But — if the people from Glasgow and Liverpool will bear with me just a moment — that’s because we’ve all been brainwashed into mindlessly accepting that places outside London don’t do “culture”. It’s not all flat caps, whippets, curly perms and deep fried mars bars north of Watford, you know.

The key thing to remember is that culture isn’t just what Brian Sewell says it is. It doesn’t have to be trendy; it doesn’t particularly have to be modern, but it should look to entertain and inform, rather than just being something utilitarian. For example, the BALTIC art gallery on Tyneside may fit the Sewell culture definition of ‘culture’ or ‘art’ — indeed he famously claimed that it was too good to waste on Northerners, but that’s his definition (and somewhat bigoted viewpoint).

My definition would also include things like the Millenium Bridge, the Angel of the North, St Mary’s Visitors Centre which provides a lot of information about the history of Gateshead. History. Museums. Art Galleries. Learning. Theatre. Film. Things to see and do that don’t just involve shopping. That’s culture.

So anyway, at the time I was local-authority employed, I was very keen on the idea that NewcastleGateshead would win the bid: I’ve got a fierce pride in the region, as I think it’s got a lot to be proud of (not that Liverpool, Bristol and the other bidders don’t have, but I’m not from there, so I’m biased). And I was invited to attend an event as one of the representatives of my department to celebrate, should NewcastleGateshead win the bid.

Unfortunately, it went to Liverpool and so as well as finding that the area of which I was so proud had lost out in the chance to become European City of Culture 2008, I was also done out of a free party. Now that’s a double blow by anyone’s standards.

To be honest, I don’t really know much about what Liverpool did to celebrate being City of Culture: I know there was stuff on, various Scouse bloggers (scloggers?) wrote about it, and I read quite a bit of it. But that was nearly two years ago, and not much of it fired my imagination, possibly partly ‘cos I was still in a huff about the party I was conned out of.

But there was one thing which caught my imagination. The superlambananas. Basically, a series of sculptures, shaped — as you may indeed have guessed — somewhat like a cross between a lamb and a banana. Entirely ridiculous, they have no utility value whatsoever beyond being something odd and quirky to look at. And thus for my mind, a fitting way for Liverpool to celebrate its City of Culture status. (Photo credit “Haversack”)

There’s quite a variety of stuff tagged superlambanana on flickr, and Lady Bracknell’s editor chronicled them somewhat on her blog.

Yes, interesting, quirky: I’m sure you agree. However, you’re probably wondering what the relevance to something that happened in the middle of last year in a different city is as we’re approaching the end of this year. And it’s simple. I just received a copy of the book today, so that has very much reminded me of the whole thing and I’m having fun flicking through the pictures.

Also it gives me the opportunity to thank Lady Bracknell’s editor for sending me the copy that I won in a competition on her website. I am delighted to own such a work representing as it does the best of Britain today: things done simply because they are quirky and fun, despite it being plainly obvious that they do not have any purpose. So thanks very much Lady B.

But by my reckoning, Liverpool still owes me a free party…

And this is a shame, because one of the things he does do well — extremely well — is to write a compellingly and captivatingly on evolution. I know this from having read his other books (The Blind Watchmaker, The Extended Phenotype et al), and this is what made me pick up his latest — The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.

Before I start on the book, I’m going to expand on why it’s a shame. It’s a shame because his attitude towards religion will cause some religious people to see him as the enemy and not want to read it. Indeed, when I was reading this book on the bus, I had someone actually say to me “I used to really like him before he went off on one about religion; he’s a bit of a nutjob in that respect, isn’t he?”.

And it’s that perception which will probably make some religious people unwilling to pick up this book. And that really is a shame; if you have any doubts over the truth of evolution, you ought to pick up this book. What Dawkins does well in this book is to put the question of religion to one side (he makes it clear he’s an atheist, but readily admits that’s an argument for elsewhere) and sets out here to make a case for one thing, and one thing only — evolution.

And he does it extremely well…

There is a note in the first chapter where he speaks of Emmanuel College in Gateshead. This place is very close to me (some of my relatives went there), but what Dawkins — along with a group of bishops — wrote a letter about was to complain about the way evolution was taught there as a “theory”.

Yes, it is a theory. But Dawkins goes some way to identify the differences between accepted scientific theory, and the idea strung together by the man in the street which he brands as his “theory” about the Kennedy assassination. Sadly, he missed the chance to use my favourite argument: if you don’t accept scientific theory, why not treat all forms of “gravitational theory*” with the same disrespect. And, to show I’m scrupulously fair about this, if you can float about, unencumbered by gravity, I might even concede the point.

