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Maths anecdotes & trivia assembled in an engaging way by a great communicator – this took a LOT longer to get to reading than I’d hoped but it references earlier chapters throughout which really helps with the recall & comprehension side of things. The invention of 0, the people counting in base-12, cultures who are…
I’d watch Lou Sanders read a shopping list. The woman’s wonderful. This book’s a kind of disorganised foray into the world of autobiography, through the medium of short story: a bit weird in pace, but it allows her to get out the kernels of the ideas she wants to get across without contriving too much,…
Massive figure in the backroom comedy firmament Joel Morris dissects the frog, but in a way where there’s plenty of laughs, LOADS of nods to the comedy industry, and generally provides what amounts to a very simple distillation of a very complex and nuanced topic… the equivalent of describing the playing of music as “just…
Robin Ince’s passionate outpouring about the many and wondrous ways in which science excites and unlocks creativity & wonder. I love Robin & his work dearly, however I can categorically state that he’s a difficult author for a new parent to read – I’ve been chopping away at this since March, and by the end…
Geoffrey Robertson here dissecting the matter of the Elgin Marbles – their ownership, the truths and myths surrounding the British Museum’s claim on them, and a wider exploration of the matter of cultural properties appropriated by other countries through a variety of means. Setting out the case that it’s possible to work out where these…
(Subtitle: “How Russians, the Rich and the Government Try to Prevent Free Speech and How to Stop Them”) This may well have been my first Audiobook, bought partially for cost reasons but also as it was read by the author. It was an illustrated description of the sorts of legal techniques that malfeasants use to…
Taking a moment out of trying to get people to justify their opinions on radio, James O’Brien has assembled an excellent if not totally depressing case outlining how a handful of key individuals colluded, conspired, and/or coincided to take Britain from the 2008 Financial Crisis-handling days of Gordon Brown through to where we currently are,…
I’ve said before, a challenge with reading books by people whose voices you know well (in this case, podcaster Dan Carlin) is that you read their every word in the cadence of their speech. Luckily in this case it didn’t slow things down at all – which is just as well as it covers quite…
There’s no doubt that Frankie Boyle is one of the sharpest and simultaneously bluntest comic minds of our time – however this book genuinely read like someone had thrown together a list of topics and then collated a bunch of his one liners and mashed them together to form chapters. Perhaps it’s conditioning from the…
A history of the Working Mens’ Club movement, told through the eyes, experience and research of master beer writer Pete Brown: never delivering anything as dry as a pure history, but sure learns you up on a lot along the way. Particularly fascinating was the recounting of how Gentlemens’ Clubs were set up and had…