Category Archives: books

books, history

Book Review: Map Stories

Francisca Mattéoli
Map Stories: The Art of Discovery
(Ilex, 2015)
bookThis is, in the words of the Preface, “a book that invites the reader on a journey from map to map, to let their imagination run free”. It is a curious collection of historical maps, around which the author tells the stories the places and voyages which gave birth to the maps.
Now I love maps, and I love stories of history and the discovery of new worlds. However I found this a very difficult book to engage with, for a number of reasons.

  1. While I love maps I do find old, multi-coloured, shaded maps with tiny print/calligraphy difficult and off-putting.
  2. The stories I dipped into didn’t engage me; I found them dull; which is in part down to the author’s style.
  3. The stories major heavily on the Americas and SE Asia. Europe hardly gets a look in.
  4. This is a large, oversize, atlas-sized book; and quite heavy. It needs to be to make the most of the maps. But this does make it almost impossible to read in bed.

As a consequence I did no more than leaf through the book and dip into it from time to time. I just found it was asking too much of me, especially when I was reading it late at night in bed. I’m sure I’m missing a lot, and I may well return to it in due course – it would be a shame not to.
Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆

arts, books, ramblings

Book Review: Letters from England

Karel Čapek
Letters from England
(Continuum, 2001)
What is the connexion between Czechoslovakia, ant, London and robots? Answer: Karel Čapek.
Čapek (1890-1938) was a Czech novelist, dramatist and journalist who was mostly active in the 1920s and 30s. He is possibly best known today for two plays written with his brother Josef: R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) and Pictures from the Insects’ Life (aka. The Insect Play). This latter I have known since school as we did it as the school play in my final year; it is strange, weird and disturbing. With R.U.R. Čapek is credited with the invention of the term “robot”.
In 1924 Čapek visited Britain and Letters from England is the resulting sketches about the visit. It is a small paperback which I’ve had on the shelves for many years and dipped into occasionally – as I have done again recently.
The sketches, originally written in Czech but in several translations, are a mixture travel diary and cynical but humorous observation.
Čapek travels the length and breadth of the Britain (but omits Ireland). The first third of the volume is taken up with London, including this wonderful description of his first visit:

I remember with horror the day when they first brought me to London. First, they took me by train, then they ran through some huge, glass halls and pushed me into a barred cage which looked like a scales for weighing cattle. This was ‘a lift’ and it descended through an armour-plated well, whereupon they hauled me out and slid away through serpentine, underground corridors. It was like a horrible dream. Then there was a sort of tunnel or sewer with rails, and a buzzing train flew in. They threw me into it and the train flew on and it was very musty and oppressive in there, obviously because of the proximity to hell. Whereupon they took me out again and ran through new catacombs to an escalator which rattles like a mill and hurtles to the top with people on it. I tell you, it is like a fever. Then there were several more corridors and stairways and despite my resistance they led me out into the street, where my heart sank. A fourfold line of vehicles shunts along without end or interruption; buses, chugging mastodons tearing along in herds with bevies of little people on their backs, delivery vans, lorries, a flying pack of cars, steam engines, people running, tractors, ambulances, people climbing up onto the roofs of buses like squirrels, a new herd of motorised elephants; there, and now everything stands still, a muttering and rattling stream, and it can’t go any further …

This, remember, is 1924. Plus ça change!
Čapek perambulates an astonishing amount of the country: Oxford, Cambridge, Yorkshire, North Wales, the Lake District, Edinburgh, Inverness … and here he is in the Isle of Skye:

I am in a region which is called Skye, that is to say ‘Sky’, although I am not in the heavens but only in the Hebrides, on a large, strange island among other islands, on an island consisting of fjords, peat, rocks and summits. I collect coloured shells among the blue or flaxen pebbles and by a special grace of heaven even find the droppings of a wild elk, which is the milch cow of Gaelic water nymphs. The hillsides drip like a saturated sponge, the bruach heather catches at my feet, but then, folks, the islands of Raasay and Scalpay, Rhum and Eigg are visible and then one can see mountains with strange and ancient names like Beinn na Callaich … It is beautiful and poor, and the original shanties look as prehistoric as if they had been built by the long-departed Picts, of whom, as is well known, nothing is known.

