"The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design" by Richard Dawkins - audiobook review

I read this because Douglas Adams recommended it a number of times in Last Chance to See and elsewhere; and also as a follow-on from my earlier reading of Dawkins's The Selfish Gene and Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Dawkins argues that natural selection is the blind watchmaker in nature. Animals and plants evolved when their genes mutated to create variations. The variations that benefited them (i.e. helped the gene to survive) were kept; the variations that made it harder to sustain life are discarded. But the timeline of evolution is on a different scale of magnitude to human time, so you have to put on your hiking boots of thought.

This book is accessible to a general audience, but I wasn't always wearing my hiking boots; sometimes I was in my slippers, so some of the biological nuances will have slipped me by. I think Dawkins is at his most readable when he's using analogies to explain complex natural processes. I was captivated, for example, in his description of how dust particles interact with streams to redirect its flow; or how DNA is more of a reciple than a blueprint; or how he created a computer program to mimic how biomorphs evolve.

He's at his worst when sneering at other schools of thought that he disagrees with or which have been scientifically disproved. He sounds like a bit of an arrogant snob. But one who's very good at what he does.

This audiobook version is narrated by both Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward. In The Selfish Gene, the second narrator was used to read footnotes and asides, and I think that's also the function of the second voice in this book, but that was never spelled out. It gives the book a slightly uneven surface but also underlines that scientific discoveries are also evolving and need to be constantly revised and revisited. It's possible, also, that the Lalla Ward sections are revisions that were added after Dawkins's original recording. But an explanation would have been nice.

It remains remarkable to me (someone who never studied biology as a subject beyond some basic lessons in introductory science at secondary school) that Darwin's theory of evolution is so dominant: how often he is cited, expanded, and updated. He is the Shakespeare of his field.

"Heartstopper: Volume One" by Alice Oseman - book review

This is a very sweet graphic novel that was turned into the groundbreaking Netflix TV series of the same name. It's effectively a storyboard for season 1. The characters of Nick and Charlie are recognizable and were very well cast. I read this book in less than 24 hours. Although it's aimed at younger readers, there's still much to enjoy for someone like me at 41: just the way that most of the characters are so accepting and kind. I'm also intrigued by Alice Oseman's other books, such as Solitaire, which is where the Nick and Charlie characters originated and is told from the point of view of Tori, Charlie's older sister, who is one of our favourite characters from the TV series. It would have been interesting to read this before having watched the TV show, so if you haven't partaken of either, I recommend starting with the books and then watching Netflix.

"1606: Shakespeare and the Year of Lear" by James Shapiro - book review

A follow-up to 1599 and in the same vein of a biography of Shakespeare based on one year in his life. Things have changed quite a lot in the 7 years since. James VI and I has acceded to the throne and survived the Gunpower Plot of 1605. He is trying to unite his Scottish and English kingdoms, but meets resistance from parliament and his subjects. Plague is an ever-present menace, which periodically shuts down the London theatres. The threats abroad from Spain and Ireland have waned compared to Elizabeth's reign; but there is a toxic distrust of Catholics at home.

1606 was the year in which Shakespeare wrote three tragedies: King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. Shapiro shows again how each play reflects the historical and political context; and how Shakespeare rewrites his source texts. Both Shapiro and Shakespeare are masters in command of their materials.

Another very readable book but one with slightly less of Shakespeare;s life in it than 1599. The best chapter was about the loaded word "equivocation", but I also really enjoyed Shapiro's accounts of the court masques and the lads' holiday when King Christian of Denmark came to visit for a few weeks in the summer. It sounded like a debauched time with lots of drinking and swiving. It's also amusing to hear that Christian wanted to play sports but James refused because he was crap and bored his guest by going hunting instead. Methinks Christian overstayed his welcome.

The result is a humanizing of Shakespeare, showing his works growing out of the fertile ground of their sources and context. A much darker book than the last one, but no less informative.

"Monsters: What Do We Do with Great Art by Bad People?" by Claire Dederer - audiobook review

We listened to most of this audiobook on long Easter bank holiday car journeys to and from Scotland. It was written in the wake of the #MeToo movement and online cancel culture. Dederer pitches it as an autobiography of the audience (meaning her as a subjective consumer of art), covering filmmakers such as Roman Polanski and Woody Allen; the painter Pablo Picasso; writers such as Vladimir Nabokov and Raymond Chandler; and the musicians David Bowie and Miles Davis, amongst others. She wrestles with the ethical problem of whether we should still consume the work of monstrous men such as these after we know their problematic behaviours. She argues that biography now comes to find us: it's hard to avoid the knowledge of what Polanski, Allen, and Picasso did, of how they abused women and children, abused their power. I think we've all struggled with this. I still love Woody Allen's films (particularly Manhattan), even though I know of his icky relationships. I was concerned during the book that Dederer was going to either chicken out and not come down on one side or the other; or declare that we should boycott these works. But her conclusion is nuanced and informed by her own "monstrousness" as a mother, a writer, and a recovering alcoholic. As a memoir writer, it's perhaps not surprising that part of this book is a memoir, too. I sometimes wondered if some of that stuff could have been cut, but I think it does add something to her argument. It felt a little long towards the end. And it did turn out to be the result of two long essays being turned into a book.

She embarked on the project wanting to find an authority to tell her what to think and feel about art by problematic men. Unable to find one, she turned inwards to write a descriptive rather than prescriptive book about what this knowledge does to us as consumers of art. I won't spoil her conclusion but it was more satisfying than I thought it might be.

Dederer narrates the audiobook version. We both snickered at her poor pronunciation - particularly of German and French words, but also plenty of English. She is obviously someone who is well read but hasn't spoken some of these words outside of an American academic context. Perhaps a bit unfair of me to laugh, but la-di-da, Michael, la-di-da!

"The Letters of Mercurius" by Mercurius Oxoniensis - book review

A book a satirical letters about the student revolts at Oxford University in 1968-70 written in a comical Elizabethan English and published pseudonymously, at the time, in the Spectator. These were recommended to my by my father-in-law, Tom Wheare, who also lent me his copy, which has an appropriately fusty smell and yellowing pages. The language is delicious, even if the events behind them are now slightly occluded and muddied by in-jokes. I love the sweeping way each letter is signed off as one sentence runs into the farewell. It also features "lady Wheare" (Tom's infamous mother), who somehow got involved in the student occupation of the Clarendon Building. An musing diversion.

"The Child in the City" by Colin Ward - book review

The penultimate book in my list of books to read after Finals, and another one recommended to me by Roman Krznaric. I read the second edition, which printed the text without the pictures (which I nevertheless looked up online). Colin Ward is a gentle anarchist in the sense that he wants society to function despite - not because of - what government does or doesn't do. He has a remarkable empathy for children. I'm wondering if Roman recommended this to me because we were talking about how I don't really like (or want to have) children. Although it didn't set my brain on fire, I suspect this book will quietly influence my thinking. It's a good companion to the ITV documentary series 7 Up.

"Starship Titanic" by Terry Jones and Douglas Adams - audiobook review

Based on the computer game that Douglas Adams developed. He couldn't be bothered to write the novel version, so Terry Jones did it for him…in the nude! It's quite a horny book (probably because Terry Jones was naked at the keyboard). Amusing and definitely woven through with Adams's sense of humour and preoccupations with technology. Expertly narrated by Bill Nighy, who is a great hang. Typical of Adams's work in that it's not a compelling plot; more a series of amusing scenes and characters. Probably one of those books that had more of a commercial than a literary imperative and slightly adjacent to but not divorced from the Adams cannon.