*for the physics nerds, yes, I know it’s part of general relativity.

Moving on from my rant about Dawkins probably having already alienated the people who should be reading this book, I’m going to move onto the evidence itself. He provides evidence not only for evolution (though that is the central aim), but also delves into plate tectonics, radioactive dating and radioactive decay, to provide the evidence that the world is not 10,000 years old. No, we’re talking billions.

He lists ways evolution could have been proved wrong (but wasn’t); predictions made which were found to be true, demolishes arguments about ‘missing links’ and so on. Every chapter provides a different angle of attack, different sets of evidence all laid out neatly, all supporting evolution.

As an hardline agnostic myself, I find something quite beautiful in the concept that a creator could define a mechanism as simple and as capable of producing such seemingly miraculous change as natural selection: I don’t see that there needed to be a creator, but if there was, natural selection for me would add to the beauty of creation rather than detract from it — and you can add stuff like plate tectonics to that list too.

Unfortunately, he can’t quite resist attacking people: instead of suggesting that people who have drawn a different conclusion are mistaken, or haven’t considered all the relevant evidence — maybe haven’t been taught the relevant information, he takes a much harsher stance:

…those who think that the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worse than ignorant, they are deluded to the point of perversityThe Greatest Show On Earth, p85

…yes, they are obviously wrong, but only a sub-set of the people who believe that will have had Dawkins’ level of education, training and understanding in science; only a sub-set will deliberately have turned their back on the evidence; others may simply not be aware of it, and Dawkins does them an injustice here.

Of course, if any of those people were reading, and have managed to avoid throwing the book down in disgust at being insulted, he then goes on to provide the evidence that the earth is simply not that new.

But, to give him credit (at least in comparison to some of his works), this sort of thing is kept to a minimum, and the tale of evolution is told, explained, and expanded on, including one of my own personal favourites — that of the Octopus eye and convergent evolution (want to know why the octopus eye has evolved without the major design flaw ours have? read the book…)

One of his passages on species is perhaps the most instructive for those who do not have a biological background. Non-scientists have raised questions before (apparently) about “I’ll believe in evolution when I see a monkey give birth to a human”. Obviously this is a load of rubbish but Dawkins explains with crystal clarity why evolution would specifically not expect this to occur:

…the common ancestor would have looked a lot more like a monkey than a man, and we would indeed have called it a monkey if we had met it, some 25 million years ago. But even though humans evolved from an ancestor that we could sensibly call a monkey, no animal gives birth to an instant new species, or at least not one as different from itself as a man is from a monkey, or even from a chimpanzee. That isn’t what evolution is about. Evolution not only is a gradual process as a matter of fact; it has to be gradual…The Greatest Show On Earth, p155

It’s only later when scientists start poring over fossils that they make the decision “this specimen looks more like group B, so we’ll classify it as group B” simply because each specimen must sit somewhere. While he’s on, he also takes the time to take potshots at some other common misconceptions about evolution (that it is a ‘ladder’ with animals gradually and inexorably becoming more complex over time and so on).

If you have any concerns over whether or not evolution is fact, please do take the time to read this book, even if for no other reason than to prove you are not closed-minded. Even if you already do accept evolution as fact, it’s still a marvellous story, full of colourful examples and there are bound to be some stories in there relating to the ingenuity of nature — and the fact that while evolution and natural selection are (in my opinion at least) proved, there’s also some arguments showing where, if there had been a designer, you’d have expected him to do a lot better, as much of it appears to be a bodge job at best.

Dawkins has managed to rein in his hectoring fairly successfully, and in so doing, has produced a wonderful work, which ought to sit on everyone’s shelf.

We’ve got two novelisations of real events: first up we’ve got John Boyne’s Mutiny on the Bounty, and then I’ll take you through Robert Ryan’s Death on the Ice.

Mutiny on the Bounty

I picked up Mutiny on the Bounty because I had heard enough people banging on about how John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was so utterly brilliant that I thought Boyne might well be worth reading but at the same time I was fighting against the fact that I had to feel I’m being pushed towards a particular book, so picking up a different John Boyne seemed like the ideal taster.

Mutiny on the Bounty (let’s call it MotB from now on) tells the story of the (fictional) pickpocket John Jacob Turnstile, how he is caught, and he is given the choice to avoid a jail term by serving as the captain’s valet on a sea voyage. The captain is of course Lieutenant William Bligh (not actually a captain; only nominally termed so as he was given command of the ship) and the ship is HMS Bounty.