Interspersed with the text are occasional thumbnail sketches by the author: naïve but humorous. And Čapek meets people, often well known people, like George Bernard Shaw, who sketches, twice:

GBSThis is an almost supernatural personality, Mr Bernard Shaw. I couldn’t draw him better because he is always moving and talking. He is immensely tall, thin and straight and looks half like God and half like a very malicious satyr, who, however, by a thousand-year process of sublimation has lost everything that is too natural. He has white hair, a white beard and very pink skin, inhumanly clear eyes, a strong and pugnacious nose, something knightly from Don
Quixote, something apostolic and something which makes fun of everything in the world, including himself; never in all my life have I seen such an unusual being; to tell you the truth, I was frightened of him. I thought that it was some spirit which was only playing at being the celebrated Bernard Shaw. He is a vegetarian, I don’t know whether from principle or from gourmandaise. One never knows whether people have principles on principle or whether for their own personal satisfaction.

If you want a criticism, the prose does get a bit tedious and turgid at times, however all in all this is a delightfully eccentric and amusing small volume; very readable in small doses, so eminently suitable for dipping into or light bedtime reading.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

books, science

Book Review: Molecules

Theodore Gray
Molecules: The Elements and the Architecture of Everything
(Black Dog & Leventhal; 2014)
This is another of my Christmas acquisitions. It is a large coffee table book of almost 250 pages containing (mostly) photographs and diagrams on a black background with relatively little, but simple, textual explanation. It is a science book for the non- or only-just-scientist in which Gray sets out to show us how everything around us is built.
Gray shows how the elements of the periodic table combine to form the molecules that make up our world. Everything is made up of molecules, formed in an infinite variety of ways from the elements. This book explores the most interesting, essential, useful and beautiful of the millions of chemical structures that make up every material in the world. Gray begins with an explanation of how atoms bond to form molecules and compounds, as well as the difference between organic and inorganic chemistry. He then explores the vast array of materials, all built of molecules: soaps and solvents; alcohol and oil; rocks, ropes and fibres; painkillers, sweeteners, perfumes and poisons. All are stunningly photographed and accompanied by chemical diagrams and potted explanations.


This double page spread with a potted introduction to each chapter shows why this book is so brilliant
You’ll want to click the image to get a larger view and appreciate the image fully

I’m originally a chemist, but over 40+ years have forgotten much of what I once knew – and in fact much of what is here I never did know as it is materials science beyond the scope or time of a 1960s/70s chemistry degree (although I had the grounding to work it out). But do not be put off … even if you have no science background at all, you should get a huge amount from this book as it starts with some basic steps, and is all written in very non-scientific language. It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand the detail of the molecular structures shown; you don’t need to as the explanations allow anyone to follow along. There is no hard science here such that you are lost if you don’t understand it. And there are no details of how the compounds discussed are synthesised (if such is even possible in the lab.) – so there’s no need to be scared.
What is here are simple explanations of why many things are the way they are. Why, for instance, tetraethyl lead was added to petrol, how it’s toxic effects were known but ignored and thus why it was eventually banned. Why asbestos is so dangerous. Why plastics work. And even why coins smell. The book ends with a very simple explanation of how the proteins that make up the living world are built – which just reinforces the wonder of life itself.
I found this a fascinating book, which made me realise how much I had missed (or forgotten) of my chemistry degree. I found the chapter on sugars and the one on painkillers especially interesting. Yes, I could have taken more detail, but in fact the balance is right for the interested layman rather than the superannuated chemist.
So yes, I’d recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in how the world around is built and why it works in some of the ways it does. Although if you have a science background you will get more from this book, you don’t need it to appreciate the fascinating nature of “stuff”.
Overall Rating: ★★★★★

