Category Archives: books

beliefs, books

Book Review: The Little Book of Humanism

Andrew Copson & Alice Roberts
The Little Book of Humanism: Universal Lessons on Finding Purpose, Meaning and Joy
Piatkus; 2020

It’s a long time since I’ve written a book review here. That doesn’t mean I’m not reading, but it does mean I’ve not managed to finish enough books to make a review worthwhile: like always there are many books on the go, and most are cast aside at the arrival of something new.

I would never claim to be a humanist. I probably am one, but I don’t profess to know enough about humanism to feel that’s what I am. Besides I try to avoid anything which wants me to believe in some creed, however loose it may be.

So I was motivated to read the recently published The Little Book of Humanism.

Let me say straight away that this book does what it says on the tin: it is a very basic guide to many of the ideas and beliefs behind humanism. Sadly though I found it tediously wanting. It came across to me as a series of would-be-inspirational quotes strung together with some pieces of text made up of platitudes and the obvious. I don’t know Andrew Copson, but I expect more of Alice Roberts – this may not be an academic work, but Roberts can do better than this.

I expected the book to make me stop and think; to present me with deep ideas about humanism. It didn’t. All I seemed to get was a feeling I was being told things which are patently obvious. I expected something with more “bite”, and something rather more formally construed.

As so often though, that is probably very unfair of me as the book likely isn’t intended for someone like me who has spent many years thinking about what they really do believe and their personal morality. It is, I suspect, much more aimed at those who’ve maybe heard of humanism, but don’t know anything about it and who feel disillusioned with mainstream religion. For those people it is probably quite a good route into humanism, without being a dogmatic text full of formal beliefs (which humanism really shouldn’t be anyway).

What also disappointed me was the quality of the production. The copy I have, while hard-bound, looks as if it is glued rather than stitched with the cover also too lightly attached. The content is printed on very rough, off-white paper which resembles thin blotting paper – that’s commendable if the paper is recycled, but the lack of finish to the paper, and the lack of brightness, does make the book a less enjoyable read. The actual text uses a mix of serif and sans serif typefaces, in a variety of point sizes: again something which irritates. I’m also not sure “little” is the right adjective; yes the book is the size of a small paperback but it’s quite thick and chunky; I wouldn’t call it pocketable. This is partly down to the modern fetish for extraneous white space; to quote Ambrose Bierce “the covers of this book are too far apart”. Overall the production looks cheap and as such is possibly not a good advertisement for the humanist movement.

Overall I was disappointed, but maybe unfairly so.

Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆

books, personal

Ten Books I Found Influential or Formative: 2

Following on from my series of 10 Books I’ve Loved and Books I’ve Hated or Cannot Read I now bring you the third instalment: 10 Books I Found Influential or Formative.

They are all books I’ve read, at different times, and which have had a profound influence on life, mind or belief. I have excluded anything from the previous two lists. Nor have I included anything directly related to either academic studies or work; not because I think they should be off-limits but because I can’t single out anything particular.

Again, rather than spread this across ten days, I’m posting the list in two posts, each of five books, a few days apart. There is a short commentary on why I found each book so influential. This is the second part.

In each part I’m nominating three people to produce their own list. The first three are: Christine Berberich, Ziggy Lubkowski, John Potter. Of course anyone else is welcome to sing along!

John Burton et al.; The Oxford Book of Insects

I’m not quite sure when I first came across this book, but I know my copy dates from at least the time I was a post-grad; it is still on the shelf over my desk. Although it is not academic it is a good first guide to the insect world, and as such has continued to stimulate my interest not just in insects but the natural world in general.

William Shakespeare; Julius Caesar

The first half of Julius Ceasar is the only bit of Shakespeare I ever really understood. Which is just as well as we did the whole play for O-level, and luckily I got an exam question on the first half. The second half (all the war etc.) remained a mystery to me.

Robert H Rimmer; The Harrad Experiment

My father provided this as reading material in the late 60s; GOK what his motive was! It is fiction but portrays an environment of free love and free sex in (as I recall) a student setting – something understandably attractive to the average teenager in the 60s. And it certainly helped develop my moral compass and relaxed attitudes towards sexuality.

