"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.

"The God Desire" by David Baddiel - audiobook review

A short book about David Baddiel's atheism. Interesting, intellectual, and at times moving. Baddiel is good company.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future: Douglas Adams and the Digital World" by Douglas Adams - audiobook review

A collection of BBC radio programmes in which Douglas Adams indulges his love of technology (things that don't quite work yet). It's quaint to hear people talking about the internet in its early days. Many of Adams's predictions are remarkably accurate. I've heard bits of this elsewhere but as I'm a completist I'm glad I sought this out. The final programme is narrated by Mitch Benn, looking back at what Adams got right.

"1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare" by James Shapiro - book review

A really clever idea: to write a biography of William Shakespeare by focusing on one year in his life: 1599, in which he wrote Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet. I had never really appreciated how much of contemporary life and politics he put into his plays: the threat of Spanish invasion, the Earl of Essex being sent to Ireland to try to suppress Tyrone's uprising, and his own company's construction of the Globe theatre. This was another one of the books I put on my list of books to read after Finals. It was a beezer! I found it really easy to read: compelling and informative, and reflective of a change in how I view literature since the days when I was a student: when I wasn't that interested in the political and historical context because I was ignorant and afraid of doing more reading. Now I'm humbler and no longer afraid of not knowing something. It makes me want to read the follow-up: 1606.

"Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service" by Michael Lewis - audiobook review

A series of essays originally published in the Washington Post about people who work for the government and are extraordinarily good at their jobs, such as a guy who runs military cemeteries; a man who figured out how to reduce the number of roof collapses in mines; a woman who makes it easier for doctors to look up cures for rare diseases; and a woman who oversees volunteers who digitize the national archives. Only a couple of the essays are written and read by Michael Lewis. They provide a fascinating insight into the value of government.

"Last Chance to See" by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine - audiobook review

Douglas Adams travels around the world in search of endangered animal species with a conservationist / zoologist from WWF called Mark Carwardine. Originally a one-off magazine article, then a book to accompany a BBC Radio 4 series. The different landscapes, people, political situations, and travel anecdotes are sharp and amusing. I think this was the book that Adams was most proud about. I believe it had quite a big impact on the conservation movement but I can’t judge that. I grew up in the years immediately afterwards when Blue Peter and Newsround regularly covered these sorts of issues.

"Up in the Old Hotel" by Joseph Mitchell - book review

Fucking hell! What a masterpiece. This was one of the last books I put on my list of books to read after Finals, recommended by Robert Crumb in the Guardian Review: "a wonderful collection of profiles from the New Yorker from 1937-64 by the great columnist Joseph Mitchell, which chronicle New York from the 1920s; it really puts you there". I got it for my birthday in 2010 and only started reading it last July and I've been puttering away at it a few pages a night. I also read two other books in between. But recently I've gathered more speed and started reading it over breakfast and lunch now that my decks are clear. It's a bit like an American (New York) Ulysses but non-fiction. Also a bit reminiscent of Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor in the way it paints a city through its people. Towards the end of the book, everything comes together in "Joe Gould's Secret", which, because I started the book so long ago, felt vaguely familiar. This is because Joe Gould is the "Professor Sea Gull" of one of the first profiles. But it's also because Joseph Mitchell is such a character, too: in the warmth he feels for New York's people and ways of life; his storytelling panache; his amazing memory and ability to weave together strands of knowledge. Who knew about the Native American high steel bridge-builders; about the shad fishermen of the New Jersey side of the Hudson River; the bums, the drunks, the conmen, the gypsies, the policemen; the Fulton Fish Market and all its many suppliers; the wrecks at the bottom of the river, and the oysters and clams? Joseph Fucking Mitchell did and he put it all in this book, which you should read haste post haste.

"The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time" by Douglas Adams - audiobook review

A posthumous collection of writing recovered from Douglas Adams's various Apple computers, plus 11 chapters of an unfinished Dirk Gently novel. I preferred the earlier essays and fragments. But the Dirk Gently stuff is quite interesting because it's a sequel to The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. It has provided me with further oxygen and direction for my Douglas Adams deep-dive.