books, history

Book Review: London in Fragments

Ted Sandling
London in Fragments: A Mudlark’s Treasures
Frances Lincoln, 2016
I was given this book at Christmas – well what else do you give a Londoner who is interested in the history and eccentricity of the city? I’ve been reading it in small chunks, which is why I’ve only just finished it.
Sandling is a mudlark; someone who when the tide is low wanders the beaches and foreshores of the River Thames hunting for objects trouvés. Now you might think that such a mighty river would wash away any and every artefact dropped into it. But not a bit of it. There is a surprising amount to be found: everything from Roman tiles through remnants of ships and shipbuilding right up to a twentieth-century Sri Lankan talisman.
What Sandling does in this book is to put on display images of many of the artefacts he’s found over the years. Each is identified, as best one can. Along with many there are the stories; some about the artefacts themselves but many about the history surrounding how they might have gotten into the river.
The stories give us some surprising insights into London’s history. Like why are so many pins found? Apparently in Tudor times many clothes were pinned together; the pins fell off in the street and were washed down a sewer and into the river. It sounds unlikely, and I must say I have my doubts, but over the course of a couple of hundred years it could well be what happened.
And why is there so much cullet – glass which has been broken into small pieces for recycling? Well, apparently in medieval times there was a big market in cullet and it was shipped around between Europe and Asia. And it doesn’t take many shipwrecks to seed the whole of a coastline with cullet and sea glass. That’s something I would never have guessed.
The whole book is broken up into sections for things like “Adornment”, “Industry” and “Pleasure and Vice”. Each section has a short overview introduction before the artefacts themselves make their appearance. This, with the information about the artefacts, makes the book a fascinating read, and along the way there is some excellent photography, often of tiny things, to be admired.
It is a small format book of some 250 pages, printed on good paper to bring out the best in the photographs. I cannot fault the production.
Where I was less happy was that all too often the text with an artefact is very general and not nearly as specific as I would like: how big is the item, where was it found; how was it identified? Yes, we do get some of that; but for me, not enough. This is though a rather unfair criticism as many of the items are so fragmentary there isn’t much which can be divined about them.
But overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in London and its history. And I would say it is a must read for anyone who is thinking of having a go at mudlarking.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

books, natural history, science

Book Review: Field Guide to Moths

Paul Waring & Martin Townsend
Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland
2nd edition; Bloomsbury; 2009
This is a magnificent tome, but not what I would define as a “field guide”: for an octavo paperback of almost 450 pages, on glossy paper and weighing almost 900 gm you would need a poacher’s pocket or a JCB to carry it around. It is a reference book — and a brilliant one at that — but as such it is not something to be read from cover to cover but explored when needed. It is an essential on the shelves of anyone with an interest in the huge diversity of the insect world, especially, obviously, moths.
Having said that, it doesn’t cover all moths but just the “macro-moths” (essentially anything with a forewing length over about 1 cm); micro-moths are covered elsewhere.
I’ve long wanted such a book (why didn’t I get this before?) as there was for many, many years a huge hole in the field guide coverage of British moths; I remember my mother complaining at least 40 years ago that there was no good, available, guide to moths — how she would have loved this book!
The book does what it sets out to do: describe for the naturalist (both professional and amateur) every known species of moth in the British Isles. The descriptions are organised by genus, with each species getting an entry of a third to half a page in quite small type. The descriptions cover mostly the adult moth, its habitat, lifecycle and distribution.
Strangely all the illustrations of adult moths occupy the central 20% of the book. This is not obvious from the colour-coding of the pages and I’ve found the only way to know quickly where the illustrations start is with a bookmark. Having said that, the illustrations (by Richard Lewington) are magnificent — much the best I’ve encountered — and they show the wonderful diversity and beauty of these important but much disliked insects. Moreover the illustrations show the adult moths in their normal sitting pose, unlike many guides which show the wings displayed as they would be in a museum case (something that’s not helpful to the non-specialist).
There is, however, one significant thing I don’t like about this book. In general it does not illustrate the larvae (caterpillars) of each species. Some (maybe 15%) of species have a photograph of the caterpillar along with the description (not with the illustrations). This I find curious. I know that many caterpillars look very similar (even more than adult moths) but why not illustrate them and have a complete section of the illustrations — separate from the adult moths would be OK — as an aid to identification. For me, this stops the book getting a top 5-star rating.
My only other gripe is the cost; at around £30 for the paperback this is beyond the reach of many.
Nevertheless this is a reference book which will live on the shelf over my desk and quite likely become well used.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

