Category Archives: books

books, environment, photography

Book Review: Subterranean London

Bradley L Garrett
Subterranean London: Cracking the Capital
Prestel; 2014
This is a beautifully produced book of photographs which peels back the layers under London’s streets and brings you clandestine views of all those things we depend on but which are largely out of sight: sewers, cable tunnels, the tube, communications hubs and even Crossrail construction.
It is the work of a group of either brave or foolhardy (depending on one’s point of view) explorers intent on making this infrastructure visible, often when the authorities don’t wish it to be. They follow on in the pioneering spirit of Duncan Campbell from 30 years ago, gaining illicit access — through manholes, ventilation shafts and derelict buildings often right under the noses of “security” — to that which is normally off limits.
The book contains relatively little text — just a single page of explanation at the beginning of each of the four sections, a couple of pages of introduction and a short foreword by Will Self. This lack of text is my only major gripe; I wanted more about the places and the exploits which got the explorers to them.
But the book is about the images, each minimally captioned, which record some of the places the group have penetrated. Much of the photography is excellent and strong; well lit, well composed and professionally produced — quite remarkable considering it was all done on the hoof, at speed and with the ever-present danger of the long arm of “security”.

A long disused Mail Rail train parked in an abandoned station which is still lit
and with a working digital clock which says 0424.
From www.placehacking.co.uk


To get a better idea of what these guys do — whether you call it “place hacking” or just “urban exploration” — there is a documented visit to the now disused Post Office railway (Mail Rail) over at www.placehacking.co.uk/2011/04/24/security-breach-london-mail-rail/ from which a handful of photographs in this book are taken.
This is a book for those that like to know what’s beneath their feet, how cities hang together, what “the authorities” don’t want us to see or to indulge in some vicarious dare-devil excitement. Yes, I like a bit of all of those, but I also appreciate the photography and indeed some of the (especially Victorian) architecture — see for instance the photographs early in the book of Finsbury Park Reservoir. This is stuff which is hidden from sight, but deserves to be seen and appreciated for both its beauty and its engineering.
Having said that, when you look at the haphazard state of some of the cabling, and the dilapidated state of many of the tunnels themselves, one really does start to wonder how anything functions at all!
So yes, this is a book for the geek and the vicarious explorer. A book to dip into to appreciate the photography, the beauty and the engineering. As such it is almost endlessly fascinating and it is only the lack of text which prevents it from getting a full five stars.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

beliefs, books

Book Review: There is No God …

Brad Warner
There is No God and He is Always with You: A Search for God in Odd Places
New World Library, 2013
Brad Warner is an American Sōtō** Zen master, and monk, who lives in the world. He has been practising and studying Zen since 1983 in America and Japan. This is his fifth book looking at various aspects of Zen, what it is and how it works for him in the world rather than in an enclosed monastery.
Zen does not require belief in a god, or gods, or an afterlife, or any of the trappings of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam), Hinduism or many of the other Buddhist traditions. Warner’s assertion is that Buddhism, as a philosophy and way of life rather than a religion requiring faith, has no need of god(s); those “mainstream Buddhism” has have been bolted on over the centuries. In this sense the Zen schools are truer to the original way taught by Gautama Buddha.
And yet Warner says there is a god. Not the Santa Claus figure sitting on a white cloud of the Abrahamic religions; nor the pantheon of Hinduism. God is much more nebulous, not really there at all, certainly not an identifiable figure, and yet is everything and always. To me this seems an essentially pantheistic view, but one emanating from much deeper: from Warner’s enlightenment.
This book looks at a variety of aspects of this god; at what some of the Zen teachings say; and where Warner says they have hitherto been poorly interpreted. The book also looks at the ways and times Warner has encountered this god in the world. He also touches on the philosophical concepts of the meaning of life and the afterlife. Unsurprisingly there is a lot of Brad Warner in the book as he develops nearly all the 22 short chapters from a real worldly experience.
Warner has a light, readable style, which means you can read this book quickly and at a superficial level, as I admit I have mostly done. While the book is an easy read I didn’t find it as captivating as his previous books. That’s not to say it doesn’t make one stop and think from time to time, and I feel sure it would repay another, deeper, reading as Warner packs a lot into just under 200 pages.
If you’re interested in Buddhism, Zen or comparative religion this is worth a read. Who knows, it may even lead you to enlightenment.
Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆
** Forget about the tricks of Zen koans; these are the teaching methods of the Rinzai school of Zen. Sōtō Zen (founded by Dōgen in the 13th century) is more about using pure meditation to discover things for oneself.