You are therefore very much aware that at some point there is going to be a mutiny, with a certain chap called Fletcher Christian being involved — but that foreknowledge didn’t stop the film Titanic being a commercial success — and it didn’t stop me enjoying this book either.

What I found particularly interesting and well done about the book was the apparent authenticity. I say apparent, because to be honest with you, I wasn’t really starting with a great degree of knowledge about how ships were run in the British Navy in the 18th Century, but I can say that it certainly appears to be well researched and put together. I was reminded of a lot of facts about the journey that I had long-forgotten, although the fact and novel are woven together well and it’s difficult without checking to work out which is novelisation, and which is historical fact.

The crew are certainly earthy with earthy appetites (John Jacob Turnstile seems to spend a fair bit of his time “at tug”) and a leery anticipation of the female natives on Otaheite (the name they used for Tahiti), and are also a superstitious lot, with a particular ceremony which they perform when crossing the equator which involves Turnstile (or Turnip as he is inevitably nicknamed) a little more centrally than perhaps he would have liked.

You quickly come to like Turnstile and hope that he comes out of the story well. As he is the narrator, it’s kind of important that you identify with him and like him, and John Boyne does this extremely well. Most of the other characters you are a bit more ambivalent about — Fletcher Christian is something of a scented fop, and while William Bligh seems to be almost the opposite of a disciplinarian (in common with more modern tellings of his tale, as opposed to the cruel man frequently portrayed in film) he’s also portrayed as very human with his own faults.

Obviously, just after they leave Otaheite, Fletcher Christian and some others (not much over half of the ship, mind you, I’d assumed it was more) m- m- no, it’s no good, the word has gone. Something beginning with M. Anyway, they do the M-word and then dump Bligh and those who remained loyal to him in a little launch, in what must have been to most intents and purposes, murder. The likelihood of Bligh and around twenty others surviving a journey of several thousand miles with virtually no food and no instruments must be around nil.

However, navigation was certainly not one of Bligh’s faults, and the final part of the book tells the story of the voyage of the launch, over 4,000 miles and 47 days, during which only one life was lost — and that to natives of Tofua, rather than poor seamanship. It’s an extraordinary story, not so much of courage (it’s not like they had much choice after being dumped in the launch) but of excellent seamanship and navigation, and survival against the odds.

It’s also made me a lot more interested in the actual historical events, and, even if we can’t know for sure what kind of a man William Bligh was, or what prompted Christian and the others to mutiny, there is still a lot of information which can be determined, and I’d suggest the Pitcairn Islands Study Center might be an ideal place to start.

Death on the Ice

In contrast to survival against the odds, the next book tells more a tale of those who, even when the odds were heavily stacked against them by fate, turned out not to survive in the end. Again, this is a novelisation of a factual event, so even without the title Death on the Ice, I had something of an inkling that Robert Falcon Scott, Lawrence Oates, and at least a couple of others, would not be returning home.

The book starts considerably later — and earlier — than expected, with the meta-story being that in 1917, Norwegian Tryggve Gran (part of the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition — but not one of those who made that last fatal polar journey) is fighting for the British as a pilot in World War I (posing as Canadian ‘Teddy Grant’ to be allowed to fight) when he is approached by Scott’s widow who knows his identity and wants him to help her finish a book on the expedition.

We then flash back to 1900, where Scott is preparing for the Discovery expedition, and meanwhile Oates is serving in the army. The first section of the book takes us through the discovery expedition, increasing tensions between Scott and Shackleton, and Oates’ military career, leading up to a Boer bullet striking his thigh, shattering the bone, and eventually leading to his left leg ending up an inch shorter than the right.

Again, it’s tempting to read the novelisation as fact, particularly since many factual things — the Discovery expedition, Scott’s marriage, Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition, Scott and Amundsen’s ‘race’ to the pole are very soundly based in historical fact, and excerpts from Scott’s letters are used in places, but obviously the dialogue is pretty much mostly invented, and while the idea of stresses and strains within the group are supported by historical evidence (letters from Scott and Oates), it’s impossible to know to what extent the writers were simply ‘letting off steam’ — as there are certainly allusions to this — and to what extent it reflects the actuality of their emotions.

The last section of the book, where Scott, Wilson, Oates, Bowers and Edgar Evans strike out for the pole is well written but can’t help but to make for slightly gloomy reading: you know they won’t be first to the pole, and what is worse, you know they won’t make it home again. Obviously some of the reasons for the failure are guessed at, but again where possible they are based on at least one historical source, such as Scott’s diaries or letters.