books, history, topographical

Book Review: Bomb Damage Maps

Laurence Ward
The London County Council Bomb Damage Maps, 1939-1945
Thames & Hudson, 2015
During WWII the Architects Department of the London County Council (the LCC; then the local authority for what are now the central London boroughs) set about documenting the cumulative bomb damage in the capital city. This was an area from Woolwich in the east to Hammersmith in the west, and from Crystal Palace in the south to Highgate in the north. Detailed maps were produced showing every property, from the smallest cottage to the large factories. Teams of surveyors soured the area to assess any bomb damage to properties. The damage was graded from “total destruction” down to “minor blast damage” and areas marked for clearance. The sites of V1 flying bomb and V2 rocket impacts were also marked.
The task required 110 maps at a scale of 1:2500 (that’s 25 inches to the mile), and each measuring roughly 75x106cm; these were based on the 1916 Ordnance Survey maps, updated to 1940. And they were hand-coloured according to the level of destruction found. Each of the maps is reproduced here at roughly 1/3 size. And boy do they give a vivid picture of the destruction wrought by the Luftwaffe. Every map contains something interesting — just look at the map for the area of the City around Farringdon and Holborn: it is one big swathe of purple, meaning “Damaged beyond Repair”, from the river to Hoxton and from Bank to the west of Blackfriars Bridge. Overall, getting on for 50% of the Square Mile must have been demolished!


This is just a part of the destruction in the City of London.
The map is centred on St Paul’s Cathedral.

The maps are part of the LCC archives, now held by the London Metropolitan Archives. They were first compiled into this book back in 2005 by the LMS in conjunction with the London Topographical Society. And now they’ve been published for everyone.
Given the number of maps, it is no great surprise that this is an enormous tome measuring 37x27x3cm and weighing in at only just under 3kg! Despite the size, it is definitely not a coffee table book; nor is it a book to read front to back, or even back to front. It is a reference for anyone interested in the history and topography of London, and that will include family historians who may wish to research where their ancestors lived. As I say, every map contains something of interest.
In addition there are 30 or more pages of introductory material, documenting the maps, the surveyors and rescue teams, and a detailed listing of all the Luftwaffe raids; and another almost 50 pages of photographs documenting the destruction.
All in all this is an absolutely stunning collection for those interested in London or WWII. Just don’t try reading it in bed!
Overall Rating: ★★★★★

books, topographical

Book Review: Kent Smugglers' Pubs

Terry Townsend
Kent Smugglers’ Pubs
PiXZ Books; 2014
This is not a book you would generally think to read from cover to cover — and I haven’t. It is a guide book which one dips into to find somewhere interesting to visit.
It is a well produced guide book which does what it implies: provides a couple of page of information on some of the most interesting and picturesque Kent pubs which have particular associations with smuggling. As the introduction says, pretty much every pub in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries would have had some involvement in smuggling, even those which were far inland, as there had to be trade routes for contraband goods from the coast to London.
The book features just over 30 pubs, many (but not all) on the Kent coast, but all of which have well established connections with significant smuggling. Each pub gets 3 or 4 pages of history and description with copious amounts of illustration on good quality, heavy paper. This makes for lots of suggestions for days out, but the book would do this better if there was a map or two.
My only other real complaint is that (like so many books these days) the board covers have very sharp corners, which make reading in bed uncomfortable.
All in all a useful little book which includes a handful of pubs I know.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

arts, books

Book Review

1 Comment

Flavio Febbraro
How to Read Erotic Art
Ludion, 2011
I’ve read this book, over many months, by dint of dipping into it from time to time at bedtime. I found it interesting and absorbing although I didn’t really get any “wow factor”. I did find it hard to put down, but also hard to pick up again – if only because it is chunky and not a comfortable bedtime read.
Although the major emphasis is on western art, the book covers painting and sculpture from China and Japan through India and Europe to Meso-America. It also covers the complete timespan from pre-history to the present day. This wide-ranging subject matter demonstrates that neither the ancients, nor other cultures, had any less interest in the erotic than we do – they just had different artistic styles and way of presenting it within their culture and ability.
The erotic is not just mainstream heterosexual; the vast majority of (non-fetish) erotica is included: male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, mythical, fantasy, even some BDSM.
But the book is more than this. As it is organised chronologically it provides a timeline for the development of art from pre-history to the present day – especially useful as it gives the art historically ignorant like me a much better grasp of who was working when, and who were contemporaries.
Most entries in the 380 pages are double page spreads (a few run over 4 pages) depicting a particular painting/sculpture with a short general explanation and one or two even shorter detailed explanations of what one is looking at. Many entries also contain a couple of paragraphs of historical context; these are often highly interesting.
The book is well produced with excellent colour reproduction on heavy art paper; it is between A5 and A4 in size and 3 cm thick; which makes it quite heavy. The cover is soft; somewhere between hardback and paperback with some nastily sharp corners. That plus the weight make it uncomfortable to read in bed.
Finally a word for the unwary. This is a book about erotic art. Do not go to it looking for titillation, because you won’t find it. It is about art, not pornography. It is worth a look if you are interested in art or the development of artistic erotica.
Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆

