Colin Marks's Blog, page 5

Review: The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity by Robin Ince

I’ll start by saying I like Robin Ince, he’s a great co-host on Infinite Monkey Cage, and his intelligence and humour are normally engaging. Unfortunately, his book on being interested, just wasn’t, well, interesting.

The book is about science and curiosity, but it’s incredibly rambling. Ideas aren’t pursued before he spins off. He just gets beneath the surface on a topic, then wham, he’s off quoting somebody and heading in a different direction. Robin mentions the “tangential nature of my ja...

The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity by Robin Ince

I’ll start by saying I like Robin Ince, he’s a great co-host on Infinite Monkey Cage, and his intelligence and humour are normally engaging. Unfortunately, his book on being interested, just wasn’t, well, interesting.

The book is about science and curiosity, but it’s incredibly rambling. Ideas aren’t pursued before he spins off. He just gets beneath the surface on a topic, then wham, he’s off quoting somebody and heading in a different direction. Robin mentions the “tangential nature of my ja...

Review: The Quiet Whispers Never Stop by Olivia Fitzsimons

On the face of it, The Quiet Whispers Never Stop has a very simple story, but the plotting and execution make this a stunning literary debut by Olivia Fitzsimons. Set amidst the anger and distrust at the peak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, relationships within a dysfunctional family are explored over several timelines and perspectives. My only criticism was the writing, though elegantly crafted, was always too urgent – brief, minimal sentences create a sense of foreboding, but when overuse...

Review: This One Sky Day by Leone Ross

Magical realism pulled me in my late 20s. Being a huge fan of Neil Gaiman’s writing, it wasn’t a big leap to those South American writers who developed the genre – Márquez, Borges, Rulfo, etc. The One Sky Day by Leone Ross is a welcome returned to a style that I’ve missed!

The book is based in Popisho, a fictional island with a very Caribbean feel. All it’s inhabitants are born with a cors, a special gift that can heal, or give strength, or in the case of Xavier, one of the island’s revered m...

Review: The End of Bias by Jessica Nordell

Bias is a interesting subject. While some people try to remove bias from their lives, which is the main topic of Jessica Nordell’s End of Bias, others are embracing it. Fox News, social media, etc, polarise society by reinforcing bias and prejudice. So while it’s great that many of the case studies in the book are taking positive action, it seems society as a whole unfortunately is moving in the opposite direction.

I disagreed with some sections, such as the use of IAT tests to predict prejud...

The End of Bias by Jessica Nordell

Bias is a interesting subject. While some people try to remove bias from their lives, which is the main topic of Jessica Nordell’s End of Bias, others are embracing it. Fox News, social media, etc, polarise society by reinforcing bias and prejudice. So while it’s great that many of the case studies in the book are taking positive action, it seems society as a whole unfortunately is moving in the opposite direction.

I disagreed with some sections, such as the use of IAT tests to predict prejud...

Review: Chief of Staff: Notes from Downing Street

Gavin Barwell, the author and narrator, was a Conservative MP and housing minister who after losing his seat in Theresa May’s snap election, was brought deeper into the government by being appointed her Chief of Staff. My political views aren’t entirely aligned with his – I’ve never voted Conservative and am very unlikely ever to do so (I’m more of a liberal – centre-left on society and centre-right on the economy), but we are both unionists and Remainers.

Though not a Tory voter, I’ve always...

Review: Somersett: Benjamin Franklin and the Masterminding of American Independence by Phillip Goodrich

This is a beast of an audiobook – 14 hours of dense facts, made easier to digest with some well acted dramatisation. The book follows the schemes of Benjamin Franklin, how he manipulated the North and the South, the British, the French, and the Dutch, all because of his dislike of the Penn family and his desire to give the colonies independence and a slave-free society.

The book is very focused on the political, how the schemes were planned and enacted, the military aspects of the war were mo...

Review: The High House by Jessie Greengras

The High House is another climate change fictionalisation – better than most, but still with its flaws.

Better because the writing is gorgeous. Sparsely written bite-sized sections, the prose exudes urgency and desperation. That stylisation worked well, the characters racing towards the impending doom, but it worked only up to a point. With writing that sparse, it’s good for the drama, but it limits character development, and becomes a song with a single beat. This would have been more powerf...

Review: Tomorrow by Chris Beckett

What an excellent novel! Tomorrow follows the life of an unnamed protagonist, through his student days debating left-wing politics, to his isolation in the wilderness to write ‘the book’, to his kidnapping by left-wing guerrillas and his escape, and finally his demise. ‘Following’ isn’t entirely true, as the narrative jumps throughout to different times of his life.

A theme throughout is why we do what we do. You may want to help others, but is talking about it helping, or is even doing somet...