Category: Review (Page 121 of 133)

Timekeepers: How the World Became Obsessed With Time by Simon Garfield
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

Time is one of those entities that we cannot buy nor store; it just grinds inexorably on; tick, tock; second by second, and once gone can never be had again. And yet we still never have enough of it. In the days before clocks, we timed our lives by the rising and setting of the sun, working and resting as the light came and went. Even your cheapest wristwatch is incredibly accurate when compared to the timepieces 100 years ago. But in this modern age we now have access to the some of the most accurate and precise measurements of time available; an atomic clock will only lose one second every 15 billion years.

Drawing together all manner of subjects on the ticking clock he tells us why the CD is the length it is, how to make a watch, how the French messed up the calendar, how the trains changed time everywhere and tries to fathom out time management systems. He gazes at some frighteningly expensive watches in the home of time, Switzerland, and learns about taking your time to eat from the slow food movement.

Garfield has a knack of getting to the very essence of a subject and has written another fascinating book, and this is no exception. Being an engineer, I particularly liked the chapters on the technology used to make a timepiece these days, just the way that they assemble these tiny mechanical marvels is particularly special. The whole book is full of curious facts, amusing anecdotes and subtle observations on the passage of time. Written in his usual entertaining style, is a delight to read as were his other books. Great stuff.

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Village Christmas And Other Notes on the English Year by Laurie Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The slow unwrapping of Christmas in the winter dawn

Lee has always considered his home to be in the Cotswolds, even when he left to walk across Europe, his heart still remained there. Village Christmas is a collection of essays and other writing about his favourite moments at home in the valley of Slad, and of other times in his life. He has fond memories of time long past, of cold winters and frozen ponds, carol singing and warm breath causing clouds as they walked.

The germs of spring stand on the brink of stillness, life loaded but as yet unfired

It is split into four sections one for each season with some of the seasonal delights and other wide ranging subjects like living in wartime Chelsea, the Lakes, country rituals and those moments as the seasons turn slowly on. It is a beautifully written book, with warm lyrical prose, so much so that you don’t feel that you are reading it, rather that you are immersed in his world and place. The way that he captures times long past in intimate detail makes you capture your breath. This is the first Lee book that I have read, but I have recently been recommended The Cider with Rosie trilogy. On the strength of this, I will definitely be reading them next year.

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Fallen Angel: The Passion of Fausto Coppi by William Fotheringham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

At his height, Fausto Angelo Coppi, was the best cyclist in the world. He shot to fame after he won the Giro d’Italia at the age of 20 in 1940, something that some though was impossible for someone so young. After war service he resumed his cycling career and in 1949 he was the first to win the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia in the same year. In 1952 he became the second person to win both again. These victories in the grand tours and the one day classics were riden on roads that would nowadays be suited to mountain bikes. He had an epic rivalry with the worlds other top cyclist, the Italian Gino Bartali, as they swapped places and titles. No wonder he was called campionissimo – champion of champions.

But there was another side to his life. In the mid 20th century adultery was illegal in Italy, a law controlled and enforced by the catholic church. His friendship with Giulia Occhini, sometimes known as The White Lady, became much more. As they were both married with children, the authorities took a dim view of this. They were both dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, excommunicated and imprisoned and were the focus of a huge legal battle at the time of huge social changes in Italian society.

Coppi had always been one of the legends of the sport, and Fotheringham has written a carefully considered biography of him. It is a celebration of his cycling achievements and a considered account of his failings and tragic early end of his life. One for the true cycling buff though.

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The Marches: A Borderland Journey between England and Scotland by Rory Stewart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

We tend to think of the UK as one complete country, but there are separate countries here that have their own distinct identity and outlook. This loosely defined border between us and the Scottish has existed since Roman times. Their farthest outpost, it suffered from marauding Picts and Celts who took every opportunity to give the Romans a bloody nose, hence why they built Hadrian’s Wall. It was this 200 year old monument that Stewart chose to walk as his first journey in this book. Some of the time he walked with his elderly father, though not the whole route, choosing to walk a short way before meeting elsewhere. Sometime he walk with soldiers, not long returned from Afghanistan, a country that he knew from a walk described in The Places in Between.

The second part of the book is a walk that he takes from his home in Cumbria to his father’s house in Broich. This 380 mile route takes him through the border country, or has he calls it, the Middleland. Mixing sleeping out on mountains staying in other accommodation, he takes 21 days to complete it, but it is as much a discovery of the landscape, region and the people that inhabit it and learning about its fluid and torrid past. His third journey is a metaphorical one; it is a celebration and tribute to his father, someone who was very dear to him.