books, personal

Ten Things #10

A month or so ago my friend Gabriella tagged me in the 10 Books Challenge: to list 10 books that stayed with you in some way. I had been thinking about this for a while, so I was enjoined not to think too hard about it, especially as they don’t have to be the “right” books or great works of literature, just ones that have affected you in some way and stayed with you.
Looking back I find I have done something very similar before. But this time my rather eclectic list is somewhat different …
10 Books that Mean Something to Me

  1. Like Gabriella I have to start with Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. All twelve volumes. I’ve written so many times before about Dance I’ll say no more here.
     
  2. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass. I remember these from an early age and they started me thinking about language and logic. I especially love the Martin Gardner’s Annotated Alice, first encountered as a student.
     
  3. TS Elliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. As an 8-year-old I knew “Skimbleshanks” by heart.
     
  4. Evelyn Waugh, Black Mischief and Waugh in Abyssinia which might as well be the same book.
     
  5. Noreen Marshall, Dictionary of Children’s Clothes, 1700s to Present. How can I not have been influenced by this: I lived with (and still do live with) the author through the umpteen years it was being written.
     
  6. Gabriel Chevallier, Clochemerle. Brilliant farce. Read as a teenager.
     
  7. John Betjeman, High and Low. I bought this in my teens, when it first came out and for many years it was my go-to book if I had a sleepless night.
     
  8. Florence Greenberg, Jewish Cooking. No I’m not Jewish, but I found this when a student and it is such an excellent cookery book. OK there’s no pork or offal but there is just about everything else from the everyday to the special.
     
  9. Douglas Adams, Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.
     
  10. Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast trilogy, especially the first book Titus Groan. I couldn’t finish volume three, Titus Alone; it was just too depressing.

As this is my “Ten Things” I’m not tagging anyone in particular, but you’re all challenged to do this if you haven’t already.

books, medical, science

Book Review: The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being

1 Comment

Alice Roberts
The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us
Heron Books, 2014
Alice Roberts is Professor of Public Engagement with Science at the University of Birmingham, and is perhaps the outstanding scientific polymath of our age: medic, anatomist, anthropologist, archaeologist, television science presenter and no mean artist. The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being is her latest book and sets out to unfold for us the amazing way in which we develop as an embryo and foetus and some of the ways in which we have probably evolved to this. And what an amazing voyage we are taken on!
I found the book immensely interesting and very readable. Roberts’ style is light, airy and chattily personal, while being scientifically accurate and informative — at times amusing and even ribald: how many authors could get away with a section entitled “Mind the Bollocks”? In fact I found the book so readable I had to ration myself to one or two chapters a night otherwise I would have devoured it in a single all night read.
We are taken on a journey from conception to birth with a look at how all the major systems of the body develop throughout pregnancy from the single egg and the successful sperm to the birth of a baby. Along the way Roberts describes the embryology, including insights from her own two pregnancies and the medical tests she has had done on her in the interests of science.
But more than this, she also discusses the archaeological evidence for how and why evolution has given us the kit of parts we have; how evolution got to produce them; and why they are different from other species. Right at the beginning of the book Roberts discusses the various theories of embryos and how babies are built from Aristotle to the present day. She is at pains to point out that each of these theories was consistent with the state of knowledge at the time so we shouldn’t scoff at them for being ignorant — one day our theories will be considered equally backward in the light of new knowledge.
Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have reservations about it. It is a book for the scientifically (specifically, medically) literate layman. Roberts, rightly in my view, calls things by their correct scientific and medical names but I felt too often missed the opportunity to explain those names; what the part is or does. Of course the downside of providing more explanation is that it could disrupt the flow of the text (and make for a larger, more expensive book).
However I think there is a solution, at least in part, to this problem. The book is illustrated by Roberts’ own delightful line drawings — a very real demonstration of her skill as an anatomist! But there are for my money far too few illustrations. There were many occasions where I felt that a drawing (or other illustration) could have made the text much more powerful: especially in cases where the anatomy of different species, or at different stages of development, is being compared. Yes, some of those drawings are there, but for me too few. And drawings could have been used to explain some of the otherwise unexplained. In this respect I wanted more.
My other gripe is one which I all too frequently have to level at modern publishing (rather than authors): the poor quality of the paper used. Yes everyone wants to keep cost down and at £19.99 for almost 400 pages in hardback this is at the cheaper end of the spectrum. But oh that poor quality paper, which will not stand the test of time.
These are, however, relatively minor complaints about a book which I found informative, hugely interesting and immensely readable. I definitely came out somewhere different to where I went in!
So if you are interested in how babies grow in the womb, and how we got to be the shape we are, then I would thoroughly recommend this book.
It really is just so unlikely that we are all here, and as “normal” as we are!
Overall Rating: ★★★★★

