Category: Review (Page 121 of 132)

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A millennia ago One State conquered the world, now they have designs on the rest of the Universe. They are building a spaceship called Integral and the chief engineer, D-503, is writing a journal that he is intending on taking with him on its maiden journey. Even in his privileged position he has to live in a glass apartment so he is constantly visible to the Bureau of Guardians, better known as One State’s secret police. He only has a moment of privacy when his state appointed lover, O-90, is permitted to visit him on certain nights. O-90 has other lovers, including the best friend of D-503, R-13 who performs as a One State sanctioned poet at public executions.

Then one day, the safe predictable world that D-503 has known, changes in ways that he could never have conceived, and nothing can ever be the same again.

I couldn’t quite get on with this for a few reasons. The plot didn’t really move that fast, even though it is a short tome, and the characters feel as flat and two dimensional as the glass walls that they are continually viewed through. I can see where Orwell and Huxley got their inspiration from though as this is brutally chilling at times with the all-pervasive state intrusion and levels of control that are frankly terrifying. Not bad, but for me didn’t have that extra something that 1984 has. 2.5 stars

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East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity by Philippe Sands
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Back in 2010 the barrister Philippe Sands was asked to give a lecture at Lviv University in Ukraine on the subjects of genocide and crimes against humanity. This gave him the opportunity to visit the city, and maybe discover more about his maternal grandfather, a man who he knew so little about. Sands knew he was Jewish, had moved to Vienna as war enveloped Europe in 1914 and then moved onto Paris after the Nazis entered Austria. When he probed further he discovered that there were scant details about him; it was a life enveloped in secrecy. Little by little, he discovered details of his grandfather’s life, how the family had moved across Europe, his mother’s journey to Paris as a small child in the company of someone other than her parents, somehow staying one-step ahead as the Nazi regime started sending people to the death camps.

His visit to Lviv University also revealed that his own field of legal expertise, international humanitarian law, had been conceived by two men who had studied law there. Rafael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht were the men who forged the ideas of genocide and crimes against humanity. These legal concepts were first used in anger in the Nuremburg trials post World War II when the prosecution of Nazi war criminals took place. He brings the governor-general of Nazi-occupied Poland, Hans Frank into the narrative. Responsible for the deaths of over 1 million Poles and Jews in the short time he was in charge, he also had the dubious honour of being Hitler’s personal lawyer. After the war, the lives of Franks, Lemkin and Lauterpacht would come together in the International Military Tribunals in room 600 at the Palace of Justice as the world learnt of the horrors of the Third Reich .

Sands has written a poignant and personal memoir of tracing his grandfather. However, this book is so much more than that. His story of the three people that culminated in the Nuremburg trials is a fascinating account of the development of international law. It was personal for Lemkin and Lauterpacht and his grandfather Leon too as they were among the people lost numerous members of their families in this absolute tragic and pointless loss of life that swept Europe. Words like genocide and crimes against humanity should never exist, but sadly, they do. For a book that is full of much sadness, there is hope too; the legal principles that they initiated are being used to bring people to justice. These principles that they defined will never solve the problems of the world, but they do give peoples and cultures opportunity for redress. It is a influential historical account of men who were prepared to fight brutality with peaceful means. Can highly recommend this.

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Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In 1991 the USSR imploded after seven decades of communism. It briefly flirted with capitalism, before settling down to autocratic rule under Putin. In this hefty tome, Alexievich partakes in conversations with a varied cross section of people, and has interviewed scores of individuals with the intention of finding out how those left in the country of Russia think and feel now. She calls this people., Homo sovieticus, those that were left after the Marxist-Leninist experiment ended.

These people have witnessed the collapse of their society; some are glad to see the back of it and others mourn its loss. Rather than ask them what they think of society and where they think it should be, she asks about the everyday, their families, their lifestyle and the numerous ways that they eek out a life in post-Soviet Russia. From this narrative of the mundane the bigger picture comes together. It is sometimes a heart wrenching account of a fractured, splintered society and those who speak bare their souls to her.

It is dense, complicated and makes for uncomfortable reading. But, the picture it paints reveals the suffering of the people, their hopes, fears and present day anxieties. But, it is immensely rewarding, as it revels the character of a people in a touching portrait.

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The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Silk Road. Just the very name conjures up images of travellers carrying expensive bolts of cloth, exotic spices and fine ceramics from the Far East to Europe. This road was more than that though, it was how the two separate domains of East and West first encountered each other, was the backdrop to countless wars, as power ebbed and flowed back and forth across the continent. The road has been responsible for the spread of numerous religions over millennia, not just the Abrahamic ones, but Buddhism and Zoroastrianism spread along the route. Great cities grew along the road, which spawned even greater cultures.