In the book Oates’ sacrifice — the famous “I am just going outside and may be some time” — is prompted by the fact that his feet are gangrenous and dying beneath him. This sacrifice — to allow his companions to move on without him is no less noble for the fact that by then he knew he wouldn’t be able to make it back anyway., and he knows that he at least will not be able to make it back anyway, but his companions might have a chance to move on without him. However even here, where it seems most speculative, there is still a great deal of historical fact: Scott had recorded eleven days earlier that Oates’ feet were already in a wretched state, and also that he went outside without his boots, presumably because he couldn’t face the pain involved in putting them on again.

The remaining three died only eleven miles short of the food depot they needed to reach, and fully aware of that fact — it was simply that their reserves of energy were so low, and fuel and food nil, that they did not have the energy to fight on any further, and that any potential chance was slammed shut by a blizzard which prevented them leaving their camp after the 19th of March, and was still apparently whirling outside the tent on the 29th, when Scott made his final diary entry.

Since the 21st we have had a continuous gale from W.S.W. and S.W. We had fuel to make two cups of tea apiece and bare food for two days on the 20th. Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker of course, and the end cannot be far.

It seems a pity but I do not think I can write moreRobert Falcon Scott, 29th March 1912

Robert Ryan’s book is quite a remarkable story — even though in reality much of it is not his story, it’s the story of the Terra Nova expedition, but he’s still done a remarkable job of telling it, and even takes the time at the end to explain where he’s taken liberties with actual events, telling you about what the survivors ended up doing and demonstrating that Scott did seemingly put together quite a remarkable team.

The story is not a whitewash though: there is certainly evidence that different members of the expedition made mistakes at different times, including Scott, which contributed to their eventual demise. However I think it’s probably unfair to go around apportioning any blame as any one (or two) of the mistakes would probably not have been crucial in of themselves: it’s the cumulative effect, coupled with some bad luck (particularly with the weather and the lack of fuel at the depots) that proved fatal.

Again, as with John Boyne’s book, but in this case even more so, I feel that I really ought to read more of Scott’s polar expedition. I feel privileged to have read Scott’s story — and I am deeply grateful to Robert Ryan for that, as Scott had never particularly been someone I was that interested in, so without coming across a work of fiction, I’d probably have never picked it up.

Now, in addition to having a far better understanding of what actually happened out there, I have a list of other books relating to the expedition, thoughtfully provided by Ryan at the end of this as his sources, but also obviously as a useful reading list for those wanting to find out more about the Terra Nova expedition or the characters that peopled it.

It’s also quite a simple task to find a few sources on the web for those who are interested. Apart from the obvious (wikipedia), you might want to look at Cool Antarctica or South-Pole.com. And it’s worth looking up the quite remarkable story of Tryggve Gran also. You might also want to consider picking up Robert Ryan’s book…

There comes a time in any holiday when pick up the obligatory holiday book and rifle through a few pages while you sit by the pool. Well, you do that if you’re not me, anyway. I tend not to read by the pool for one simple reason: you won’t find me by the pool. I’ll either be in the pool, or I’ll be somewhere else. I get in, swim for an hour or so, wander back to the hotel room, shower, and then read a bit more.

In fact, I took a thumping 4,036 pages worth of books with me to read whilst on holiday (although I only made it through around 3,200 of them). The first book to be carried around me, which is now indelibly imprinted with the smell of insect repellent — after a bottle leaking incident which ruined my phone — was Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid, a book about the history of football tactics.

Correction: make that the book about the history of football tactics. I’m very aware that even in writing this review that I cannot adequately do justice to the book: it is simply better than I can express, and conveys much more information than I can hope to iillustrate with a couple of quotes. What I can say is that if you are interested in the development of football — why teams use the tactics they do, as well as how they evolved, then you simply must read this book.

Even if, like Ricky Tomlinson’s Mike Bassett, the only formation for you is four-four-bloody-two, this will still tell you how it got there.

It takes us back to the start of formalised football: when other than the goalkeeper you basically have much of the rest of the players running around after the ball trying to score — and introduces the very first pyramid system to us, the 2-3-5.

This may seem alien to people unfamiliar with older football tactics (wot? only two defenders?) but it demonstrates beautifully where a lot of the British football terminology comes from: after having seen the diagrams, I’m familiar with what an ‘inside-right’ actually was…

And it isn’t just a story about tactics: it also provides colour to historical managers and players you may (or may not) have heard about. From Herbert Chapman’s development of the W-M formation (and the fact that the third defender dropped back from the previous position in central midfield) it explains the seeming peculiarity of British defences being made up of full backs and centre halves, and this is coupled with an abbreviated version of the ‘Herbert Chapman story’ — that prior to joining Arsenal he was actually banned from football for life, only for the FA to relent after a couple of years.

