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 14, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
Invisible Friends: How Microbes Shape Our Lives and the World Around Us
Genres: Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 304
Rating: 
Synopsis: As we continue to live through a pandemic, all eyes are on microbes: an imperceptible and pervasive threat that hangs heavy on the air and clings to surfaces. But the reality of micro-organisms is far more diverse and life-sustaining than such a notion would have us believe (hence the title of this book). Not only are they omnipresent, but we are highly attuned to their workings - both in the world at large and right here within our own bodies. Meanwhile, cutting-edge microbiome research is changing our understanding of reality, challenging fundamental concepts of free will and individuality. Threaded through everything are microbes: the very glue that holds ecosystems together.
This topical, engaging and original book counters the prevailing narrative of microbes as the bane of society, along the way providing much-needed clarity on the overwhelmingly beneficial role they play. We discover how the microbiome is highly relevant to environmental and social equity issues, while there's also discussion about how microbes may influence our decisions: even the way we think about how we think may need to be revisited. Invisible Friends introduces the reader to a vast, pullulating cohort of minute life - friends you never knew you had.
Jake M. Robinson’s Invisible Friends is a fairly basic discussion of microbes and what they do — how they don’t just make us sick, but also influence how we feel through their influence on our guts, immune systems and more. It really is very, very basic though, touching only lightly on important topics like antibiotic resistance, and extremely lightly on what we might do about that, barely giving half a page to the potential of bacteriophages. Which is a shame, because we need to move toward using methods like bacteriophages, and for that people need to know more about them and not be afraid of them. (Check out Tom Ireland’s The Good Virus, to that end.)
I know that I’m not exactly the target audience for this book, given my background knowledge and interests even before I started doing an MSc in this stuff, but it still felt excessively simplistic. Really, it seemed like a vehicle for Robinson to tell people to spend more time outside and stop being so germophobic.
It’s true that that’d be good for us, and he’s not wrong about the impact of city living on the human microbiome, nor about the potential benefits of trying to fix that. It’s just that sometimes it begins to feel like he’s self-aggrandising, discussing this project or that that he’s been involved with that aims to improve this or that in order to, you’ve guessed it, improve people’s exposure to microbes in the city environment. We also hear repeatedly about the fact that he’s writing the thing outside in a forest. He does at least touch on the fact that there is some serious inequality in ability to access natural landscapes, at least on an economic level, which is good. (He doesn’t discuss accessibility issues of other kinds other than location and money, though.)
Anyway, I know I’m a harsh judge of this kind of thing, but I’m perfectly capable of enjoying a good book aimed at laypeople for being clear and precise in communication, even when it’s the basics — like Philipp Dettmer’s Immune — so I don’t think it’s just that.
Rating: 2/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Jake M. Robinson, non-fiction, science
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 September 1, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments
The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World
Genres: Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 304
Rating: 
Synopsis: In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks readers through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries, and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Lifeâs losses were sharp and deeply-felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now.
Picture yourself in the Cretaceous period. Itâs a sunny afternoon in the Hell Creek of ancient Montana 66 million years ago. A Triceratops horridus ambles along the edge of the forest. In a matter of hours, everything here will be wiped away. Lush verdure will be replaced with fire. Tyrannosaurus rex will be toppled from their throne, along with every other species of non-avian dinosaur no matter their size, diet, or disposition. They just donât know it yet.
The cause of this disaster was identified decades ago. An asteroid some seven miles across slammed into the Earth, leaving a geologic wound over 50 miles in diameter. In the terrible mass extinction that followed, more than half of known species vanished seemingly overnight. But this worst single day in the history of life on Earth was as critical for us as it was for the dinosaurs, as it allowed for evolutionary opportunities that were closed for the previous 100 million years.
Riley Black’s The Last Days of the Dinosaurs is not entirely about dinosaurs — in fact, a large chunk of it is about what came after the dinosaurs, the period of renewal in which the avian dinosaurs and mammals recovered from the Chicxulub impact and dinosaurs didn’t.
The main body of the text is an imaginative reconstruction, based on the data we have, choosing examples from particular species to illustrate how the impact (and aftermath) affected different kinds of animals, and how some may have survived. It’s followed by an appendix which discusses some of the scientific evidence behind the reconstruction. None of this is footnoted or explicitly linked in any way to a specific source, unfortunately (though it accords with my knowledge as far as that goes).