books, science

Book Review: The Disappearing Spoon

Sam Kean
The Disappearing Spoon and Other True Tales from the Periodic Table
Black Swan, 2011
This is a science book for the interested layman. Its premise is to tell interesting stories about the elements, their discoveries and their properties.
Each of the 19 chapters follows the fortunes (or otherwise) of several, not obviously related, elements — who discovered them and how; why they are interesting and idiosyncratic. Kean is certainly able to tell the stories well and keep the reader engaged; as the cover quote from New Scientist says:

Kean has Bill Bryson’s comic touch … a lively history of the elements and the characters behind their discovery.

I found the book easy, but engaging, reading and quite hard to put down to the extent that I had to ration myself to a couple of chapters a night rather than stay up reading all night.
It is an interesting read although for a trained chemist it doesn’t really go deep enough. There are almost no pictures, diagrams or chemical formulae. That’s fine as it does make it accessible to the intelligent layman and means the book can be printed cheaply in monochrome on poor quality paper. But as a trained scientist I found I wanted more explanatory images and formulae. To that extent I was disappointed.
Overall a book I enjoyed and which should appeal to those with a scientific interest, although I would have liked something deeper.
Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

books, medical, science

Book Review: The Secret World of Sleep

Penelope A Lewis
The Secret World of Sleep: The Surprising Science of the Mind at Rest
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013
This is another of those books which I wanted to read and which appeared for either Christmas or my birthday (I forget now which as they are quite close together). This is what the cover blurb says:

A highly regarded neuroscientist explains the little-known role of sleep in processing our waking life and making sense of difficult emotions and experiences.
In recent years neuroscientists have uncovered the countless ways our brain trips us up in day-to-day life, from its propensity toward irrational thought to how our intuitions deceive us. The latest research on sleep, however, points in the opposite direction. Where old wives’ tales have long advised to “sleep on a problem,” today scientists are discovering the truth behind these folk sayings and how the busy brain radically improves our minds through sleep and dreams. In The Secret World of Sleep, neuroscientist Penny Lewis explores the latest research into the nighttime brain to understand the real benefits of sleep. She shows how, while our body rests, our brain practices tasks it learned during the day, replays traumatic events to mollify them, and forges connections between distant concepts. By understanding the roles that the nocturnal brain plays in our waking life, we can improve the relationship between the two and even boost creativity and memory. This is a fascinating exploration of one of the most surprising corners of neuroscience that shows how science may be able to harness the power of sleep to improve learning, health, and more.

Yes, OK, I guess it does do all of that and at a level which is likely OK for the intelligent layman. But as a scientist I found it somewhat lacking, or maybe more correctly it felt loose, in the details. I don’t profess to be very knowledgeable about the neurology of sleep, but I had the feeling that there was more there which is known and which would tie everything together. I may be wrong, and in fairness to Lewis she does say at a number of points “we don’t know how this works”.
Did it tell me anything I didn’t know? Well nothing which I found helpful and which has stuck sufficiently that I could recite it now. As always, yes, OK, I’m probably way above the audience this was written for. I found it an easy but not compelling, or gripping, read — sufficiently so that I whizzed through it far faster than I had expected.
All of this is a shame because I wanted to get that “Wow!” inspirational insight and it didn’t happen. I still feel it should.
As with many modern books it is a slim volume (about 190 pages) and it could have been much slimmer: as always there is too much white space on the page. Even if you don’t want to reduce the font size the leading could certainly be reduced, as could the margins slightly. That would make it a more compact volume, both in looks and physically.
I was also not struck on the cartoon-style illustrations. I didn’t find them illuminating (indeed at times downright confusing) and felt that maybe a few more, better, diagrams were needed for the target audience.
One thing which Lewis does however do well is to write a summary paragraph or two at the end of each chapter. Other authors please copy.
Is this a bad book? No, certainly not. It would likely work very well for an intelligent layman. It is merely that it didn’t work for me; but then it probably wasn’t intended to.
Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆

books, environment, history, science

Coming up in February

Interesting events and anniversaries in the coming month.
1 February
Start of the last London Frost Fair, 1814 which lasted four days, during which time an elephant was led across the river below Blackfriars Bridge. This was the last frost fair because the climate was growing milder; old London Bridge was demolished in 1831 and replaced with a new bridge with wider arches, allowing the tide to flow more freely; and the river was embanked in stages during the 19th century, all of which made it less likely to freeze.


