Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot by Mark Vanhoenacker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have flown domestic, short haul and long haul flights in everything from cattle class to Upper Class and as a form of transport it is a little bit dull. Flying is seen as mundane now and love it or hate it, you cannot deny that modern air travel is the thing that has opened up the world up. It is one of the safest forms of transport ever invented too, making travelling to destinations far and wide, safe, easy and painless.

In this eloquent book, Vanhoenacker tells us just what it is like to be a commercial pilot in this modern age. The plane that he is trained to fly is the classic 380 ton Boeing 747. He tells about crossing oceans and continents, night flying and the delights of spending time in different destinations on each day of the week. He loved flying from an early age, but it was only after he graduated and ended up travelling the world as a management consultant that he started to re-consider his career choice, wondering if he could be a pilot. He took the plunge, retrained and realised his dream of becoming a pilot.

I really enjoyed this book, he writes in a calm measured way, as you’d expect and hope for, from a pilot. What comes across most is that he has never lost the sense of wonder in flying. You hear of him as a small boy being completely entranced by it and he still is now, from the magical scenes of the Northern Lights to the history behind the names of beacons that they track across the world. He takes pleasure in the names of winds and clouds, night flying with only the stars for company and reassurance in the skills of the engineers that enable him to fly. I like the way that he focuses the chapters on a particular aspect of flying; Water, Place, Air, Night and Machine; all different perspectives of the same journey.

The writing is a breath of fresh air; it is adept and detailed without feeling complicated. When he is flying across the oceans you see the curve of the earth as he does and sense the ice on the wings as they descend into world famous cities. A beautifully written book, even one for those who don’t like flying. 4.5 stars

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High-Rise by J.G. Ballard
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Robert Laing is recently divorced, and moves into an apartment in a tower block on the outskirts of London, close to where he works as a doctor and lecturer. It is packed with all the latest conveniences that a modern Londoner needs; swimming pools, shops, supermarkets and restaurants within its four high walls. Residents need not leave the comfort of their new residence.

It doesn’t take long for him to settle in, finding friends on the different floors with similar interests and outlooks. But things start to change; the residents become uninterested in the outside world preferring to remain within their new world., and this insular perspective starts to breed trouble and violence as minor incidents become major ones as neighbours and then whole floors gang up on one another. The lower, middle and upper floors eventually join into three distinct groups, parallel with the class divisions in society, and the skirmishes descend into outright violence.

Ballard has taken society and compressed it into the limits of a forty story tower block and let them loose. What could have been paradise and a comfortable way of life is suddenly a modern hell. It comes across as similar to the Lord of the Flies, where a fragile existence falls apart rapidly. It is a grim tale; a dystopian novel that show just how rapidly a small number of humans can descend into chaos and horror. There were some parts that I liked about this, for example it has a great first line, but it is chilling the way that the tower block descends in to raw primitive terror. 2.5 stars overall.

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Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sumire is just 22 and is an aspiring writer with a fondness for Jack Kerouac. She is living of a family stipend, and cannot afford much so wears second hand coats and robust boots. She is slowly falling in love with Miu, a glamourous business woman who is seventeen years older than her. K, is the friend and confident that Sumire talks to about anything and everything; as he hears of her falling head over heels in love with Miu, he doesn’t feel that he can tel Sumire just how he feels about her.

Miu asks Sumire to come and work as a personal assistant with her and as their friendship deepens, Miu is still unaware of Sumire’s infatuation. Now she has a job, she quits smoking neatens up her clothing and finds a nicer apartment. As Miu imports wine, she needs to go to Europe to find new vintages and asks Sumire to accompany her. K is still in Japan and stars receiving letters as they travel around the continent. The date that they planned to come home passes and in her latest dispatch her reads that they are taking some time to relax and unwind in a cottage on a Greek island.

Suddenly he gets a call from Miu. She wants him to fly to Greece to help in the search as Sumire has vanished without a trace…

As I have come to expect from Murakami books now, it is surreal, where you have the impression that you are seeing the story unfold through a misted window and is infused with subtle underlying erotic undertones. The tension in the story is set with the disappearance of Sumire and the love triangle, even though each party doesn’t know what the other feels. Possibly this is my favourite of his so far, but most importantly (and amusingly) it does follow some the of themes in this chart:

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The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Arthur Dent had never really got the hang of Thursdays and in his bleary eyed state that morning he notices that there are bulldozers outside his house. It turns out they have come to knock his house down to make a bypass. Lying down in front of one of the bulldozers, his friend Ford Prefect suddenly appears. Arthur Dent thinks he is an out of work actor; it turns out he is a researcher for the most popular book in the universe, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and is from a planet called Betelgeuse but has been stuck on the Earth for 15 years. Dragging Arthur to the pub and plonking three pints down in front of him, Ford reveals all of this and the minor issue that the planet is to be demolished to make way for a galactic freeway in about 12 minutes time.

