The Skeleton Cupboard, Tanya Byron

I’m generally fascinated about anything to do with psychology, so when I grabbed this book in a sale, I was very hopeful. That quickly died on reading just the very first chapter: she refers to trans people as “boys who want to be girls” and “ladyboys”, and remarks on that stupid cliché that oh, these men are prettier than her. She’s shaky on the correct pronouns, too — which always drives me crazy: even if you don’t “believe” in the existence of trans people (what?), what’s the point in hurting someone and disrespecting their wishes?

She’s meant to be a psychologist. And okay, at that time, there’s some leeway: trans people weren’t as well-accepted and understood, and she was just beginning her career as a psychologist. But she didn’t write the book at the beginning of her career, although goodness knows the naivete sometimes makes it seem like it. She should’ve known better.

The one thing I can commend her for is that despite all appearances in the actual narrative, she does explain beforehand that the people and cases described are composites, not any one single patient she had. Yay for some vestiges of respect for her patients and their confidentiality!

Overall, I rate this avoid avoid avoid.

Rating: 1/5

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson

So I’ve always been vaguely aware of The Bloggess, mostly because of Beyoncé the Giant Metal Chicken, which is a whole series of thoughts that reminds me of living with my dad. Like, once upon a time I had a large spotted orange, red and pink hippo from Ikea that was kind of like a draft excluder and is maybe meant to be a cot bumper? And there was a slight question of who had custody when I was moving out of my second year flat at university, because she was the mascot for us. And somehow this led to my dad going on Ebay and buying another hippo, since Ikea no longer sold them.

So I had two hippos. Then one day I came home for the holidays and a new hippo had been added to my bed. “This is getting a bit much,” I said. “They needed adopting,” he said.

Somehow, it eventually got up to eleven of them, though now there are six in my bed at home and five piled up on a stack of inflatable hedgehogs. My sister has two, as well, and I think various friends of mine also own large orange and pink hippos. And let’s not even get started on the hedgehogs. Suffice it to say, my dad and Jenny Lawson should never meet, and if you want an inflatable hedgehog, we can probably hook you up, but don’t try Ebay because my dad single-handedly drove up the market price of both inflatable Ikea hedgehogs and large pink and orange spotted Ikea hippos.

Reading Lawson’s memoir is a little like reading this post, except I feel that she’s probably funnier than me and would maybe use more italics. It works better as a blog post, rather than an extended narrative, and other reviews’ descriptions of Lawson as a “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” are quite on the nose. Just read her blog now and then; there are fewer weird notes to editors that read like fiction, and it’s all just as funny.

Rating: 3/5

Junk DNA, Nessa Carey

I’ve read Nessa Carey’s work before, in The Epigenetics Revolution, so I had high hopes for this — especially because it involves a lot more discussion of epigenetic modification of gene expression, and because genetics in general is something that fascinates me. If this is an interest of yours, then this will definitely work for you; I didn’t feel like it repeated the basics too much, but at the same time, it was perfectly readable for anyone at a lower level. I think so, anyway; it’s hard for me to judge now, after so much reading and now study of genetics! I can definitely say that if you know the basics about genetic inheritance and the central dogma of biology, this should work for you.

It’s also very readable and enjoyable; I’ve read some books which unfortunately manage to make genetics boring, even for me, but Carey’s isn’t one of them. This is one of the books I have no doubt I’ll keep entertaining friends and families with random information from — did you know? Did you know?

Rating: 4/5

Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay: The Dodgy Business of Popular Music, Simon Napier-Bell

The style of this history of the music industry is casual and gossipy, and it’d be really easy to read… if I didn’t keep running into phrases like “Red Indians” and “sang the verse like a virgin and the chorus like a whore”. You what? Red Indians, really? In this day and age? And really, a bit of straight-up Madonna/whore bullshit?

I took a couple of deep breaths and read on, but that was just the first chapter and there was plenty more where that came from. If you’re looking for something casual and gossipy, and you don’t mind the occasional stunningly offensive line, then you might well enjoy it; for a non-fiction book, it is actually quite well paced, and there’s plenty of scandal in the music industry to entertain you. Just… apparently very much not for me. So full disclosure: I didn’t finish it.

Rating: 2/5

Time’s Anvil: England, Archaeology and the Imagination, Richard Morris

I really need more books on archaeology; it’s a relaxing thing to read about, somehow, and I prefer it to biography because it can be so varied. Time’s Anvil certainly delivered on the ‘varied’ front, though it is very varied in a way that does feel odd at times: one moment it reflects on the personal life of Morris’ forebears, the next on the historical landscape of Britain, and the two are rather mingled. It meanders, is the best way I can think of to put it. It’s not uninteresting, but some chapters feel immensely dense while others just don’t go into the depth I’d like.

