Pandora’s Breeches is a brilliant study of women in science during the Enlightenment. Fara effortlessly dismantles the ‘great man’ approach to scientific history by introducing the women, and for that matter all the other people, who were involved in the scientific breakthroughs of the Enlightenment. From the glittering intellectual Emelie du Chatelet to the painfully self-abnegating …
Little blog, are you ok? It has been so long since your last post you probably thought I had entirely forsaken you. I can only apologise and, to be honest, tell you that I ran off with Neal Stephenson and was then seduced by the Easter sunshine. I’m sorry your writer is so fickle. But, …
This is not a book that would pass the Bechdel test. Set in Nigeria, the book revolves around Baba Segi, his four wives and their children. It begins with Baba Segi’s frustration that his fourth (and only educated) wife, Bolanle, has not yet borne him a child. Segi’s sense of masculinity is so tied up with …
My very good friend’s daughter is obsessed with owls. E and I are going to visit next week and were trying to think of good owl related gifts when E remembered that one of her favourite books as a kid had been the Two Hoots. It soon became apparent that there would be tears before …
The last time I tried to read the Kite Runner I made it as far as page 41 which ends with the line “…that was the winter Hassan stopped smiling.” at which point I decided that the rest of the story was clearly downhill from there, decided to cut my losses and went in search …
This is a little gem of a book. I don’t think there is a single page in this brilliant summary of mad, quirky psychology experiments that doesn’t have something fascinating written on it. In fact, I’m going to put that to the test by writing this review by randomly flicking to 4 pages and telling …
This book left me with a lingering sense of loss and a burning desire to read Great Expectations. This is a book about the power of stories and the way great stories help us to understand the world. It is also about what makes people part of a community, and how communities behave when they …
So, we now make our first foray into the world of geology. E studied geology at university and books about rocks still muddy our bookshelves. I keep telling E we should keep them on the mantlepiece, next to the lava lamp, but she is never magmanimous on this matter. So, I was trying to think …
I’m not generally one for military history, but this is a little gem of a book. It charts the development of photographic intelligence in World War II and is chock-full of anecdotes that take it beyond the usual “and then we went here and killed people, then we developed new ways of killing people, and …
I was foolish, dear reader. I should know better by now, but I walked right into this one. I was putting the Star Trek books in order so that I could try and make some sense of them, when I noticed that book 5 of the DS9 series was missing. Clearly what I should have … Continue reading
This is a fascinating history set at the fall of the Roman empire when barbarian hordes swept through Europe destroying everything before them. As scholars fled the chaos, and priests sought safer land, one of the few places that they could go was Ireland. So, this book begins in Rome, but soon we meet St … Continue reading
This delightful book promises to recommend one thing a day to do in London. Perhaps one year, when I’m not spending all day indoors reading, I will try and do all of the things recommended by the book. It would be a very busy year, and I would have to be very organised. The book … Continue reading
It is never a good sign when the nicest thing you can think to say about a book is that it isn’t quite as bad as Twilight. Dead Until Dark is the first in the series of novels that the True Blood tv show was based on and, while it is better than Twilight, it … Continue reading
I’m far too ginger to ever have languished on a beach reading a novel and working on my tan, but if I ever had, I imagine this is just the sort of book I would want to read while doing it. Partly set in the 1800s, partly in the modern day, this book explores social mores, … Continue reading
Well, dear reader, I had intended to have finished The Mathematics of Love by today so that we could have a Valentines themed post, but it became quite apparent that that I wasn’t nearly far enough through it. So, to make sure that you got at least one blogly Valentine present, I whipped through another Star … Continue reading
I really enjoyed about 50% of this book. Part of it was quite an interesting story of infidelity, relationships and struggling to do the right thing even if it hurts you. The other part felt like pretentious, self-indulgent waffle. Luckily it was also very short. It is really toward the latter part of the book, … Continue reading
For some reason, I wasn’t keen on reading Dance, Dance, Dance. I’ve started it before but don’t think I’ve finished it. Whimsical. Fatalistic. Reflective. Not my usual sort of book but I have to say I really enjoyed it. It mixes fantasy and reality so seamlessly you almost forget which is which and despite … Continue reading
And the winner of the inaugural Blogging Around My Bookcase Competition is…….. You didn’t really think I would tell you that quickly, did you? I have really enjoyed reading your competition entries, so I thought I would share them! FictionFan We’re starting with an honourable mention, rather than a proper entry as FictionFan didn’t want … Continue reading
A few years ago, my parents (in a fit of madness) moved to South Sudan. They were going to spend two years working in the local government education department of a South Sudanese town called Rumbek. When they went, they left me with this book which they said provided a great overview of the history … Continue reading
This is a story with clear, helpful advice that we could all follow to achieve happiness in life. It tells the tale of the smarmy Dr. Bashir who is desperate to be romantically involved with the fierce Major Kira, who thinks he is an idiot and wants nothing to do with him. In order to … Continue reading
Dear Reader, it has been a month! Together we have made it through 22 books. 22!! I need to read 21 per month to be on track with this challenge, so numerically we are storming! However, I must admit that three ‘bonus books’ have snuck in. These books were not on my shelves at the … Continue reading
