Peas & Queues, Sandi Toksvig

I’m not sure what other people were expecting with this: luckily, I approached it for exactly what it is, a book which offers advice on all sorts of situations and how to navigate them with dignity and politeness. Sort of like Captain Awkward, but more formal, and less tailored to a specific individual or situation. It contains all sorts of advice from dealing with family life to what to do at weddings and funerals.

It even touches on some etiquette that seems obvious when you hear it, but which people genuinely do miss. Like asking a lesbian couple about their sex life and which of them is the man — just don’t. If you wouldn’t ask the question of a straight couple, don’t ask it of a gay couple. A lot of Toksvig’s advice boils down to not putting other people in awkward situations (e.g. like public proposals where there’s an obligation to say yes or look ridiculous) and respecting other people’s privacy.

Pretty solid. And it’s sometimes interesting, sometimes funny, sometimes useful — and sometimes, as all generalisations are, not useful. At least Toksvig acknowledges — repeatedly — the importance of context rather than a rigid set of rules.

Rating: 3/5

On My Way to Jorvik, John Sunderland

The most interesting part of this book, for me, is obviously the Jorvik part. It’s fascinating to see how someone with no experience managed to get into a big project like the one at Jorvik, and then create something pretty much universally acclaimed for the way it changed people’s relationship to the history there.

The problem is, the book is about the way to Jorvik as much as Jorvik itself, so there’s all sorts of distractions along the way, and details about Sunderland I wasn’t that interested in. Not just the formative incidents of skipping school to browse in museums, but also his relationships, his pre-Jorvik projects no matter how irrelevant, and weird incidents of the type that happen to nearly everyone at least once: a lady in a cinema with a “suspiciously deep voice” offering him sweeties. Some of the incidents are interesting, and Sunderland has a vivid imagination, but mostly I was just waiting for the parts about Jorvik, and wondering why the hell I’d be interested in that anecdote from the cinema, or what exactly Sunderland did on his days skiving from school.

There was some interest in it on another level, because Sunderland’s a Yorkshire lad, and while I wouldn’t say I’m a Yorkshire lass, I did grow up there, and I could put the things he said into that context and see how utterly Yorkshire he was being — things he said, his attitudes, etc. I doubt that’s going to be a big draw for many people, but it was part of the enjoyment for me: wry smiles and snorts of recognition.

The part about the actual Jorvik project is interesting. He doesn’t talk much about the dig or the actual findings there: he talks about how they set up the space, preservation methods, how they got those ‘piped smells’ sorted out, the commissioning of the figures… I’ve been to Jorvik, though not recently; possibly even long enough ago that I saw something like the exhibition Sunderland created, even though he says it’s been revamped and changed now. So it was interesting to get a behind the scenes view of how a very unique museum was put together, by someone outside the museum business, and how it upped the ante for other projects and museums. It is ultimately an autobiography, though, not a book about Jorvik.

Rating: 3/5

Posting this old review since the book is a Kindle Daily Deal today!

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

I’ve wanted to read this book for a long time. Cancer scares me silly, so it’s not something I was able to do for a while, but I finally got round to it today. And in perfect time, because today I was an event marshal at a charity event raising money for cancer research, and tomorrow I’m running in that same charity event to raise money myself. (This seems an opportune moment to point at my fundraising page. Here.) I’m wearing a t-shirt tomorrow on which I’ve written the names of people who’ve died of cancer — my grandparents among them, but including people I’ve never known, people I’ve never even heard of. In fact, you can contribute names yourself in the comments to this review, if you like. Anyway, HeLa/Henrietta Lacks is the only one given special treatment, written larger than the others. Without ever knowing, she has contributed the most to cancer research and indeed to medical research of anyone living or dead. Rebecca Skloot’s book is important because it seeks to unearth what little information remains about the real Henrietta — a young black woman with cervical cancer — and how her legacy has affected the world, including her children.

Reading the one-star reviews, there’s a lot of concern about Skloot’s choice to document her personal activities in the search for HeLa, and the fact that she’s profiting from this story while pointing out the injustice of the fact that Henrietta Lacks’ children do not even have medical insurance. I’m not sure myself why she couldn’t outright give money from the profits on this book to the family, but she has set up a foundation. Most important is the fact that in writing this book she had the permission and cooperation of the family, who read the book in draft form and approved it. Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s daughter, repeatedly asks for this book to be written just as it is, telling the full truth about the family.

Skloot documents first the process of discovering the HeLa cell line’s potential, and moves on to the contributions made to scientific knowledge because of it. Slowly, her focus expands to examine the legacy of HeLa for the family, and the effect upon them. It’s pretty shocking reading, because this family was completely taken advantage of. Laying aside any ethical debate about whether the cells belonged to them and whether they could or should profit from them, they didn’t even understand what was happening. Nobody bothered to explain to them, even while taking samples from them to compare to the HeLa cells.

