The Master
A sweet and thoughtful novel, a little bit lonely, Henry James looking back on an interesting and humane life and set of relationships, father and sister and artist friends. Contemplative but never (terribly, I suppose it is in the eye...
21c
The Rise And Fall Of The Dinosaurs
Brusatte takes you through an excellent history of both the dinosaurs themselves and the field of paleontology, from a few crazy pioneers (I could stand to learn a bit more about Baron Nopsca, scientist, swashbuckler and spy) to the high-tech...
China In Ten Words
I worry sometimes about my Education. I always thought it was like, pretty good, I got good grades in a wide variety of subjects, but then something like The Cultural Revolution comes to the fore and I am just astonishingly...
Pirate Enlightenment
This book is a fascinating little history of Madagascar and the kingdoms and societies during the golden age of piracy. I (and I imagine I am not unique here) know little of this corner of the world and corner of...
Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow
I mean rating things on a numeric scale from 1 to 5 is of course silly and non-objective. I think, in many way’s, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is in fact a great book! Well-rounded characters in an engaging narrative...
Perdido Street Station
Gross - like if Terry Pratchett was a Vogon.
Braiding Sweetgrass
Your strange hunger for ease should not mean a death sentence for the rest of the Creation.
The Memoirs Of Stockholm Sven
There is, for me, an undeniable allure in Svalbard and the Arctic (and Antarctic). Austere, windswept desolation, wide vistas, creatures eking out a living amongst the snow and ice - it is romantic. It feels so alien, so antithetical to...
Debt
I was, to be frank, prepared to be bored by this - “debt” is a dry, intuitive concept which seemed little deserving of 500 pages of exegesis. The book seemed vaguely Important and not a bit hip, but not…interesting. Then...
The English Understand Wool