Nor is the story just about the British game: tactics from Russia, from Hungary, from France, from South America are scrutinised as well as a chapter on Italy’s Catenaccio. And it is in the development of these tactics that some little gems of stories and characters start to emerge: Béla Guttman probably deserves a book of his own but his quirkiness — and some unexpected success — lead to some delightful stories:

…when the time came to negotiate a new deal, he insisted on a huge bonus should Enschede win the league. As the club was struggling to avoid relegation out of the Eastern Division, the directors readily agreed. Their form promptly revived and, after they had narrowly missed out on the national championship, their chairman admitted that towards the end of the season he had gone to games praying his side would lose. Guttman’s bonus would have bankrupted them.Inverting the Pyramid, p97

There’s a chance to look at why the traditional numbering systems in the standards 4-2-4 tactic differ between England, Argentina and Uruguay — basically the three countries evolved their use of the tactic through different routes and with different players switching their positions.

Even the ‘long-ball’ games gets discussed with different variations and explanations — Graham Taylor’s effective ‘pressing with long range passing’ at Watford through to the ‘purer’ long ball of Wimbledon. There’s quite an informative look at the statistics which were used by Charles Hughes (although devised much earlier) who when he was at the FA insisted that the long ball game was the way forward for English football and set out recommending it.

Not only are the deficiencies of the long ball game ruthlessly dissected (although this is only fair: the deficiencies of every other tactic covered are ruthlessly dissected also) but points out that the statistics used to favour the long ball actually, if you look at them closely, show that moves of six or more passes are in fact more likely to lead to a goal than moves of five or fewer — at which point the kindest thing is possibly just to say that the people who used these stats to promote the long ball didn’t really understand statistics so well.

Influences on the likes of Sven-Göran Eriksson and Roy Hodgson are discussed, and there’s even time to acknowledge that the goal-poacher centre forward is now something of an anachronism in today’s game and of increasingly less use to the team (as illustrated all too painfully to me by Newcastle’s decline being mirrored by an increasingly ineffectual Michael Owen).

…Owen was highly critical of the then-England coach Kevin Keegan’s efforts to expand his repertoire in the build up to Euro 2000 but the reality may be that putting the ball in the back of the net is no longer sufficient — or, at least, not at the very highest level. [...] He appears a player left behind by the tactical evolution of the gameInverting the Pyramid, p349

Intriguingly on the following page there is an analysis of Manchester United — now Owen’s current team. It will be interesting to see therefore whether he is a success at Old Trafford — how he fits into Ferguson’s tactics, whether he can adapt his game long term (he certainly attempted this under Keegan at Newcastle, with a slightly deeper-lying role) and in short whether he makes a successful Manchester United stay as a goal poacher only.

Only time will tell, and only time will tell where the next evolutionary step in the development of football tactics will be, but it would appear that after taking us through 2-3-5, W-M, 4-2-4, 4-3-3, 3-5-2, many more — including of course 4-4-2 — that Jonathan Wilson suspects that the first steps are already being taken towards a 4-6-0 type of formation…

I’m then supposed to tag a further fifteen people with each list, but I can’t be bothered to do that. Instead, I’ll offer it up as a meme for anyone to take part in and will suggest that maybe Stephen Lang, John H and Chartroose might want to give either or both parts of it a go, but anyone else is welcome to as well.

It’s important to note that you do not have to define why a particular book or film has stuck with you. For reference, any book marked with an * is non-fiction, and they are in no particular order…

Books

1. Lord Of The Rings — J. R. R. Tolkien
2. The Mismeasure of Man* — Stephen Jay Gould
3. Fire And Hemlock — Dianna Wynne Jones
4. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
5. The Moonstone — Wilkie Collins
6. Freakonomics* — Levitt & Dubner
7. The Black Widower Mysteries — Isaac Asimov
8. The Legacy of Heorot — Niven, Pournelle and Barnes
9. The Belgariad — David Eddings
10. The Blind Watchmaker* — Richard Dawkins
11. The Demon Haunted World* — Carl Sagan
12. Bad Science* — Ben Goldacre
13. The Riddle And The Knight* — Giles Milton
14. Left Foot Forward* — Garry Nelson
15. Notes From A Small Island* — Bill Bryson