James A Coleman; Relativity for the Layman

I don’t recall at what point I read this, whether as an undergraduate or a post-grad. Clearly I felt the need to have at least a passing knowledge of relativity, something which (with a basic understanding of quantum mechanics) has stood me in good stead for my ongoing interest in the physical sciences.

David Feinstein & Stanley Krippner; Personal Mythology

As one might suspect this is all about personal development, and discovering and understanding your inner story. I claim no success in doing this, but the section on finding and meeting your inner shaman is something I’ve found of recurrent interest.

Later in the year I hope to follow on with further, similarly themed, book posts. Watch this space!

books, personal

Ten Books I Found Influential or Formative: 1

Following on from my series of 10 Books I’ve Loved and Books I’ve Hated or Cannot Read I now bring you the third instalment: 10 Books I Found Influential or Formative.

They are all books I’ve read, at different times, and which have had a profound influence on life, mind or belief. I have excluded anything from the previous two lists. Nor have I included anything directly related to either academic studies or work; not because I think they should be off-limits but because I can’t single out anything particular.

Again, rather than spread this across ten days, I’m posting the list in two posts, each of five books, a few days apart. There is a short commentary on why I found each book so influential. This is part the first.

In each part I’m nominating three people to produce their own list. The first three are: Katy Wheatley, Noreen Marshall, Julia Say. Of course anyone else is welcome to sing along!

Peter Russell; The Brain Book

This book was the basis for a hugely formative course I went on when first teaching at work. Amongst other things it includes an introduction to Tony Buzan’s Mind Mapping techniques as well as much about how learning is thought to work. The course was also the one which energised me to learn Transcendental Meditation (which I’m trying to rejuvenate).

Havelock Ellis; The Psychology of Sex

When I was growing up, every book in the house was accessible, and this was on the shelves in the living room. So, of course, I read large chunks of this when I was doing A-levels. Needless to say I learnt a lot and it kept me one step ahead of my then girlfriend!

Lewis Carroll; Alice in Wonderland

Although Carroll originally conceived this as a children’s story, it has been incredibly influential for many people. It’s not just amusing, but filled with logical inconsistencies and alternative ways of looking at things. I didn’t know it at the time but I suspect this was one of those books which nurtured my inner scientist.

Anthony Powell; A Question of Upbringing

Anthony Powell was recommended to me by our friend Jilly. And it is true to say that this book changed my life! Powell became one of my heroes. A website developed and evolved, in 2000, into the Anthony Powell Society of which I was Hon. Secretary for 18 years until last October. The Anthony Powell Society has taken me places, and introduced me to people, I would never have dreamed possible.

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

I was introduced to this by my father and our local librarian, Jack Edwards, as the fount of much useful, interesting and often esoteric knowledge. A delight in “knowledge trifles” has remained with me ever since.

Part two in a few days time.

books, personal

10 Books I Hated / Can’t Read: Part 2

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Following on from my series of 10 Books I’ve Loved I now bring you 10 Books I Hated or Can’t Read

Some of these I’ve read and didn’t like, some were destroyed for me by school, and some I’ve tried and just couldn’t get to grips with despite wanting to.

Rather than spread this across 10 days, one book per day, I’m posting this in two posts, each of five books, a few days apart. Also (because I want to) I’m going to provide a short commentary on why I found each book so difficult. This is part two.

In each part I’m nominating three people to produce their own list, in any way they like – just leave a comment here with a link to yours. The second three are: Sophie Clissold-Lesser, Nick Birns, Gabriella Walfridson. Of course anyone else is welcome to sing along!

Leo Tolstoy; War and Peace

I tried reading this, from choice, in my teens. I failed. I could not get into it and couldn’t identify with it as nothing seemed to happen in slow motion. Oh and there was too much of it.

Thomas Hardy; The Mayor of Casterbridge

This is another that was destroyed for me by being flogged through it at school. I detested it so much that I remember almost nothing about it.

Haruki Murakami; The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I’ve tried to read this two or three times, but I’ve had to give up each time as for some reason I find it depressing, with the prospect that it gets worse as you go on. I’m told it isn’t like that, but that’s what it does to me. I’ve also found this with the other bits of Murakami I’ve tried, so it’s likely something about the way either his subject matter or his style work on me. It’s a shame as there’s something I still find intriguing here.