I don’t think this book is perfect, but it certainly succeeded in opening a dialogue. Maybe we should never have known who HeLa was — her genetic code has been published, arguably violating the privacy of her descendants too — but now we do know, questions about the race and class issues surrounding the family need to be asked. And judging from what the Lacks family are now doing in terms of talking about Henrietta, giving talks and so on, I think Skloot did a great thing.

There is a lot about the author herself in this book, because it was a personal journey; whether that’s to some degree appropriative is a good question to ask, and one I don’t feel I can answer.

Rating: 5/5

Eating the Sun, Oliver Morton

I really wanted to like this and get on with the science in it. It is, after all, supposed to be popular science, and the biology of plants is something I’m really not well versed in at all. I did manage to understand some of the concepts — the flow of electrons and how that drives energy production — but overall, I found that it was a bit too high level for me. Although, it’s odd, because parts of it were very pop-sciency in the way they focused on the careers of scientists and how they untangled the mysteries of plant respiration. The first few were fascinating, but then it got bogged down in the detail.

Overall, I think someone with more of the basics than me might get on with this a lot better, but I didn’t have the focus for it — and Oliver Morton’s writing wasn’t as strong for me as, say, Richard Fortey’s. I’d read Fortey writing about paint drying and still be interested, while Morton’s writing was about on the level of watching paint dry.

Rating: 2/5

The Selfish Genius, Fern Elsdon-Baker

If you’re looking for pure drama, sorry, the title is just intended to be flippant. If you’re looking for a genuine, in depth critique of Dawkins’ work and public persona — everything from his published research to his way of communicating with the public to his attitude in The God Delusion — then you might well enjoy this. Fern Elsdon-Baker has a scientific background and is an atheist, and has some fairly large bones to pick with Dawkins, while acknowledging at the same time his work in the field, his intelligence, and the accessibility of his popular science books.

Mostly, Elsdon-Baker respects Dawkins, and just disagrees with the way he chooses to express himself, pointing out that he often acts as though science is right now, rather than a subject which is always growing and making new discoveries. There’s some critique of his actual ideas as well, though, and this isn’t some kind of tone argument — Elsdon-Baker firmly believes that there is a correct way to communicate science to the public, and Dawkins isn’t doing it.

The writing is clear, and Elsdon-Baker makes it constantly clear on what grounds she criticises Dawkins, on the background to the various issues discussed, and the fact that this is an opinion, and most of it is not factual. I enjoyed reading it, and not just because I think it’s high time someone criticised Dawkins professionally and thoroughly.

Rating: 4/5

The Naked Ape, Desmond Morris

I think the concept of this approach to humans as an animal like any other is a brilliant one. We are prone to thinking of ourselves as a species apart, when we’re not, and even if we were, we could do with putting back in our places sometimes — being human doesn’t mean we’re more worthy than any other creature, all of which have their own adaptations to deal with the environment they find themselves in. We’re particularly versatile, yes, but because we evolved that way, not because of some special merit.

Anyway, while the approach is interesting, and Desmond Morris’ writing is engaging, this is definitely out of date. He keeps a few too many of his human expectations kicking around, like expectations of gender roles and sexuality. It is a really old book, which explains it, and it could undoubtedly do with some updating.

If you’re particularly attached to notions of humans as being sacred, set apart, etc, you won’t want to read this. And if you have any sexual hangups, you won’t want to read this, either — there’s a whole chapter on sex. Granted, it’s a very old view of sex, considering it only in terms of adaptations (dare we whisper to Morris that homosexual behaviour could persist in a population simply because it feels good and only strict monogamy would mean that any ‘gay gene’ would die out?), but still, it can be fairly explicit.

I don’t agree with Morris on many aspects, but his attempt to study humans as animals must be commended.

Rating: 3/5

Monster of God, David Quammen

I enjoyed Quammen’s Spillover more than this book, but that’s not to say this wasn’t an interesting read too. In a similar way to Spillover, Quammen takes the reader on a tour of the world. He doesn’t just report on predators from afar, but goes to get close up and personal with them, and with the people who’ve really spent time in their environment. It’s still a little difficult to believe he could understand these animals or even that way of life with such short exposures, but he did his research and spoke to the people who did know, which puts him ahead of people who theorise from afar.

What I liked particularly about this one was that he pulled in threads of literature, history, sociology… all kinds of ways of understanding the complex impact alpha predators have on us, and the impact we have on them. It’s obviously very human-centric still: all of these alpha predators have been impacted by human encroachment on their territory. I don’t know if there’s any alpha predator in the world not feeling human pressures, but the relationship seemed particularly close/fraught here, with the animals Quammen picked.

It’s a bit of a dense read, but still interesting.

Rating: 4/5