Sunday 27 April 2014

The Self Illusion by Bruce Hood

In this mind-shattering book, you will bump up against some startling facts about consciousness that will shake your sense of self and give rise to a new humility. And, that’s always a good thing, I think.

Bruce Hood is a developmental psychologist who conducts research into how children develop a sense of self. Babies aren’t born self-conscious creatures. They aren’t even aware of the most basic identifiers such as whether they are a boy or girl, let alone how boys and girls are supposed to behave. So, how do they learn who they are? And, why do they even need to in the first place?

Across the fields of child development, neuroscience, behavioural economics, social psychology, and cross-cultural studies, the results are piling up. Our sense of self is a construction that arises out of the human brain and its trillions of neural connections. We perceive ourselves and the world incompletely and, yet, we remain unaware that we do so. We are more easily persuaded than we think, we are more susceptible to social pressure and mob-mind than we realize, and our integrity is far more shaky than our belief in it is.

I bet you’re thinking something like “Other people may be like that, but I’m made of slightly sterner stuff”. This little book will disarm you slowly. Crammed full with insight and evidence, The Self Illusion gets to the core of what it means to be human. We are, first and foremost, social beings.

Reviewed by Spot

Catalogue Link: The Self Illusion

Thursday 24 April 2014

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

When Peter Grant started his career with London’s Metropolitan Police, little did he know that there was a level of crime that most people don’t see, involving ghosts, vampires and various other malignant, magical forces. He also didn’t realise that there was a branch of the Met that handled it.

Still a probationer, Peter is part of a police cordon at the crime scene when a man is found decapitated in Covent Garden. Things get weird when he finds himself talking to a witness who just happens to be a ghost. Returning to Covent Garden in the hope of making a breakthrough - and avoiding being relegated to the Case Progression Unit and endless paperwork - the ghost is sadly absent. Instead he meets the dapper Inspector Nightingale, who sees in young Peter a possible recruit for the Met's Unit 9.

Next thing you know, Peter moves into The Folly, learns to do magic and is taken on a roller-coaster ride of events where he has to battle a vicious criminal who turns people into murdering Mr Punch-like maniacs. Luckily Peter gets to know the deities of the river, Father and Mother Thames, who will prove invaluable.

This may sound all very fantastical, but it’s a load of fun. Aaronivitch has crafted a magical world that is still distinctly London and his characters sound very much like Londoners too. Peter is the ordinary guy who gets to do extraordinary things and this hooks in the reader. And the plotting is exciting, at times mad-cap and non-stop. Rivers of London is the first of the Peter Grant series and well worth a look if you’re after something light, lively and completely original.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue Link: Rivers of London

Friday 18 April 2014

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo


Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Katherine Boo spent 3 ½ years researching this book in a Mumbai slum, focusing on a handful of locals who represent, in different ways, how the inequalities in modern India force people to live.

Annawadi is a makeshift settlement near Mumbai’s airport, dwarfed by new luxury hotels. India is undergoing massive changes and those living in the slum hope, desperately, that some of the new found prosperity will come their way. Boo follows the daily struggles of Abdul as he scours rich people’s rubbish for lucrative scraps, Asha with her hopes for her beautiful and talented daughter, and 15 year old, Kalu, the scrap-metal thief.

Often, the tales are harrowing as the residents conduct their daily battle against their fate and the forces that keep them there, but there are positive moments, too. Unique, authentic, and brilliantly crafted, this book reads like fiction. Despite the heartbreaking stories, it is an enjoyable read and one of my favourite books, lately.

Posted by Katrina H

Catalogue Link: Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Behind the Beautiful Forevers website


Thursday 17 April 2014

The Sacred River by Wendy Wallace

In Wendy Wallace’s first novel, The Painted Bridge, the heroine was imprisoned by her devious husband in a mental asylum. At 23, Harriet, the heroine of The Sacred River, is similarly held captive, in this case by her asthma. The 1880s London winter threatens her every breath, and being a self-taught scholar on all things Egyptian, Harriet urges her doctor to recommend to her parents that warmer climes are vital to her health, and only Egypt will do.

Harriet’s mother, Louisa, has any doubts removed by a visit to a spiritualist, leaving her father to find them a house in Alexandria and a sensible travel companion. His sensible sister, Yael, is eventully persuaded.

Fearing she will never see England again, Harriet is surprised when a tarot card reading with her shipboard companion, Mrs Cox, offers the promise of marriage and children, and that she will find her future husband on the boat. The obvious candidate is Eyre Soane, a handsome young artist, but he has his own agenda – one of revenge. He has recognised Louisa, who many years before had been a model for his artist father.

Weaving together events from the past with Harriet’s dramatic recuperation in Egypt and Yael’s discovery of a new purpose to her life, The Sacred River is a journey of discovery for three very different women. Egypt gives them a chance to step out of a rut, as well as providing a superbly exotic backdrop to the story. Wonderful characters and a strong sense of narrative drama round out a brilliant reading experience.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue link: The Sacred River

Wednesday 16 April 2014

Night Broken

What do you do when your husbands ex-wife, whom everyone adores, is in trouble and wants to 'come home'? Well, if you're Mercy Thompson Hauptman, coyote shapeshifter married to the Alpha of the local werewolf pack, you let her come. But that doesn't mean you have to like it.