Stuff I did find interesting: the battlefield archaeology stuff, particularly on placing battle sites like that of Bosworth more precisely; the attention to that moment of thrill in holding an artefact that links you somehow to someone hundreds or thousands of years before you; examining the role of metal detecting; examining problems with excavation vs preservation, and in addition, what should be preserved and how we should do that…

There’s a lot of interesting stuff touched on, but it’s not really a book about any one thing, save for the development of English archaeology in general. A book like Seahenge is much more satisfying to me: it sets out a problem, a mystery, and seeks to solve it — knowing always that we can’t have that final scene where the culprit is decisively named. I like the chains of evidence, comparisons between sites, the surprises that crop up during excavations… In that sense, this book isn’t specific enough for me.

So, all in all, enjoyable enough, but not what I really wanted.

Rating: 3/5

A Portrait of the Brain, Adam Zeman

I picked this one up after hearing Adam Zeman do a section in the New Scientist Live consciousness workshop. Like that event, I found it surprisingly simple. The information was mostly stuff I’d read elsewhere; even on neurology and the biology of the brain, it didn’t really touch on anything I wasn’t already aware of. Definitely a good introduction to some neurological issues and the interrelated nature of body and brain; less so if you’ve already read stuff like Sam Kean’s The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons, or even taken a basic course on neurobiology (e.g. Peggy Mason’s ‘The Neurobiology of Everyday Life’ on Coursera).

I was especially puzzled, though, by the choice Zeman made to refer to psychosomatic/conversion disorders as ‘hysteria’. I checked with a psychiatrist of my acquaintance (hi Mum)… As I suspected, it’s not a word that is really used anymore by anyone credible. I think that’s pretty much because it just has all the wrong connotations, and such a bad history of dismissing mental illness — particularly, dismissing female (mental) illness. We have modern terms for it, Zeman seems tolerably aware that even when a disease has no detectable physical cause, it can be serious and in need of treatment… So this just seems like a really weird choice.

I’m well aware of the brain’s power to create symptoms out of harmless bodily sensations. There’s no doubt that that happens, to greater and lesser extents. But to call it hysteria leaves a bad taste in my mouth, because it has such a history of being linked with dismissing women, seeing women as weak and disturbed, etc, etc.

Overall, way too simplistic a book for me, alas, even though I’m still a layperson. Perhaps a good primer for people new to neurology.

Rating: 2/5

The Parthenon, Mary Beard

I enjoyed Mary Beard’s book on Pompeii, so when I spotted The Parthenon in a deal, I figured it’d be an interesting one. I actually expected it to be a bit more about the Greek context of the Parthenon, rather than going into the afterlife of the building — the use as a church and a mosque, the archaeology and tourism, even the literary responses to it, which is what it actually did. It seemed quite inconclusive about what the Parthenon actually was, though the evidence that might tell us about that is more scarce than you would think. It’s unsatisfying — it doesn’t have an altar, so it’s not a temple? But maybe it is? But?

Still, it is interesting to read about the history of the building as a church and a mosque, as well as a temple. I wasn’t even really aware of how much destruction the Parthenon went through: the iconic modern look is actually due to a lot of restoration.

It was very interesting to read the part about Lord Elgin and the issue of the British Museum’s possession of the marbles he took from Athens. On the one hand, it manifestly helped preserve the sculpture: that which remained in situ is in much worse state. But it’s also so… ugh, so imperial and condescending, to assume that Britain is the best guardian. Paternalistic. And while I like Neil MacGregor’s outlook on the British Museum (at least as expressed in A History of the World in 100 Objects), I’m still torn on the subject of the Elgin Marbles. I love the idea of a world museum, and I like the idea of it being in London — because I can conceivably take a weekend off and go there. That doesn’t mean it’s actually the best location, obviously. Just convenient to me. Not that I can think of anywhere notably better, either; I can’t think of a genuinely neutral, international space.

This book really emphasised that the problem of the Parthenon for us is one of cultural ownership, just as Pompeii can be seen as one of preservation. I wanted more about the Acropolis and the original purpose/usage of the Parthenon, but it seems we just don’t know. Which is kind of fascinating in itself…

Rating: 4/5

Genes, Peoples and Languages, Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, trans. Mark Seielstad

I’ve been meaning to read this for a while — even before coming across it in Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct — because genes and languages are two interests of mine. I’m not much for statistics and I found it difficult to follow some of the analyses of the data in this book, but fortunately, Cavalli-Sforza and his translator managed to put the conclusions across quite clearly. I’m surprised to see opposition to the idea that the spread of genes and languages can be mapped onto each other fairly closely, with some exceptions; Darwin predicted it, and according to the data here, it’s fairly clear.

I think the book might’ve benefited from a tighter focus, all the same; it seemed like the language chapter/s went off on a tangent somewhat. Still very interesting, and no doubt out of date by now — my edition says 2001 — so I really should look for more up to date stuff.

Rating: 3/5