This book is hilarious. If you have ever read a famous book you should read this. The premise is that characters from famous books (everyone from Medea to Ronald Wesley) are also texting each other. So you have Cathy and Heathcliff trying to outdo each others protestations of love, Hermione Granger explaining to Ron how credit … Continue reading
Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist? Why this particular set of laws and not some other? This book is not for the fainthearted. At times, it stretches your credulity and fills you with existential doubt about the world around you. This begins right away in Chapter 1 which boldly contends that … Continue reading
It was Henry James, dear reader, that drove me to it. I was in such a rage after struggling through that book that I needed something calming to read before bed. What, thought I, could possibly be the biggest contrast to Henry James that I can find on my bookcase? The answer was clear and … Continue reading
What a load of dull, pretentious twaddle. Dear reader, don’t ever put yourself through this book. Not only is it full of page after page of nothing happening, with unending angsting from cast of thoroughly dull and dislikable characters, but it is also full of sentences like this: She readjusted the poise of her black, … Continue reading
Like a planet forced by gravity to continue in endless orbit, so too do we find ourselves facing the inevitable prospect of having to read another Star Trek book. I’ve decided to continue reading the Deep Space 9 series, so we will now return to the world of the brave Captain Sisko, his errant son and … Continue reading
Awake! For morning in the bowl of night Has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight: And Lo! The Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan’s turret in a Noose of Light I bought this book in a second hand book sale in Wyoming. I think it appealed to me mainly because … Continue reading
Apologies dear Reader if you have been waiting for this post all day. I had nothing planned for today other than finishing this book and writing a review for you, but then E awoke with a burning desire to go and see the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum in London. She was so intent … Continue reading
Few industries can rival the antiquity of Cornish mining, and still fewer have excited such fascination among economic and social historians. I do love a bold claim and a niche history book. Here we are with both! This is the start of a two part in-depth look at Cornwall. Today we focus on history, and … Continue reading
Finally. Finished. I was worried about this book from the start as it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and I quite regularly don’t enjoy Booker Prize winners. But the blurb on the back made it sound so exactly like the sort of book I would enjoy reading. Famous author Olive Wellwood writes a special … Continue reading
Dear readers, I have a confession to make. I have, for some time now, developed something of a fondness for a genre of books I call Teen Dystopia (possibly other people call it that too). I’m not proud, but there it is. Hunger Games, Divergent, you name it and I lap it up. It’s not … Continue reading
Race, religion, love, gender, good and evil, justice and poetry – this book has it all. It also has a range of characters that draw you in, as much as you find them all maddening, and you ache for the pain they are causing each other. Set during the Raj, the book is written against … Continue reading
Following my first attempt at reading Star Trek, in which I was notably baffled throughout, E and I have conferred and agreed that it is probably best to take the advice of the immortal Julie Andrews and start at the very beginning. So, here we are with book one of the third series. It isn’t … Continue reading
I awoke this morning needing a gentle start to the day. The after-party following my choir concert last night had been raucous and I was feeling somewhat fragile. I had been planning to read Emma’s War next, but couldn’t quite face a book based on a real war story. I also thought it wasn’t worth … Continue reading
“You may think you know this story. There’s a young queen, about to be married. There are some good, brave, hardy dwarfs; a castle, shrouded in thorns; and a princess, cursed by a witch, so rumour has it, to sleep forever. But no one is waiting for a noble prince to appear on his trusty … Continue reading
Well, that was dismal. Beautifully written, fantastic characters, and as an exploration of love and hate – really powerful, but goodness, it was depressing. It is a slender volume, coming in only 202 pages, which was lucky because had it been much longer I might have lost the will. That said, I would really recommend … Continue reading
When E and I moved in together, I was helping her to pack up a cupboard in her old flat when what should we find but a box-load of books that hadn’t been unpacked since her last house move (probably decades before). It turned out that it was a boxful of Star Trek books. Imagine … Continue reading
Fear not, dear reader, this blog is not descending into a pit of depravity. I can assure you that despite the salacious title of this book it is a bonafide history, and one that tells a fascinating story of women and colonialism in the 18th century. 1789, the first settlers at Sydney Cove are desperate … Continue reading
I thought I hated Kazuo Ishiguro. I thought I had read something by him at university and loathed it. How very wrong I was. Looking at his list of publications, I don’t actually think I’ve read a single one before. And I loved Nocturnes. I really loved it. I can only imagine that I’ve confused Ishiguro … Continue reading
My brother introduced me to Neverwhere when, in his dark student flat, he made me watch the TV series one weekend, with the curtains drawn ‘for maximum effect’. I didn’t actually realise there was a book until I moved in with E and, maybe because I knew the story, I have never got round to … Continue reading
It is important to start every adventure as you mean to go on. So, having carefully created my list of 250 books to read this year, I have, of course, begun by reading a book that wasn’t on the list. In my defense, Lamentation was dropped into my lap by chance over Christmas and, as … Continue reading
My New Year’s Resolution for 2015: I will read every unread book on my bookcase. It was a challenge easily set and accepted, but at the time I did not realise that this would involve 250 books, nor that Father Christmas had already ordered me another 10ish to add to the list. So, here are … Continue reading
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