Charles Dickens; A Christmas Carol

Yet one more destroyed by school, and on every encounter since. I find it (as I find almost all Dickens) dark, disturbing, depressing … and tedious. The only Dickens I’ve ever tried and enjoyed is Pickwick Papers.

James Joyce; Ulysses

My parents had an early copy of Ulysses – it may even have been the original contraband Paris edition – so I read it in my mid-teens. To this day I don’t know why I bothered. WTF is it on about? Whatever it is made no sense at all. Even the Hardy and Dickens I so hate at least make some sense. I have a suspicion that Joyce is just taking the gullible for a ride.

Later in the year I hope to follow on with at least one further, similar, theme: I already have Books I Found Influential / Formative lined up. (Yes, that’s different to Books I’ve Loved.) There may be others.

books, personal

10 Books I Hated / Can’t Read: Part 1

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Following on from my series of 10 Books I’ve Loved I now bring you 10 Books I Hated or Can’t Read

Some of these I’ve read and didn’t like, some were destroyed for me by school, and some I’ve tried and just couldn’t get to grips with despite wanting to.

Rather than spread this across 10 days, one book per day, I’m posting this in two parts, each of five books, a few days apart. Also (because I want to) I’m going to provide a short commentary on why I found each book so difficult. This is part the first.

In each part I’m nominating three people to produce their own list, in any way they like – just leave a comment here with a link to yours. The first three are: June Laurenson, Graham Page, Sue Lubkowska. Of course anyone else is welcome to sing along!

JRR Tolkien; Lord of the Rings

I would like to read this, if only to know what all the fuss is about. But over the years I’ve tried several times and never managed to get past page 50. I just don’t find it captivating.

Mervyn Peake; Titus Alone

Having read the first two books of the trilogy, I embarked on the third but had to give up about a quarter of the way through as I found it just too depressing.

Grace Metalious; Peyton Place

I read this in my early teens because everyone at school was talking about it, and it was supposed to be salacious. Frankly it was an extemely tedious soap opera.

Salman Rushdie; Satanic Verses

I will not be told by anyone what I may/may not read, so when some Ayatollah put an interdict on this I made sure I acquired a copy. In two or three attempts I’ve never got past page five; it’s worse than Finnegan’s Wake and that’s going some.

John Buchan; The Thirty-Nine Steps

Like all the (so-called) classics, this was destroyed for me by having to flog through it at school, at an age when I found engaging with books difficult. It doesn’t help that I read slowly, so I was always way behind with any reading assignment.

Part two in a few days time.

books, sexuality

One Small Step

After an almost infinite number of years the British Library has finally opening its “Private Case” – ie. writing it has considered too obscene for general access – and digitised the 2500 books it contains. The digitised images will be made available online.

But don’t all rush. Although the “Private Case” collection has been accessible to the public through the British Library’s rare books collection since the 1960s, the digitisation means the titles will now be available to a wider audience: by subscription to libraries and higher education institutions, or free at the BL’s reading rooms in London and Yorkshire. So you’ll still have to be a bona fide person to get access. Why, I don’t know as much of the contents are already widely available on the open market.

But let’s rejoice! It is a small step forward for freedom and the removal of prudery.

beliefs, books

Book Review: A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind

Shoukei Matsumoto
A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind
Penguin; 2018

This is a curious little book which does very much what it says in the title. It is about cleaning, as zen monks do it in the monastery, as well as meditation. The life of the zen monk is hard – much harder than we realise; for another perspective see Gesshin Greenwood – and very strictly regulated. It is clear that many things are done the way they have always been done: because it works, is sustainable in a moneyless society, and is as light as possible on the environment.

By having to do everything precisely the right way, all the time, every time, it is possible to not have to think about what you’re doing but concentrate on doing it. So everything from preparing food and polishing floors, to tidying the garden and having a shit, become part of the meditative practice.

When it comes to cleaning a temple, polishing the floor is as basic a chore as it gets. For many monks, a day does not go by that they don’t clean the floors of the temple corridors.

Since the floors are thoroughly polished day in and day out, every inch of them is beautiful, with their surface, blackened through hundreds of years of use, taking on an almost translucent, fossilized look. You can walk through a carefully maintained temple all day long in white socks without worrying about discolouring them. There is no dust or grime to speak of.