So as a casual read for laypeople, this is fine — Black’s writing is clear and her enthusiasm for the subject spills out at all turns, but for those who read a claim and then want to see what it’s based on, this would be pretty frustrating.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, Brian Switek, non-fiction, Riley Black, 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
Posted August 19, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments
The Long History of the Future: Why Tomorrow's Tech Still Isn't Here
Genres: History,
Non-fiction,
Science Pages: 368
Rating: Synopsis: We love to imagine the future. But why is dramatic future technology always just around the corner, and never a reality?
For decades we've delighted in dreaming about a sci-fi utopia, from flying cars and bionic humans to hoverboards; with driverless cars first proposed at the 1939 World's Fair. And why not? Building a better world, be it a free-flying commute or an automated urban lifestyle is a worthy dream. Given the pace of technological change, nothing seems impossible anymore. But why are these innovations always out of reach?
Delving into the remarkable history of technology, The Long History of the Future also looks at what lies ahead, showing how the origins of our technology may provide insight into how it realistically evolves. You may never be able to buy a fully driverless car, but automated braking and steering could slash collision rates. Smart cities won't perfect city life, but they could help bins be emptied on time. Hyperloops may never arrive, but superfast trains could fill the gap.
Looking to the future, Nicole Kobie demonstrates how despite our belief that current technology is the best it could ever be, the future always proves us wrong, and there is much to look forward to.
Nicole Kobie’s The Long History of the Future looks at the kind of things that we feel we’ve been promised by visions of the future, and why they’re still so far in the future — flying cars, self-driving cars, robot butlers, true AI, etc. Most of these are not my subject, so it’s hard to evaluate on those terms, but Kobie’s explanations make good sense, and make mention not just of physical constraints but also other things like legislative and practical issues. For example… do you really want flying cars passing by your windows every couple of minutes? How would the noise issues be handled? How would flight paths be handled?
In general, I’m not myself super interested in flying cars or robot butlers, cool as it sounds on paper, but I enjoyed Kobie’s exploration of why those things aren’t ready yet, and why they’re harder than they look. I was reassured that she wasn’t all-in on AI, though I could’ve stood to see her be even more critical of things like the environmental impact and copyright theft.
I flagged a bit toward the end of the book, as sometimes it felt like there was a bit of padding — did we really need to hear a blow-by-blow of an event in which students showed off their model hyperloop designs, which didn’t work because the batteries were flat? But overall it was interesting.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, Nicole Kobie, non-fiction, science
Posted August 15, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments
Worn: A People's History of Clothing
Genres: History,
Non-fiction Pages: 393
Rating: Synopsis: Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics, Wool: through the stories of these five fabrics, Sofi Thanhauser illuminates the world we inhabit in a startling new way, travelling from China to Cumbria to reveal the craft, labour and industry that create the clothes we wear.
From the women who transformed stalks of flax into linen to clothe their families in nineteenth century New England to those who earn their dowries in the cotton-spinning factories of South India today, this book traces the origins of garment-making through time and around the world. Exploring the social, economic and environmental impact of our most personal possessions, Worn looks beyond care labels to show how clothes reveal the truth about what we really care about.
Sofi Thanhauser’s Worn is definitely a people’s history of clothing, and really more a history of fabric production than of clothing per se. There are so many points in clothing’s life cycle that Worn doesn’t even touch on, but it takes a good look at the production of fabrics like silk, cotton, linen, wool and synthetics: how they were first produced, how they’re produced now, their impact on the environment, and most of all their impact on the people who are involved in their manufacture, from the field to the factory.
I was hoping for something a bit more focused on clothing, rather than generally on fabric — I think there’s a meaningful distinction to be made between a history specifically about clothes and a history about fabric, and this is decidedly the latter, when I was looking for the former.
That said, I did find it interesting and enjoyable, and Thanhauser clearly put in a lot of time to ensure she heard the voices of those making fabric. There’s plenty of people writing books about clothes, and fabric is definitely a worthy part of the story. I’d have just picked a different title and subtitle.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, history, non-fiction, Sofi Thanhauser