"Trelawny's Cornwall: A Journey through Western Lands" by Petroc Trelawny - audiobook review

A book about Cornwall's history by the BBC Radio 3 presenter. Part travelogue, part personal history, part social history. My favourite bits were about Falmouth as the post office of the British Empire (lots of packet ships used to sail from there); the undersea cables that landed near the Lizard; and Marconi's radio experiments nearby. I was also shocked how early mining was in decline in Cornwall. It wasn't always entirely thrilling but Trelawny's voice is soothing and some of his pronunciations are hilarious - particularly "puh-tree" for "poetry".

"The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" by Douglas Adams - audiobook review

Another weirdly plotted Dirk Gently novel. This one features gods such as Thor and Odin living in our world. More gods live listless lives like outcasts, the dispossessed, the homeless.

"I Feel Bad About My Neck, And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman" by Nora Ephron - audiobook review

I ordered this audiobook for Fran and thought I'd listen to it myself because I quite enjoyed Heartburn and I'm a big fan of When Harry Met Sally…. As the title suggests, these are a series of comical essays about being a women, from trying to hide your neck when you get older to the tedium of "maintenance", and her various relationships (real and imagined) with chefs and authors of cookbooks. It was quite short and also, at times, a little dated (first published in 2006 but written about the 70s, 80s, and 90s). The audiobook version is narrated by Nora Ephron herself and she's delightful company. There are many parts of her personality that remind me (affectionately) of Fran. But, as with Heartburn, there are other parts of her worldview that I find more challenging, and which made me a little sad: sad about all the shit some women have to deal with; sad that couples philander and break up; sad that some women care so much about handbags or wear shoes that don't actually fit them and actively harm their feet; sad that people have plastic surgery to try to hide the inevitable fact of ageing. I'm not saying Nora Ephron is into all of these things (she's not). I don't really know what I'm saying. So maybe I should stop. The point is: it made me a little uneasy at times. But maybe that's a good thing. I guess I was hoping for more of a comfort read.

"Inciting Joy: Essays" by Ross Gay - book review

This was a Jolabokaflod present from Fran, which I started reading straight away on Christmas Eve. It deals more with grief than The Book of Delights but is still full of delights. My favourite essay was "Dispatch from the Ruins (School: The Eleventh Incitement)", which blew my tiny mind. It's about his views on university education and teaching; capitalism; bullshit jobs; and starts with an account of a faculty meeting in which students are referred to as "units". It reminded me of some of the philosophies of Sir Ken Robinson, the creativity expert and educationalist; The Cancer Stage of Capitalism; and A People's History of the United States. Gay describes how he runs some of his classes: giving everyone an A grade at the start to get that worry off the table; joining in the creative challenges he sets his students. It's hard to describe and I don't want to. Just read it.

"Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys" by Billy Crystal - audiobook review

An enjoyable autobiography covering both the actor Billy Crystal's personal and professional lives. The audiobook version also features some chapters performed live on stage as part of a stand-up comedy set. I preferred the other chapters that were just read by the author: they were less performative. I was most interested in what he had to say about one of my favourite films, When Harry Met Sally…. He's good company and it's quite touching at times how much of a proud father and grandfather he is. It also made me laugh out loud a few times. I didn't realize he was personal friends with Muhammad Ali, Mickey Mantle, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

"The Secret History of Christmas" by Bill Bryson - audiobook review

A short (3 hours and 3 minutes) and mildly entertaining audiobook about the history of Christmas in Bill Bryson's inimitable style, narrated by the author himself. It focuses mostly on the UK and USA. It's remarkable how many of our Christmas traditions are relatively recent. Most of the them date from the 1840s onwards. It's reassuring to know that Christmas has always been about feasting and excess, drawing as it does on the Roman festival of Saturnalia. Full of facts and tidbits, which I will now forget or vaguely misremember.