books, history, topographical

Book Review: London

Julia Skinner (ed)
Did You Know? London: A Miscellany
Francis Frith Collection, 2014
londonThis is a very small book of just 60 pages and under A5 in size, but it is nicely produced in a good hard cover. It is text heavy, which is good, with about 30 B&W photographs of London nearly all from the period 1875 to 1915. It essentially covers “central London”, being the Cities of London and Westminster, although there are mentions of some areas a little outside like Southwark and the docks.
While I found some of the photographs interesting, the text was dull. The writing hurries along, with fact hard upon fact, quite relentlessly and with little change of pace, tone or style — which makes for difficult reading. I wasn’t helped by already knowing most of the contents — but then I’m not the book’s core audience.
Some of the facts are things which many people wouldn’t know. For example, the Eleanor Cross in front of Charing Cross Station is a Victorian replica of the original which stood on the site at the top of Whitehall/south of Trafalgar Square where there is now an equestrian statue of Charles I (but that is a book all on its own).
Near the back of the book is a short quiz of London trivia (most Londoners should get at least 8 out of 10) and a bit about Francis Frith, the “pioneer Victorian photographer” who started the picture archive which still bears his name and who published this book.
Apart from not engaging me, my main gripe would be the lack of a map to show how all the areas discussed fit together. I would have liked this and I feel sure it would be invaluable to anyone using the book as (part of) a tourist guide.
Overall the book contains lots of factlets about London and some fascinating images, so that if you don’t know London (or don’t know its history well) then this would be a good and interesting introduction. It just didn’t really do it for me.
Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆

amusements, books

Book Review: 100 Great Books in Haiku

David Bader
One Hundred Great Books in Haiku
Viking, 2005
I was given this little book as a Christmas stocking filler. In his Foreword the author says:

In the fifteenth century, Gutenberg … revolutionized the world of publishing. Previously, books had been so scarce that it was not uncommon for a library to have only a handful of bound Latin manuscripts, chained to a desk. Beach reading … required furniture movers. After Gutenberg, millions of books … were published … This in turn led to eyestrain, paper cuts, deforestation and adult reading groups.
In Japan, meanwhile, the seventeen-syllable haiku began to emerge. Developed by Zen monks possibly suffering from attention deficit disorder, these poems were packed with keen insights on frogs and cherry blossom yet short enough to be recited in a single breath. Japanese readers could experience and savour the finest haiku of Basho in its entirety (three lines), while Western readers of, say, John Milton’s Paradise Lost (10,000 lines) were still staring at the title page.
This collection attempts to combine these two breakthroughs … The formal requirements of haiku … have, admittedly, made it necessary to cut some things, such as characters, plot, dialogue and descriptive passages. Still, these are small sacrifices in view of the huge savings in time and shelf space.

bader1This is indeed what the author has done — and done rather successfully — to produce an easy read version of his selected books. Although of course one won’t necessarily agree with his entire choice of “great books” (What no Anthony Powell? No Lewis Carroll?)
The book is easy enough reading for those last 10 minutes in bed; in fact I read the whole book in bed in about 30 minutes. But it is something one will be able to dip into once in a while for light amusement. For instance here are three entries which caught my brain …

THE TALE OF GENJI
Lady Murasaki Shikibu
Two wives, ten consorts —
under the wisteria,
many warm futons.
… … …
FINNEGANS WAKE
James Joyce
Riverrun on and
by Jaisus s’dense! Bien alors,
scribbledehobble.
… … …
METAPHYSICS
Aristotle
Substance has essence.
Form adds whatness to thatness.
Whatsits have thinghood.

There’s no real arguing with any of that!
So yes, this book is a quick read, but an amusing one, and a well worthwhile stocking filler.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