It is the job of the monks to perform the upkeep on these beautifully preserved floors. They are polished every day whether they appear to need it or not.

When you are polishing the floor, you are polishing your heart and your mind.

The point of housework is to clean up dirt and grime, isn’t it? So you might be wondering what is the point of cleaning something that is already spotless. But for monks the physical act of polishing the floor is analogous to cleaning the earthly dirt from your soul.

This book is a collection of very short pieces about the various cleaning and maintenance jobs the monks do, and the way in which they are also a method of meditation. Although translated from the Japanese, the sense of strangeness, quirkiness and totally other has been retained; and that made it for me an interesting, even inspiring, read.

My criticism? There were places where I felt I wanted a bit more detail about how things were done and the rhythm of daily life.

Nevertheless, if you are interested in zen, the way zen monks practice, or just curious about other ways of life, then this is a delightful, short read.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

books, history

Book Non-Review

Kate Bennett (Editor)
John Aubrey: Brief Lives with An Apparatus for the Lives of our English Mathematical Writers
(OUP; paperback, 2vv, £50, 2018; hardback, 1vv, £250, 2015)

I’ve been dipping into the paperback edition of this enormous work over the last few weeks. It is so massive – the two volumes are together almost 2000 pages! – that dip into it is all one realistically can do, hence my reluctance to write proper review.

No, almost 2000 pages is not an exaggeration. Amazon quotes the work as being 1968 pages. So no wonder OUP have split the paperback edition into two volumes.

Volume I is 900+ pages and contains John Aubrey’s Brief Lives, together with “The Apparatus …” and a 125-page extended introduction. The Brief Lives themselves are, for the first time ever, reprinted entire and complete with Aubrey’s marginalia (often heraldic drawings, but also notes). Volume II is over 1000 pages of scholarly notes and commentary on the content of Volume I plus 50 pages of index.

I really can’t do better than to quote a couple of the reviews (also quoted on Amazon) from two other Aubrey scholars:

It is not an exaggeration to claim that until Kate Bennett came along, no one properly understood what the Brief Lives are … [Her edition] marks a new beginning for Aubrey scholarship … It is fitting that such scholarly devotion, extending over two decades, should have given rise to an edition that is an innovation in its own right. Nothing like it has appeared before, and it will last, if not forever, for a very long time.
[Ruth Scurr, Times Literary Supplement]

This is an outstanding achievement and will undoubtedly be the standard edition of the Brief Lives for the foreseeable future … In its rich and varied content it is of interest … to anyone studying English learned culture in the seventeenth century, particularly historians of the Royal Society, of mathematics and of antiquarianism. Aubrey himself was acutely concerned that his works should be satisfactorily edited and made use of after his death; in this edition he is luckier than he could have hoped for.
[Kelsey Jackson Williams, History]

Having heard Kate Bennet speak at the 2016 Anthony Powell Conference in York, and been fortunate enough to sit next to her at the conference dinner, I can certainly vouch for her enthusiasm, insight and wide-ranging interests. And this is an amazing piece of work.

beliefs, books, freedom of speech, medical, people, photography, sexuality

Womanhood: The Bare Reality

Laura Dodsworth, author of Manhood: The Bare Reality has a new book coming out, but unfortunately not until next February.

Its title: Womanhood: The Bare Reality.

You can, of course, pre-order it on Amazon or from the publishers Pinter & Martin.

The book promises to do for women, what Manhood did for men: tell of the variety and the stories of man and manhood. As the blurb an Amazon says:

100 women bare all in an empowering collection of photographs and interviews about Womanhood.

Vagina, vulva, lady garden, pussy, beaver, c**t, fanny … whatever you call it most women have no idea what’s ‘down there’. Culturally and personally, no body part inspires love and hate, fear and lust, worship and desecration in the same way.

From smooth Barbie dolls to internet porn, girls and women grow up with a very narrow view of what they should look like, even though in reality there is an enormous range. Womanhood departs from the ‘ideal vagina’ and presents the gentle un-airbrushed truth, allowing us to understand and celebrate our diversity.

For the first time, 100 brave and beautiful women reveal their bodies and stories on their own terms, talking about how they feel about pleasure, sex, pain, trauma, birth, motherhood, menstruation, menopause, gender, sexuality and simply being a woman.