Films

1. The Ghoul (1975 Hammer Horror version)
2. Lord Of The Rings (Peter Jackson)
3. Moulin Rouge
4. The Mummy Returns (film for first ‘date’ with my wife)
5. Goldeneye
6. Dark Star (John Carpenter)
7. Way Out West (Laurel & Hardy) — notable for the ‘Lonesome Pine’ song.
8. Ring (the Japanese version)
9. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
10. Alien
11. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
12. Star Wars
13. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
14. Trainspotting
15. Heat (1995)

I’m quite a fan of the writer Ian Rankin and the Inspector Rebus stories, so when I saw that his new book Doors Open had hit the paperback shelves, I had to pick it up, as much as anything else because I wanted to see what he would do in what I presume is intended as a standalone book, since Rebus has now retired.

Inspector Rebus was always a sour, grumpy old sod who seemed to have a deep love of Edinburgh (even if he didn’t always like it — it was his city. I don’t know how much this character was a reflection of Ian Rankin himself, as while the one time I met him at a book signing he wasn’t in a particularly cheery mood. Although I can imagine being shunted round various WH Smiths stores on a book signing trip isn’t the most fun thing you could do, so I’ll maybe give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

It was also interesting seeing how Ian would do with a new set of characters, particularly as my mate had asked Lee Child whether he would consider writing any non-Reacher books recently. Lee Child didn’t seem to fancy doing it, but Ian had obviously felt it was time to move on from Rebus, and while there is a certain comfort in sticking with an old familiar character, I can imagine that for some writers it may seem almost stifling.

And I have to say it was a success. The characters sucked you in very quickly into a tale of an art heist planned and executed by some previously very respectable citizens … with a little help from one of Edinburgh’s crime bosses. The scheme itself is remarkably entertaining, and it’s a jolly entertaining thriller. While not without its descent into violence from time to time, the overall tone of the book is more upbeat than the Rebus collection (probably since for the most part the characters are more upbeat and less cynical than the inspector) and while it was one I bought with the intention to read on holiday, it didn’t make it quite as far as my suitcase. I started reading it the day I bought it, put it down once, and picked it up and finished reading it the following day.

And as I say, I think it’s a cracking read. There’s also a point in the book where the characters make something of a discovery, and while I don’t want to give away much, I have to say this was particularly well plotted — in retrospect, you can see the clues, although neither me nor the main character picked up on them in time…

Whether Ian will return to any of these characters at a later date, I don’t know. On one hand, I would quite like to see some of them again, but on the other I think the book works particularly well as a standalone (and shows how well Rankin’s writing craft has developed since the Jack Harvey stuff) and it would almost be a shame for him to get caught up in another series.

But either way, I’m looking forward to the next Rankin book already. Although if he does attend any book signings in the north-east, I hope he’s a little more chipper next time…

Errornomics by Joseph T Hallinan is another non-fiction book, which obviously means it comes with a bonus free subtitle: “Why We Make Mistakes and What We Can Do to Avoid Them”.

Talking of mistakes, Amazon said that the book was released in paperback on the 6th of August, but as I’d bought it, read it, and started to write this review before that time, I’m not entirely convinced on that. I bought this book expecting it to be a toolkit: to point out different ways in which we think about things, the advantages and disadvantages of each, and how we can learn from this. I like these sorts of books, and I expected to like this one as well.

And there is quite a lot to like in here. There is a mix of quirky, interesting but mostly useless information:

…most of us, whether left- or right-handed, show an inordinate preference for the number 7 and the color blueErrornomics, p4

…and there’s also stuff which I can relate directly to my field of t’interweb, as the book talks about the usability of systems (although without using that specific name), pointing out that when a system is used incorrectly, human error is normally blamed, even though it should maybe be considered that the system has not been designed in the most appropriate manner and therefore the system should maybe considered to be at fault. In other words, the user fail is not a user fail at all, but a usability fail.

How many things does your car require you to remember? Onboard navigation system? Cruise control? Anticollision warning device? Blind spot warning device? Rearview camera? Entertainment system for the kids? Cell phone? Cars now come with so many of these devices that the systems themselves are contributing to accidents because they increase driver distraction. Yet who gets blamed for the accident — you or the car?Errornomics p4

The point being made her is obvious. The bells and whistles described make the actual main purpose of the vehicle (getting from A to B without an accident) more difficult to achieve. Although to be honest, in my case as I don’t have any of the above in my car, this means that while my car might well be more usable, it’s also more likely that any accident is my fault…

There are a lot of interesting insights into the way human nature works — for example how gamblers will think of their losses as “near wins” (if he’d scored that goal, which he would normally have done, I would have won) whereas they don’t rationalise away their wins as fortunate in the same way — and it also tells us how we are influenced by advertising is much more than we would acknowledge or even believe.