Western countries have dominated the planet for the last 500 years but in this book he argues that most of these turning points in history have had some greater or lesser influence from the Silk Road in world history. Not sure I agree with all of the inferences, but I think that he is right in that the fulcrum is tilting world power away from the West and back to the East once again. It is a very detailed, huge, broad-brush view of world history seen through the prism of this ancient route from Europe to the Far East. I had hoped there would be more on the ancient history of place and people that trekked and made their lives from the Silk Road network; there wasn’t sadly, but it was still a good history of the world seen from this perspective. 3.5 Stars overall.

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Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jefferson was born into a privileged family in Chicago; her father was head of paediatrics at a famous local hospital and her mother was a well-known socialite. Even though she had a rarefied upbringing and decent education in 1950’s America and could be considered part of the local elite, she was never going to be accepted by society in general, because she was black.

“I call it Negroland because I still find “Negro” a word of wonders, glorious and terrible. A word for runaway slave posters and civil rights proclamations; for social constructs and street corner flaunts. A tonal-language word whose meaning shifts as setting and context shift, as history twists, lurches, advances, and stagnates. As capital letters appear to enhance its dignity; as other nomenclatures”

Jefferson’s family were members of what she describes as Negroland, an exclusive club of privileged blacks or what her mother calls, “upper-class Negroes and upper-middle-class Americans”. They were excluded from the very high society of Chicago because of their colour whilst never managing to integrate themselves fully in the black community there. Through her eyes, we see American societies crucial turning points in the late 20th century; civil rights, gender awareness and prejudice.

“Privilege is provisional. Privilege can be denied, withheld, offered grudgingly and summarily withdrawn. Entitlement is impervious to the kinds of verbs that modify privilege. Our people have had to work, scrape for privilege, gobble it down when those who would snatch it away weren’t looking. Keep a close watch.”

The writing is conversational and at times chatty, but most importantly it is full of wry commentary, provocative observations and melancholic musings. She shows perseverance in trying to make her way in a country that has made real progression with regards to race, but still has so far to go. Worth reading for an insight into a culture and a country so very different to mine.

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The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes by Malachy Tallack
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Deserts have been known for mirages for millennia; the oasis that appears in the distance offering shade and water that as approached vanishes. Strangely enough, the same happens at sea, islands are glimpsed through fog and rough seas, navigation errors mean that sailors find places that exist elsewhere and others are purely figments of imagination. In this high quality book, Tallack has bought together the myths and legends of two dozen islands that were thought to exist, and now no longer do.

There are sections on sunken islands, un-discovered islands and mythical islands. Some are well known, Atlantis probably and the Isles of the Blessed being the some of them. Others are obscure and unheard of, until now. There are two or three pages of stories and background on each island, with some speculation as to the why’s and wherefores of their appearance and disappearance. Throughout the book are the delightful and colourful illustrations by Katie Scott; they add so much to the narrative of the book.

It is ideal for map and geography lovers and is a beautiful produced book too. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be much depth to the stories. It is not the fault of Tallack, but it is understandable when you remember that these are places that have no basis in reality, the tangible facts are scarce.

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The Joy of Tax by Richard Murphy
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Benjamin Franklin once wrote ‘in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes’. I would add ‘and your computer crashing’ to that, but the sentiment is still valid. Richard Murphy has been a voracious campaigner on all things tax, creator of ‘Corbynomics’, and in the ironically titled, Joy of Tax, fully intends to challenge every idea that you have about taxes.

Whilst most people don’t like paying tax, we seem more than happy to accept the benefits and services that a government provides from their tax income, so much so that populations expect governments to spend more than they can raise from tax and run a deficit. That changed in 2008 after the global finance system derailed and the political debate have been dominated by the spectres of austerity, debt and cuts. This hostile discussion has meant that the debate on why we need tax, and how it can benefit society have been ignored ever since. It is this debate that Murphy wants to bring to the fore in this book.

But, it’s a taxing subject…

He makes a good evaluation of the present system, with its few qualities and many flaws and overall it was an interesting read. His proposals are bold and in certain cases innovative, and rightly he argues we need to dramatically simplify the tax system to stop excessive revenue loss from loopholes. All sensible stuff, but Murphy comes across as a bit preachy about it all and it grates a little in the end. Generally ok, and if you have an interest in all thing financial then you may get more out of it than I did. 2.5 stars overall.