“Space,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is.

Ford and Arthur manage to get on the Vogon ship, moments before the Earth is demolished, but it is not long until they are discovered. Dragged before the captain, they are forced to listen to his poetry before being ejected into space with 30 seconds to live on a lungful of air… Twenty nine seconds later they’re recused by the Heart of Gold, a ship that the current President of the universe, Zaphod Beeblebrox, has stolen. So begins Arthur’s adventures with Ford, Zaphod, Trillian and the life and soul of any party, Marvin the Paranoid Android as they seek the legendary planet, Magrathea, aided by snippets and gems of wisdom from The Hitchhiker’s Guide.

“Don’t Panic. It’s the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody’s said to me all day.”

Even though it is flawed at times and the characters lack depth, it works because it successfully combines science fiction and dark humour with classic British farce. Its brilliance though is in what Adams did with this book, permeating our culture with expressions that people know and use without necessarily knowing where they originated, such as the answer to the question of life the universe and everything, having the brain the size of a planet and most importantly ‘don’t panic’. It is a book that goes far beyond the science fiction genre that it started in. To say that I love this book would be an understatement, it is such a shame that he was taken from us so early, so I will raise my Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster as a toast to a lost genius.

“In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”

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The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird’s Egg by Tim Birkhead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Way back in the 1950’s the Egg Marketing Board recommended that we should ‘go to work on an egg’. It was something that the nation took to heart and nowadays we consume over 11 billion hen’s eggs in the UK. They are a healthy nutritious food; though in my household most of them end up in cakes…

Tim Birkhead has been fascinated by birds and eggs for his entire career. In this book, he seeks to answer a variety of questions. Such as how are eggs formed, how are their colours and shapes created, is the pointed end laid first and are some designed to roll in a circle on a cliff face. Using information from his own scientific research and examples from museum collections and from a whole variety of different birds Birkhead sets about answering some of these by beginning from the moment of fertilisation to the point where the unborn chick makes that first chip in the shell.

We learn how the eggs are made in the oviduct, how the shells are strong enough to be sat upon during incubation and weak enough to allow the chick to escape. There is masses of detail explaining how they breathe, whilst still having a protective layer against water and microbes and explains the purpose of the yolk and albumen. As well as the science, he looks at the history and mankind’s fascination, and sometimes obsession, with eggs bringing alive all sort of weird and wonderful facts. There is details on the parasitic birds like the cuckoo who have the ability to mimic other birds shells almost exactly, as well as lots of his passion for the guillemot and their beautifully patterned eggs.

It is a fascinating account of what you would think is a simple entity. He writes well, managing to get the balance between details, clarity and scientific jargon just about right. Throughout the book, he regularly points out that answering one question frequently prompts two more and tells us where more research is needed as we simply do not know the answers. What makes this particularly special is his boundless enthusiasm for his subject, not just in his own research, but also for the history behind this most perfect of things. 4.5 stars

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Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind over Body by Jo Marchant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The field of alternative medicine is plagued with claims that can be as misleading as they are lethal. In Simon Singh’s book, Trick or Treatment, he covers aa number of the alternative medicines with a solid scientific rebuttal of those that fail to live up to expectations. But is there something going on that science is beginning to uncover? In this book Marchant considers the latest scientific research into the effect that our minds can have over our bodies, with solid evidence of the effects of positive thoughts and mindsets.

In the book she considers some fairly fundamental questions; the way our minds work, the almost magical effect of placebo, the management of pain and how the act of caring for someone can be transformative. There are chapters on training your immune system and the power of friendships. All of these things, when used in conjunction with a sympathetic doctor and the appropriate course of drugs can have an amazing effect compared to just regular treatments. Alternative medicine has lots of flaws, but what it does do well is to spend time with and care about the patient, something that conventional appointments with their rushed 10 minute slots and almost guaranteed prescription at the end of the consultation seems to have now lost. Throughout the book she meets with the scientists, doctors and patients who are at the leading edge of this research, bringing us their perspectives and trying to articulate why they think that it is working.