A few years ago, for instance, researchers in Britain wanted to determine whether music affected the choice of wine bought in grocery stores [...] Then they played French and German music on alternate days [...] When French music was played, forty bottles of French wine were sold. But when the German music was played, sales of the French wines plunged to just twelve bottles. The same trend held true for German wines: when German music was played, 22 bottles of German wine were sold. But when French music was played, sales fell to just eight bottles of German wine.[...]

Of forty-four shoppers interviewed, only 6 (about 14 percent) said their choice of wine had been influenced by the music

Errornomics p92

The book also provides some tools to help us avoid making mistakes — keep track of negative outcomes as well as positive ones, so you don’t just rationalise based on what worked, and it’s quite a remarkable look into what works.

However, I do have one gripe with it. It’s an American book. Nothing inherently wrong in that, it’s just that the examples and analogies are almost unfailingly American analogies — football being a reference to that stuff with ‘touchdowns’ and so on. After a while, this gets a little aggravating. It wouldn’t have taken a great deal of effort to go through the book and change some of the language and examples (not all of them, but even just the least “global” ones) to make them more accessible to a European audience. For that audience, the book could have been improved considerably with only some really minor editing, and it’s a shame that no-one considered it…

A year later, frustrated with the police enquiry, Ed vows to find Sophie’s killer. His quest leads to a mysterious website and its owner, Ward, a charming, brilliant psychopathHome Before Dark blurb

So, that’s Home Before Dark by Charles Maclean. It’s a thriller.

Basically, the gist is that Ed’s daughter was murdered a year before in Florence, and there didn’t seem to be any leads. Ed heads across to Florence after receiving a phone call from on of the friends of his daughter who might have a clue. Only by the time he gets there, she is reluctant to talk to him and seems somewhat scared.

Ward is quite an interesting character: very poetic in his use of words — he uses the phrase “words with an iron shape” which I thought particularly memorable and indeed does turn out to be notable in the story for a very specific reason. Ward’s backstory was perhaps the weakest element in the novel — I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it was cliched (Ward was certainly at least fairly original) but it felt familiar, but the rest of the characters were very human.

Ed has his personal distractions which are taking him further away from his wife, another one of the characters has a gambling problem (this I felt was again a little weak — why does everyone you ever encounter in a book with a gambling problem always, at the specific time you encounter them, owe a large sum of money to someone dangerous? How come you never encounter them when their luck’s in? It also seemed like a conveniently easy way of providing motivation for the character).

Those gripes aside though, I did enjoy reading the book. What Maclean does particularly well is to build tension. There’s a passage where a character called Sam is lost in Venice, feeling that she is being followed — or possibly stalked — by the psychopath. What works well here is the increased mounting tensions as we develop our suspicions as to what is going on, and who it is that she is communicating with, and what exactly is in store for her…

There are also some twists in the plot. I was at one stage being lead down a path where I had my suspicions about something and while it’s always nice to be right, in this case I was pleased I was wrong, because the writer had led me into a trap of believing he was writing a twist which I’d encountered before, only to neatly sidestep and reveal it more-or-less as a bluff.

The psychopath uses the internet and his website very well, and in that way it reminded me of Jeffery Deaver’s The Blue Nowhere which I would have to acknowledge is superior to this, but while it touches upon many of the same ideas it is very much a different story and a different treatment of these themes.

While the website is a key element of the plot, it’s not done in a way that makes the book ‘nerdy’, nor of something that would be of particular interest to the geeky community. On the other hand, the social engineering and development of a persona for this purpose is given more time and is certainly quite interesting. It’s also the first book that I’ve read that deals with the theme of a man straying from his wife in thought if not deed with someone he has only met online. Of course, whether that person is exactly who she is claiming to be is maybe another matter…

Stuart Maconie’s Cider with Roadies

This one is actually on my ‘currently reading’ pile and I’m quite a way through it, it being an automusicography of Stuart’s life (as in, like an autobiography but mostly just focussing on the bits which related to music).

Charles Maclean’s Home Before Dark

It’s a serial killer thriller; that much I picked up from the blurb on the back. That is as far as it goes for now, though: don’t know much else about it.