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The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In 1969 a coup d’état took place in a North African country. The Free Officers Movement, a revolutionary group headed by a 27-year-old army officer called Muammar Qaddafi, disposed King Idris, Libya’s monarch. So began a 42 year reign of terror by the iron grip of Qaddafi and his family and supporters, where anyone who dared oppose the regime would be removed and imprisoned. Hisham Matar was born in the United States as his father was working there at the time with the Libyan delegation to the UN. At the age of three, he first set foot in his home country. It was to become his home for the next few years, but as the political persecution grew in the country, Jaballa Matar was accused of being opposed to the regime. The family fled the country and Hisham and his brother spent the rest of their childhood in Cairo. University beckoned, and Hisham headed to London to study. Whilst he was in London, his father was kidnapped by the Egyptian secret police, and handed over to the Libyan authorities.

Hisham Matar last saw his father when he was nineteen. He was never to see or speak to him again.

Six years after he was snatched, the family had two letters delivered written in Jaballa’s hand. It explained what had happened and he said he was in the infamous Abu Salim prison. They received no other details until 2010, when Hisham was told that his father had been seen in 2002, implying that he had survived the horrific massacre of 1200 prisoners in 1996. All enquires to the Libyan authorities about their father’s whereabouts and welfare were met with silence or promises of answers. Everything changed in 2011; another revolution overthrew Qaddafi and for the first time in 22 years Hisham could return to his homeland once again and see family that he never thought he would see.

He involves the Foreign Office, as the Labour government at the time was building a relationship with Qaddafi, even having meetings with David Miliband to push for answers from the Libyan authorities on his father. He talks with and meets Sief el-Islam in the hope of finding something; but all he gets is promises. It is an eloquent but painful and emotional memoir to read; you feel his anguish every step of his journey. But it is fascinating too; there is as much about the humanity of some and the shocking indifference from others. Well worth reading.

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Snow by Marcus Sedgwick
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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

Snow. That weird substance that isn’t quite ice, and isn’t quite rain. Its appearance in winter brings screams of delight from the young and young at heart. Other people are equally happy to see the back of it. It is an icy blanket that smothers and softens the spiky winter skyline, bringing an ethereal and transformative silence to the landscape. It is this substance that has captivated Sedgwick since his childhood. He has bought this obsession into adult life too preferring the colder parts of the world over sun kissed beaches, so much so that he is the owner of a chalet high in the Alps.

You like snow? Yes, we said. He blinked a couple of times, then frowned, deadly serious. I hope you do, he said

In six chapters, mirroring the perfect shape of the snowflake, Sedgwick looks at the way that snow has inspired art and literature through the ages, before clearing the paths to discover the science that creates these little marvels of symmetry. There are few legends that have snow as an element, but those that do are powerful and deep in their meaning. It is a unique substance, that can bring death and destruction, and life too as he describes the wonders of a material that whilst cold, can also keep you warm. Softly falling snow has the ability to silence everything and walking out in it will touch every sense that you possess.

Today is one of those days when it appears that it has been snowing since time began

Snow is a short, intense, beautifully written and perfectly formed book, each word carefully chosen for maximum effect. It is a lovely mix of fact, myth and personal stories as Sedgwick tells of his deep passion for the white stuff. He makes us rethink our memories of winter days long gone, of snowball fights, of the wrong kind of snow and school days missed. But, it is also a warning; the effects of climate change means that some people may never see snow in any quantity again. It is a wonderful read and a real gem of a book.

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The Humans by Matt Haig
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Andrew Martin is not the man he used to be. To be honest, he isn’t the human he used to be either. The original Andrew Martin was a maths genius, and he had just solved the Riemann hypothesis on prime numbers, but he wasn’t a particularly nice man either, as the alien who is impersonating him is rapidly finding out. He has been sent to destroy all evidence that this hypothesis has been solved, and he will do anything to ensure that anyone else who has spoken to Martin about the solution, is not in a position to do anything about it either.

The thing is, his so called low key operation gets off to the worst possible start. On top of that he isn’t quite sure just what to make of the human race, just what drives these humans, and maybe, just maybe start to fall in love with the lady who is now his wife. Now he has a choice that he doesn’t really want to make; complete his mission; or become human.

It is has some parallels with stories like A Man Called Ove, the kind that gives some people a warm fuzzy glow, and Haig has got this nailed. But for me it wasn’t hugely amusing, though it did make me smile in some parts. The best part for me was the list of advice to us to make your life much better at the very back of the book. Overall, 2.5 stars. Not bad and I will probably read the others that I have on my shelves at home.

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