When reading this it did bring to mind Pratchett’s headology, the way that people see themselves and the world around them. But this is about real lives and people who are being treated with regular medicines, but who are fortunate to have doctors who are considering the whole individual at the same time. Marchant writes this with sparkling clarity and authority, and thankfully rarely dips into obscure medical jargon. It made for very interesting reading too, with some well written examples of those that have been healed or had their lives return to something closer to normal. Based on the research here, we need to consider both mind and body treatments not just a blind acceptance of the newest drugs. All very interesting stuff and much food for thought.

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Thunder & Sunshine: Riding Home from Patagonia by Alastair Humphreys
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Humphreys’ first book, Moods of Future Joys, he describes his journey by bike through Europe with the intention of going through Asia. 9/11 changed everything, so he cycled all the way down through Africa instead. This is the account of the second half of monumental ride around the world. First, though, he needs a boat, not a bike. Securing a passage on a sailing boat as a crew member, he departs from Cape Town, next stop Rio.

He travels down to the very south of the country and begins his journey once again from Ushuaia with the intention of cycling all the way to Alaska next. The contrast between this continent and Africa could not have been more different, and he climbed some of the largest hills on his trip so far. In South America, he never ceased to be amazed by the generosity of strangers, people who had virtually nothing would be prepared to share food and hospitality with him. The distances are huge, and the headwinds are relentless, but persistence pays off and he manages to make it to Columbia. Crossing the Darrien Gap is always going to be an issue, there is nothing there resembling a road, but he solves it by crewing on another boat to Panama.

Humphreys’ found Mexico to be interesting country, but entering America was a huge contrast to South America. Some were friendly and one lot bought him a new bike, but others considered a cyclist to be an annoying inconvenience on the road as he cycled up the Pacific coast. Reaching his goal of getting to the Arctic Circle, it was time to turn and head west; Russia beckoned. On this leg of the journey he was joined by a friend and fellow adventurer, Rob Lilwall, as they cycled along the Road of Bones, Siberia’s infamous road. This was probably the coldest part of the journey varying from a chilly -40 deg C to a balmy -20 deg C and he seem to spend most of the time freezing his arse off! Next up was Japan, a country that is so very different to anything he had experienced before. With visas sorted, he crossed to China and set of exploring this huge country, and discovering that the language barrier there was much bigger than he expected.

He was on the homeward stretch now, and the rest of Asia beckoned. Provided he could navigate the torturous visa and border controls… Each country bought delights, new experiences and occasion brought it home to him just how fortunate he was. Reaching Turkey was the point where he for the first time went back into a country that he had cycled through four years previously. He was nearly home.

This was an enjoyable account of the second part of his journey as well as being a more honest appraisal of why he was doing it and what he had gained from the experience. He discovers as much about himself as the world and the people he met on this 46,000 journey round the world. I felt this was better written than the first book too, but what really comes across is his ability to get along with people from all walks of life and not to see anything as insurmountable. If you like travel books, or cycling books then this and the first volume are worth reading.

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The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World by Oliver Morton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Mankind has spent millennia altering and changing their local environment, but with the discovery of fossil fuels and our current addiction to them we have begun the process of changing the entire global climate. He explores the effect we have had on our world with carbon dioxide, nitrogen fertilisers and sulphate in the atmosphere and considers the perilous situation that the world could be in just a few years. Even though some choose to ignore it, climate change is the thing that isn’t going to go away.
A need to address the risks of global warming is urgent and pressing. A small group of scientists are looking at proposals such as cultivation of photosynthetic plankton or a stratospheric veil against the sun or having automated robotic ships cloud seeding for intervention against the effect of climate change. In this book Morton seeks to inform us about the benefits and hazards of these geoengineering strategies. Even trying to change things in a positive way is fraught with danger, but inaction holds equal dangers.

Morton has drawn together a broad overview on the coming threats of climate change and the possibilities that geoengineering offers in digging us out of the mire. It does make for interesting reading the discussion of the technologies available to reduce carbon emissions and reflect sunlight back into space. While he covers various new technologies and new ways that are being considered to combat this, he didn’t seem to be bold enough to commit to the one he would recommend. Overall this isn’t a bad book, but didn’t seem to have the focus that I was expecting, but then that might be because the solution might be as dangerous as the problem. 2.5 stars.

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