Laura comments further in a recent Facebook post:

“A major issue for women is that men and society are really interested in defining womanhood for us and without us. A lot of the time, women don’t have an awful lot of input into the definition of womanhood, yet we’re judged against it. Women have to make choices that men don’t ever have to make.”
From Womanhood: The Bare Reality

A bold first quote to share from Womanhood. I’ve already been #notallmen-ed on Twitter, so let me say, I love men, this is not anti-men. (I LOVE men.) Remember Manhood?

But this is the point; Womanhood is an exploration of female experience through the embodied stories of 100 women. We define Womanhood on our own terms and in our own words. We reveal ourselves to ourselves and to each other. And it’s about time.

Laura’s previous books (Manhood: The Bare Reality and Bare Reality: 100 Women, Their Breasts, Their Stories) were amazing, revealing and informative, so I’m really am looking forward to reading Womanhood: The Bare Reality. My copy is already on order.

Full disclosure: I was one of the 100 men featured in Manhood.

beliefs, books, people

Book Review: Bow First, Ask Questions Later

Gesshin Claire Greenwood
Bow First, Ask Questions Later
Wisdom, USA; 2018

Having just finished this book, I’m still not quite sure what my emotions are towards it – beyond pure admiration, that is. So I’m going to start with a couple of quotes from other people. First here’s Ruth Ozeki on the cover blurb:

With rigour, honesty, hilarity, and joy, Gesshin shows us how to grapple with the great matter of life and death – as well as with lesser matters, like capitalism, sexism, religious dogma, sex, love, fashion, and Kyoto nightclubs. The result is an inspiring book that I couldn’t put down, even when I’d finished reading it.

And here’s an extract from the Foreword by our other favourite Zen Master, Brad Warner:

Gesshin Greenwood is … an honest-to-Buddha Zen nun, with the shaven head to prove it. She went through the kind of rigorous training in traditional Zen temple practice that most of the folks you see writing puffed-up fluff pieces for those slick spiritual magazines… avoided like politicians evading the draft …
I [am] amazed that someone as young as she had such a deep background in Buddhist practice experience … Gesshin … really did all the stuff … She actually immersed herself in Japanese Zen temple life for years doing all the ceremonies, all the services, all the cooking and cleaning and the rest of it …
… It’s rare that someone from the West does any of this stuff, rarer still when they write about it, and yet even more rare that their writing is as good as Gesshin’s is. This is a truly unique document of a truly unique lived experience.

I’ve been reading Gesshin’s weblog, That’s So Zen, for some years and have always found it illuminating, if at times hard to fully understand. This book travels some of the same ground, which is good because everything is newly written and so helps reinforce the “learning”.

Although the book is autobiographical it is first and foremost a book about Zen Buddhism, but not in a dry academic way; as Brad says it is extremely well written, in a light, engaging style which does indeed make it difficult to put down – I had to ration myself to a couple of chapters an evening to avoid reading through the night.

Gesshin is a self-confessed white, privileged Californian, with hippy, Buddhist parents; and as the book goes on one comes to realise she was probably something of an angry brat (but then aren’t all teenagers?). Nonetheless she wanted to study Buddhism, and felt even in college strangely attracted to it; and that emotional connexion is passed on to the reader.

She started in India, and went to Tibet, before finding her spiritual home in the Sōtō Zen tradition in Japan, and in the rigorous setting of an all female Zen monastery. This is her story, of her journey; and one isn’t sure until well into the book quite where things are going to end up.

Gesshin talks frankly about the hardships, heartaches, tragedies and mistakes – as well as the joys – of her practice and shows how each of them allowed her to grow. Each of the 25 short chapters focusses on some particular event to illuminate her learning. We see something of her relationships with her teachers and her wrestles with the apparently irreconcilable dichotomy of being a nun and a young woman who likes men and can fall in love. We are left, at the end, with the impression that Gesshin has happily resolved that dichotomy.

All this is shared openly with us, and we join in feeling the pain and the joy. Equally I found the book inspiring and stimulating me to move forward in my own journey (whatever that is).

For anyone with an interest in Buddhism, especially Japanese Sōtō Zen, this is a book well worth reading. And even if you just want to follow the quest of a young woman in search of answers to life and death, do read it. I really did find it hard to put down.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★