said, her discussion of “heroes’ bones” makes a lot of sense, and I do think it’s likely that stuff in Greek mythology references aspects of the world the Greeks didn’t understand, or didn’t properly understand anyway.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: Adrienne Mayor, book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, science
Posted September 10, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment
Mother Tongue, Jenni Nuttall
I was worried this would come off rather gender essentialist, and there were a few points that did raise eyebrows — Nuttall is very certain of her “we” when referring to various experiences that she attributes to “being female”, and though she didn’t say anything outright trans/enby-phobic, I was conscious that there was kind of a miasma of scepticism about the increase in gender-neutral language.
There was a lot of interesting stuff in here, but I found her style a bit tedious, and at times she really wasn’t clear. For example, she talked about the Latin version of the Bible and made it sound almost like it was originally written in Latin (it wasn’t). I’m pretty sure that’s because she was talking about a translation being done from Latin to the vernacular, with the translators using the Latin instead of the original, but… mm. It just all felt a little woolly to someone who was noticing what was said. There’s simplifying it for a lay audience, and there’s making it sound like the original version of the New Testament was in Latin.
(This may of course be mostly my own reading, and if I read it again it’d seem perfectly clear. Maybe. But on first read, I raised my eyebrows. That suggests a lack of clarity!)
As far as notes go, they are very, very scanty. A whole chapter has two endnotes, for example. What are the sources for literally everything else? Who knows.
All in all, I’m inclined to suggest steering away from this one, now that I’ve sat down and thought it through. Unearthing the words female-bodied people have used about themselves is a worthy plan, but if a whole chapter has only two notes, then… nah.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction
Posted August 25, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Lives of the Ancient Egyptians, Toby Wilkinson
Lives of the Ancient Eygptians is not a particularly surprising book, if you’ve read about ancient Egypt in popular history books for a while, but it does take an interesting perspective: the span of ancient Egyptian history, represented as best as possible through the lives of 100 Egyptians.
That’s not many to do a lot of work, and sometimes they kind of clump together (Hatshepsut, and also people who worked for her, and also her family members), but mostly it manages to pick out — where possible — a range of people, including the poorer people who we have less evidence about.
In the end, it’s quite a simple version of Egyptian history, and there are many fascinating, controversial and enlightening facts and people passed over. Such a choice of format will always disappoint someone. I found it mildly entertaining and fairly readable, though Wilkinson is not (for me personally, at least) the most engaging writer. I don’t know what it is about his writing, but reliably, I find my attention drifting. Oops.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, Toby Wilkinson
Posted July 19, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
A History of Reading, Steven Roger Fischer
A History of Reading is an interesting look at reading throughout history. It’s not just the history of books, or stories, but about the place that literacy has generally in society, and a bit of what that meant for society — e.g. how it affects things as reading spreads away from the elite.
Some of the suggestions it has about ereading are very of its time: in reality, our ebooks have been very like our pbooks, without the wild branching of possibilities and jumping around in texts that the author suggests may come next. Likewise, pbooks don’t seem to be going away at the rate people expected back then: we’re all still very fond of our codices.
Still, on the historical stuff it’s fascinating, if a bit slow.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, Steven Roger Fischer
Posted July 7, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Hidden Heritage: Rediscovering Britain’s Lost Love of the Orient, Fatima Manji
Hidden Heritage attempts to bring some hidden gems to life, along with their history and context. It’s not just a game of spotting bits of ‘Oriental’ architecture and influence in Britain, but digging into what they meant at the time and what they might mean now. Much of it was new to me — not necessarily surprising, because I knew these influences existed, but new to me in the specifics, in someone actually bothering to point them out.
Fatima Manji’s writing is clear and easy to read in and of itself, but I especially enjoyed getting to read some bits of history that we’re usually less aware of.