2 February
Candlemas. This is the Christian festival 40 days after Christmas of the presentation of Jesus at the temple. This day is also celebrated as Imbolc in the Wiccan/Pagan calendar (although some traditions celebrate on 1 February) in honour of Brigid, the goddess of fertility, fire and healing. It is also a time of increasing strength for the sun god and is Groundhog Day in the USA.
2 February
British Yorkshire Pudding Day. What better way to cheer up a miserable winter’s day than with Yorkshire Pudding? Read more here >>>>
10-16 February 2014
Go Green Week. The idea for Go Green Week is to encourage people, especially young people, to think about the environment and climate change. Read more here >>>>

12 February.
Bagpuss. On this day in 1974 BBC TV showed the first ever episode of the children’s animated series Bagpuss, an old, saggy cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams. Sadly it was a bit too late for my childhood (I was a research student by then) but it was (and is) still fun and became one of Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate’s iconic series. Read more here >>>>
14-21 February 2014
National Nest Box Week. Run by the British Trust for Ornithology, National Nestbox week is to encourage us to put up nestboxes for the birds. Why? Because so often these birds are declining due to a scarcity of nest sites as mature trees are cut down. This is also a good time to check existing nestboxes and (if they’re not inhabited by anything hibernating — insects, dormice, etc.) to clean them our before the new nesting season begins. Read more here >>>>
15 February.
Galileo Galilei was born this day in 1564. Galileo was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who played a major role in the scientific revolution. His achievements included improvements to the telescope (and thus astronomical observations) and support for Copernicus’ theory of heliocentrism. For this latter Galileo was arraigned by the Inquisition, made to recant and sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life. Galileo was one of the all time giants of science. Read more here >>>>
17-23 February 2014
Chip Week. It seems that we Brits can’t get enough chips, so let’s admit defeat and celebrate! What? You mean they’re bad for us? I don’t believe it! Read more here >>>>

25 February.
Sir John Tenniel, British illustrator, graphic humourist and political cartoonist, died this day in 1914 just a few days short of his 94th birthday. He is perhaps best known today for his illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. Read more here >>>>

beliefs, books, science

Book Review

John Conway, CM Kosemen, Darren Naish
Cryptozoologicon, The Biology, Evolution and Mythology of Hidden Animals, Volume I
(Irregular Books, 2013)

This is strange book. It is one I wanted to read and I was given a copy for Christmas. It sounded as if it would be interesting.
What the authors set out to do, and they are up front about stating this, is to look at some of the myths of strange animals unrecorded by science and then to look at how plausible the myths are and what the animal might be. They write a couple of pages about each of the 28 creatures they choose. All of which is fine, if eccentric.
What they then go on to do is to speculate wildly about history, evolution and taxonomy of each creature as if it were real. They do say repeatedly that what they are indulging in is speculation, but they acknowledge that it will be misinterpreted by the wilfully minded.
As they say on the cover blurb:

Cryptozoologicon is a celebration of the myths, legends, evolution and biology of hidden animals. Always sceptical, but always willing to indulge in speculative fun, Cryptozoologicon aims to provide a new way to approach cryptozoology: as fictional biology.