Patricia Briggs does it again with Night Broken, eighth in the Mercy Thompson series. This book is classic Urban Fantasy; action-packed with mythical creatures of all shapes, sizes and levels of scariness living alongside humans. Throw a sly conniving ex-wife (who I really wanted to throttle) into the mix and what a winner! I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Mercy puts up with a certain amount of flack as a coyote shapeshifter living in a werewolf pack. Not all members are happy to have her around, let alone mated to their Alpha. So when pretty, seemingly perfect Christy turns up needing shelter from a stalker it creates even further problems for her. But Mercy has a strength of character some pack members are still coming to understand. She has faced down creatures most people aren't even aware exist and survived - an ex-wife isn't going to get the better of her...that fire demon that's trying to kill her though, he might be a different story!

Posted by Cookie Fan

Catalogue Link: Night Broken

Thursday 10 April 2014

The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom

The Case of the Missing Books is a madcap story that takes a half-Jewish, half-Irish librarian from London and deposits him in the remote, Northern Irish town of Tundrum. Israel Armstrong has never had a library job in spite of having qualified some years before. His girlfriend, Gloria, says this is his big opportunity to start his library career.

But his stint in Tundrum gets off to a troublesome start – the library he is supposed to manage has been closed by the council; he will instead be running a mobile library using a decrepit bus that has been stored in a chicken shed. On top of this, all the books are missing and Israel has to track them down. He is helped by the belligerent ex-boxer, Ted, who gets the bus going again, and genial Dennis the carpenter, who refits the shelving.

The Case of the Missing Books is the first in the Mobile Library mystery series and while hunting down what has happened to tens of thousands of library books is a crucial part of the plot, much of the story is about Israel’s introduction to a town full of quirky characters. He’s a stranger in town and often the butt of jokes and ruses, all the funnier because of Israel’s bumbling and oversensitive character. The book is full of hilarious banter and laugh-out-loud moments, and Sansom has a fine ear for the humorous quirks of language.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue Link: The Case of the Missing Books

Wednesday 9 April 2014

Bellman & Black: A Ghost Story by Diane Setterfield

This is quite a complicated story but it is rich and rewarding reading. Set sometime in the 19th Century, it starts off with a 10 year old William Bellman, who is playing with several of his friends. As boys of this age do, he impulsively aims his catapult at a rook and, to his and his friends' surprise, he kills it.

Time passes and the story follows William as he grows up to be rich, successful, and blessed with a loving family.  But the death of the rook is something that comes back to haunt him and changes the course of his life. Tragedy comes, a strange and desperate bargain is struck, and William takes to a peculiar new vocation. A great read to linger over on a dark and rainy day.

Reviewed by Young at Heart Bookgroup

Catalogue Link: Bellman & Black: A Ghost Story

Thursday 3 April 2014

The Lives of Stella Bain by Anita Shreve

A protagonist with amnesia is a tried and true plot device and works a treat in Anita Shreve’s novel The Lives of Stella Bain. Stella is an American nurse who wakes up in a French field hospital in the middle of World War One. She can’t remember who she is, but with the language barrier and all, no one seems to notice and soon she’s back at work, driving an ambulance.

A sudden hazy memory drives Stella to decamp for London, in search of the British Admiralty, where she is certain she will find the key to unlock her past. On arrival, however, she almost keels over from exhaustion to be taken in by the charitable Lily and August Bridge. August is a doctor specialising in cranial reconstruction, but is fascinated by Stella’s case and agrees to take her on as a patient.

The first half of the novel describes Stella’s slow recovery, and makes for gripping reading. Stella has discovered a talent for drawing and under August’s prompting her pictures reveal moments from her past. When she eventually visits the Admiralty, Stella makes a startling discovery – one that will send her home to America on a mission: to recover custody of her children.

The rest of the book, however, failed to live up to the promise of the first half, with a lengthy court case and lacking the character development I felt would have made Stella and other characters more interesting. Amid a plethora of recent novels about World War One, this one may not stand up too well, but I can just imagine it as a film starring Julia Roberts.

Posted by JAM

Catalogue Link: The Lives of Stella Bain




Wednesday 2 April 2014

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough

Character is a concept that has been in and out of vogue. Often associated with morality, its possession could earn you a stoical ‘good life’ or a spot in heaven by carefully avoiding temptation on the way. The postmodern world, however, regarded character as obsolete and, in recent times, it has clung on as a leftover remnant in places like old, elitist private schools.

But it is now experiencing another upsurge in popularity. Again, it is a means to an end - and that end is success. A lot of the book’s discussion around success is heavily focused on academic success and achieving the all-important tertiary degree which, in the US especially, often means the difference between a comfortable, affluent lifestyle and struggle-street.

A variety of research is presented to demonstrate that traits like perseverance and self-control contribute more to college graduation than IQ does. Tough reports on studies showing that the orderly and the organised do well in life. There are examples of how genius can be fostered in children and a discussion of how stress affects their development and ability to be resilient in the face of adversity.

For a book about how children succeed, Tough covers a lot of ground, including the enormous elephant in the room – the huge amount of research that shows the devastating effects of social inequality. The greater the distance between the affluent and the poor, the harder it is for those children to succeed. This is a fantastic book that provides something for everyone to think about whether as parents, educators, or society as a whole.

Reviewed by Spot

Catalogue Link:  How Children Succeed