It is a difficult book to classify, it is a travel book in parts and a history book in others and a homage to his father at the end. Parts of the book are really well written, my favourite being the Middleland walk where he crosses the political, cultural and geological boundaries of this borderland. It didn’t seem quite as focused as it could have been though. It was enjoyable though, and will be reading The Places in Between as I picked up a copy recently.

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The Spy with 29 Names: The story of the Second World War’s most audacious double agent by Jason Webster
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Garbo, Alaric, Rags, Mrs Gerbers and Stanley have two things in common; they were all false, and they were all one man. However, he did have a real name, and a wife and children, and it is claimed that he is the one of the greatest double agents that we know of; but just who was Juan Pujol?

Pujol was a Spanish man, who disliked totalitarianism. He was involved in the Spanish civil war, avoiding serious action, but somehow managing to switch sides. With the rise of Germany in Europe, he slowly worked his way into the trust of the Nazi’s as a spy providing intelligence and information. His intelligent reports were eagerly received by them, and as the transcripts were read at Bletchley Park, they were equally worried by them. Pujol really wanted to work for MI5, and so he engineered a way of getting to the UK. Not long after he arrived, he was using all his powers of persuasion to convince them to take him on.

So began one on the most audacious double crosses yet known. Pujol’s fertile imagination led to the creation a fictional network of agents. These characters supposedly had some grudge against the state, and he placed them at specific ports and area of interest to the Germans. The Abwehr thought that they had a whole network of 29 spies in Britain; the reality was very different. With the assistance of the Double Cross team in MI5 he spoon fed a carefully concocted blend of truth and lies that misled the entire German high command, including Hitler himself.

This is another of those non-fiction books that read like a spy thriller. Truth and lies were blended in such a way that agents lives and movements were fabricated with all manner of details, and the Nazi’s swallowed the whole thing. The whole deception plan had genuine success too, even though it was touch and go at times; Operation Fortitude managed to keep the German Panzer Divisions near Calais where the next invasion was expected and away from Normandy after the D Day invasion, this allowed troops to establish themselves with much less resistance. This is still a fascinating story about an imaginative and audacious spy first revealed in Macintyre’s book, Double Cross. Macintyre has the edge on Webster as a writer, but this is still worth reading.

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The Book of Tides by William Thomson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Twice every day without fail the UK expands in area, and twice every day it shrinks. This phenomenon is caused by nothing more than the tide going in and out, driven primarily by our celestial neighbour, the Moon. Seeing the power of the sea inspired Thomson to develop his own business and to travel around the British coast living with his young family in their camper van and studying the tides whilst indulging in a spot of surfing whenever he could.

The book is divided into eight chapters on all aspects of the tides around the UK. Each chapter uses bold, clear and beautiful infographics as he explains all about rip tides, rapids, whirlpools and waves. There are further chapters on the concept of stream, something that I had never heard of before, and just what a tidal bore is and the best rivers to see them on. The tsunami merits a whole chapter; thankfully they are rare, in this country at least.

I have always been fascinated by the sea and the effects that the tide has on the coastal environment. My closest patch, Poole Harbour, merits a special mention because of its double high tide twice a day. Strangely, Jersey, which has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world doesn’t get any mention at all. Even though the books is crammed full of facts and fascinating details, it is still very readable and more importantly it is a beautiful book to hold and refer back to.

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The Pie At Night: Nights Out in the North by Stuart Maconie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When you think of the North of England an industrial landscape would come to mind, with the factories, mills and heavy industry. It is a hardworking place; but it knows how to have a good time and play hard too. Maconie decides that he needs to dust off his suit, polish his shoes and go out on the town in search of a good time.

Using the best intelligence that he can get, Maconie travels round the north, revisiting the classic haunts of leisure from Blackpool to the dogs, football and rugby of course. Any day off is enhanced by going out for a curry before walking it all off with a stroll across the moors. He hears a brass band, before trying something out of the ordinary and after all that needs a restorative pint.

This is another good book and kind of a companion book to The Pie at Night by Maconie as he travels back and forwards across the North finding out what they do in their leisure time. It is not particularly challenging to read, mostly as he writes in such an easy going and chatty way. That does not mean that he is not perceptive and it is laugh out loud in places too, as he has a knack of getting to the spirit of the event he is partaking in whilst not taking it too seriously. Another one of his that was worth reading.