Note: the book uses the term “Oriental”, even though it conflates a whole bunch of different cultures, because that’s how it was perceived at the time, and those cultures were conflated and viewed as one (or at least, as very, very closely related), and thus must be understood in that context.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Fatima Manji, history, non-fiction
Posted May 29, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment
Pathogenesis, Jonathan Kennedy
Pathogenesis was less absorbing for me than I’d hoped; I love non-fiction about diseases, even though I’m already studying for my MSc in the subject and thus most of it is not new to me. Still, often there are titbits I didn’t know, and that seemed like it was going to prove true here too when I read the introduction: did you know that viral genes are involved in the formation of the mammalian placenta?
But overall, the rest of it was much less scientific, less based on… well… pathogenesis, and much more about history. How diseases affected armies and governments, and how changes like capitalism (of which the author seems to be a huge fan) changed the approach to public health. Which is to say, created a demand for it, since there was no such thing under feudalism.
For someone who is interested in the history of infectious diseases in relation to humanity, this is probably still fascinating. For me, it was just a bit to starboard of my real interests, and I found it far too simplistic in discussing how diseases work. (Plus, there was definitely a lot more room to consider the impacts of the current pandemic and what it means for the future. Consider the impact on the treatment of tuberculosis, for example — deeply negative.)
It was alright, but not what I wanted, ultimately.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, Jonathan Kennedy, non-fiction, science
Posted May 3, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Premonitions Bureau, Sam Knight
The study of things like psychic powers and premonitions is always fascinating. There’s a sense that so many of us want to believe in this sort of thing — the way the human brain insists that there must be a pattern behind circumstances. One can be fairly intellectually sure that there’s no such thing as precognition per se, and yet find it a little freaky that (say) a young girl would dream of her school being swallowed up by black stuff a couple of nights before she dies in the Aberfan disaster…
This book is all about digging into that, mostly through looking at the investigations and interests of John Barker, a British psychiatrist who tried to gather up premonitions and test them scientifically. He was sometimes a bit too credible, a bit too inclined to influence the data — but then, two of his clairvoyants (percipients, as he called them) predicted his death fairly accurately, and had a number of other surprisingly specific hits (such as predicting a train derailment).
The book mostly follows Barker, along with a few of his colleagues, trying to understand his attempts to study premonitions, and why he was so fascinated by the subject. Knight doesn’t attempt to come to any conclusions, just presents the facts as best as they can be known — though of course there’s always a chance someone massaged the facts to make a better story, whether it was Barker, one of his colleagues, or Knight himself.
There’s quite a bit of detail on the Aberfan disaster in the first 50 pages, by the way, which hit me where I live. If that disaster is particularly evocative for you, then read with care.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, Sam Knight, science
Posted April 19, 2023 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
Sex: Lessons from History, Fern Riddell
A comprehensive history of sex would be a tall order: sexual behaviour doesn’t fossilise, after all, and it’s so often been a taboo subject that even in written history, it can be hard to find evidence. Riddell doesn’t try too hard to find evidence far back in the past, but works with what records we have, reminding us all of the lies we keep telling ourselves about the Victorians being total prudes about sex, about the historical treatment of queer people, etc. She dips into court records and ad copy, so it’s not just contemporary accounts that specifically aimed to discuss sex and attitudes toward it, but also additional evidence.
Riddell’s prose is really readable and full of anecdotes and illustrations from the records, which means it’s not dry at all. It does focus on sex and people who have sex, but touches on gender identity as well, with caution about applying modern labels and concepts to people who never wrote about what they felt or intended; asexuality is referenced, but not really discussed.
There’s quite a range of topics here (homosexuality, masturbation, orgasms, contraception), so it doesn’t go into too much depth on any one thing; rather, it’s a bit of an overview.
Referencing is fairly clear, using footnotes rather than end-notes (so more specific than many popular non-fic books), and there’s an index. There are a few editing issues that I really think should’ve been caught — typos and such.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Fern Riddell, history, non-fiction
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 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