And in their Introduction:

For each cryptid, our entries consist of three sections. We consider it important that people understand exactly what we have done. In the first section of text, we briefly review what people have said beforehand about the given cryptid. We refer to the key accounts and describe what the creature is supposed to look like.
In the second section, we present an evaluation of the reports, make a conclusion about the identity of the given cryptid, and decide whether the accounts refer to a real creature or not. Given that we have included quite a range of mystery animals in our book — some of which are fairly ridiculous and others of which have essentially been debunked — our conclusions range from the open-ended to the “case closed” type.
Finally, we include a third section of text in which we deliberately jump onto the bandwagon of speculation, and wax lyrical about the identity, evolution and biology of the cryptid concerned, tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Yeah, “fictional biology” is about the size of it. I had hoped that it might present some interesting new evidence for something. It doesn’t.
And I had hoped that even if it didn’t the book might be amusing. It isn’t that either.
I found it tedious beyond belief. There is nothing here except a regurgitation of the already known myths and their debunking with some wildly speculative and very tedious fiction. The text is extremely dull; not especially poorly written just unimaginative and not sparkling. On top of that I dislike the large colour illustrations; that’s down to their style rather than content; for me they didn’t add a great deal.
The book could, indeed should, have been interesting; and this could have been done with very little extra effort.
For me this book just didn’t work. I found it incredibly tedious and in fact gave up reading attentively no more than half way through and skipped through the remainder.
Unless you have to read this book for some reason, frankly I’d give it a miss.
Overall Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

books, science

Book Review

Alice Roberts
Evolution: The Human Story
(Dorling Kindersey, 2011)
This is another of the book I have long wanted to read and which I was given for Christmas. And I was not disappointed.
As one would expect from Dorling Kindersley this is a sumptuously produced book with a very large number of outstanding photographs and illustrations. And it is a large, and heavy, coffee table sized volume, so not ideal for reading in bed.
But do not be decieved by this, or the Dorling Kindersley imprint. Evolution is a serious book documenting the story of our development from the earliest known hominins of some 7 million years ago to the present. It is very much aimed at the interested layman, although I would think that teenagers interested in archaeology, palaeontology or anthropology (or indeed just biological science in general) would also find it absolutely fascinating and useful.
The text, which although maybe a little on the sparse side for me, presents the prevailing scientific understanding in proper, but intelligible, detail — and it clearly highlights and explains where there are conflicting hypotheses. All of this is just as one would expect from Prof. Alice Roberts who is one of the current generation of outstanding British scientists and science communicators.
The book is divided into five sections: Understanding Our Past, Primates, Hominins, Out of Africa, From Hunters to Farmers. Each of the sections has been created by a specialist in the field and collated by Alice Roberts who wrote the Out of Africa section.
The middle section, Hominins, occupies almost half of the 260 pages. In doing so it presents several double page spreads on each of the 20 or so major species along the route from early hominins to us. Each of these mini sections tells the story of the species, how it was discovered, what characterises it and ends with a double page spread of photographs of a reconstructed head showing what the species might have looked like and highlighting the characterising features.
These reconstructions were done by the immensely knowledgeable and talented Dutch brothers Adrie and Alfons Kennis. These reconstructions really are truly stunning and must have taken a great deal of time and cost thousands. They alone are worth the cost of the book!
Having said all that, this is not a book to be read from cover to cover, and indeed I have so far skimmed it quite quickly stopping here and there to read in detail. Although readers will want to look through the whole book to understand its compass, it is really something to be dipped into repeatedly, reading small sections as the interest arises. And it is something I shall indeed be returning to time and again.
Along with Alice Roberts’ earlier The Incredible Human Journey, this is for me one of the outstanding science books of recent years.
Overall Rating: ★★★★★

books

Book Review

Mark Miodownik
Stuff Matters: The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-Made World
(Viking; 2013)
This was one of the recent crop of accessible science books which I wanted to read. From the reviews it sounded amazingly interesting. And yes, it was interesting but for me not amazingly so.
Sure, I learnt a lot. I didn’t know about how concrete works, nor about stainless steel or porcelain, and certainly not about aerogel.
But nevertheless I found the book rather unsatisfying. I’m not sure if this is Miodownik’s rather bland style or whether it is because the content is pitched too low for me. Maybe both. I could certainly have taken more technical detail, but then I guess I’m not the prime target audience. And I wanted far more in the way of explanatory diagrams.
On top of that I didn’t find the book a pleasant object. Not downright nasty but unsatisfying. There is lots of text on poor-feeling paper. The few illustrations are equally poor and all in black & white. The linking photograph, around which Miodownik hangs the text, is unintelligible because too small, lacking in contrast and in detail. I wanted better paper, better and more illustrations and diagrams, and for them to be in colour.
All of which is a shame as the book should, and could, have been so much more enjoyable and so much more memorable. The content, which in isolation is interesting, deserved better.
Overall Rating: ★★☆☆☆