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At the Edge: Riding for My Life by Danny MacAskill
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The UK has got a lot of talented cyclists now, there are some that can beat allcomers in a sprint for the line, we have a highly talented team that can ride the velodrome and beat the world, a small number of top class riders who feature highly in the Grand Tours and some who can throw themselves down mountains in some sort of controlled terror.

Then there is Danny MacAskill.

If there was one guy who could be said to defy gravity, it would be him. He rides a trials bike, a sort of squashed mountain bike, that he can control in an unbelievable way. He has the ability to leap several feet in the air with it, using that height he jumps to climb vertical surfaces and clear gaps with a breath-taking ability. Couple this with a fertile imagination and a healthy disregard for safety he has created astonishing videos like Imaginate, Wee Day Out and Cascadia and become a You Tube sensation. They are the sort of video that you need to see twice, as you can’t quite believe that someone can do that on a bike.

In this book, MacAskill takes us back to his childhood, through his rebellious phase and brushes with the law on the island of Skye. He tells us of his initial venture into riding street trials and how he learnt his craft. His first video, Inspired Bicycles, was filmed by a friend and uploaded onto You Tube one weekend. He thought nothing of it until he received a call the next day from the BBC wanting to interview him. Overnight he had had 100,00 views of the video and from that moment on, everything went mad. Sponsorship deals followed and the quality of his videos increased dramatically.

It is an enjoyable book to read learning about his early escapades and how he has pushed what he can do on a bike to the very limit. If you’re expecting a lyrical narrative though, you might be disappointed, but MacAskill tells it how it is and it is quite refreshing for that. One for the fan, but even if you do’t want to read it you must see some of his videos. 3.5 stars

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Can You Solve My Problems?: Ingenious, Perplexing, and Totally Satisfying Math and Logic Puzzles by Alex Bellos
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Puzzles of all sort have fascinated people for ages, they have varied from riddles, counting challenges, crosswords, logic puzzles and mathematical conundrums. Spending 20 minutes or so on a puzzle is not wasted time; it has been shown that they can in some instances improve cognitive ability. It is not fully conclusive, but the main draw for doing all sorts of puzzle is that they are fun. Some of our greatest minds including codebreakers and Nobel Prize winners have used puzzles to keep their minds sharp and as a distraction from normal life.

The popular maths guru, Alex Bellos has bought together all sort of different puzzles into one book. These 125 different puzzles have been grouped together into broad categories, like logic, geometry and of course the mathematical ones. Each puzzle has an introduction and a little history about it which makes for fascinating reading. Some of the puzzles that Bellos has found for us to stretch our grey matter are deceptively simple and there are some in here that are are fiendishly difficult!

Some of these puzzles date back millennia; Bellos has bought them right up to date with this collection. Most fascinating is the history and evolution of these puzzles. As brilliant minds solved one they then dreamt up even more complex ways to torment us. There is something for everyone in here, not just for fans of Sudoku, and the different levels of puzzles mean that you have some that intrigue, other that need a little more effort and some that may make your head hurt. It is an excellent book for encouraging mathematical exploration without out frightening some people.

Thank goodness though, the answers are in the back…

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May We Borrow Your Language? by Philip Gooden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One billion other people around the world speak my language; except it isn’t really my language as English is famous for purloining and absorbing other peoples words and making them its own. This melding of languages has been happening for thousands of years. People have arrived in our island, stayed for a while, and left only smudges in the soil and a handful of words in the vocabulary. Careful searching in our language can uncover Celtic and Roman and Saxon words deep in our language. More than that, we have shamelessly stolen words and phrases as we have travelled the seas and oceans for places as far away as Hawaii and Australia, and claimed them as our own.

In this lovely book Gooden brings us a mere dusting of some of those words that are familiar and unusual, ancient and strange, but all looted from other languages. Each carefully selected word has details on its origin as well as a date when we misappropriated it into English, along with anecdotes and the story behind the word. There are nuggets of information in here on all his chosen words and each is written with wit and aplomb as he reveals the history and details on words as diverse as cwen, lust, delphinan and bathos. It is more than that though as these words mark the expansion of our language as we absorbed words into it, sometime taking the meanings, sometimes not. The ages of some of the words is fascinating too, I would have put juggernaut as a modern word; turns out it isn’t. It is a worthy addition for anyone with an etymological collection of books, and if you like Mark Forsyth this is right up your street.

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