Jared Diamond’s Collapse

This one is non-fiction, with the sub title ‘how societies choose to fail or survive’, and flicking through the contents, will look at societies such as the Maya, Norse Greenland and so on. Also it includes the poem Ozymandias which is obviously hugely appropriate to the subject matter, as well as being a cracking poem.

Chris Cleave’s The Other Hand

This one has been recommended to me, and while I know what it’s vaguely about, the blurb says:

We don’t want to tell you what happens in this book. It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil itblurb for ‘The Other Hand’

…which, despite thinking it sounds somewhat self-important, I’ll follow their request and not talk about the subject matter.

Richard Fortey’s Dry Store Room No. 1

Sub-titled ‘The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum’, telling, as I understand it, the history of the Natural History Museum, the figures who have been involved and apparently the ‘scandals and skullduggery that unfolded’.

John Boyne’s Mutiny on the Bounty

Although obviously based on a real event, this book is a work of fiction by the author of ‘The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas’ (which I’ve not read either). However, this book does have an unusual disclaimer:

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidentalDisclaimer for ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’

I’m really not sure how that is supposed to work — “it’s fiction, except where it isn’t” (or maybe “it’s fiction Jim, but not as we know it…”) — unless he’s gone to the trouble of ruining the narrative by adding “this bit is fiction” and “this bit is historical fact” at various points in the text…

Nicholas Rankin’s Churchill’s Wizards

Subtitled ‘The British Genius for Deception, 1914-1945′ (must every work of non-fiction have a subtitle?) this looks at the trickery, false intelligence and misdirection used by the British to try and help them in World Wars I and II. It’s also a rather weighty looking tome also containing source notes and an index.

Marc Morris’ A Great and Terrible King

Another work of non-fiction, so inevitably another subtitle: in this case ‘Edward I and the Forging of Britain’, this is very obviously the story of Edward I responsible for both forging Britain into one unit and managing to hack out huge divisions at the same time.

Henry Allingham’s Kitchener’s Last Volunteer

This is an autobiography of Henry Allingham (I presume ‘in conversation with’ the other listed contributor, Dennis Goodwin) and therefore obviously is a work of non-fiction. So… yes, you’ve guessed it: ‘The Life of Henry Allingham, the Oldest Surviving Veteran of the Great War’. Sadly, this subtitle is no longer accurate, as he died on the 18th of July 2009 (followed a week later by Harry Patch, the last to-then survivor of the trenches).

Shalom Auslander’s Foreskin’s Lament

How can you not like a book with a title like this? It’s listed as ‘a memoir’, which means that it could be fact or it could be Frey. However, the fact that ‘a memoir’ is listed as a subtitle seems to push it into the non-fiction category, even if you have to acknowledge that:

Throughout this book, the names of some places as well as individuals and their personal details have been changedForeskin’s Lament Disclaimer

…it’s the story of a Jew who seems somewhat conflicted about religion. I’m currently reading this one too, and currently feel it is probably worthy of a review post in its own right at some point.

Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

…is another detective thriller sort of a book. This has been recommended to me by some time by Lynn, but I only finally got round to picking it up a few days ago. And until today, I’d not actually realised it was part of a trilogy, and nor had I realised that the author had died shortly after handing over the manuscripts for the three novels over to the publisher.

Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played with Fire

…is the second book in Stieg Larsson’s ‘Millenium’ trilogy, but I’d not looked closely enough at it until after I’d bought Dragon Tattoo to realise that they were both part of the same series. I am tempted to put both of these on hold until the third and final part of the trilogy is also available in paperback (given the number of books I read, I simply don’t buy hardbacks), but on the other hand as the hardback for the third one isn’t out until November, we’re probably talking July 2010 for the paperback. So I’m not sure.

If of course anyone from Stieg’s publishing house is passing and is willing to send me an advance copy of the hardback in exchange for a review, I’m sure that would tip the balance, however

Jack Kelly’s Gunpowder

The History of the Explosive That Changed the World! Which is probably a fair point although of course I’m now beginning to wonder whether ’tis mandatory that all non-fiction books have a subtitle. Maybe to many people the history of a substance isn’t particularly interesting, but I encountered The Shocking History of Phosphorus several years ago and enjoyed that, so I’d thought I’d give it a go.

Giles Milton’s Paradise Lost

Note that this is Giles Milton, who writes about historic events, as opposed to John Milton who wrote the epic 17th Century Poem “Paradise Lost”. You can see where confusion might arise. Fortunately, being non-fiction, Giles’ book has a subtitle: “Smyrna 1922 — The Destruction of Islam’s City of Tolerance” which pretty much sums up what the book is about: Greek military forces advanced into Turkey between 1919 and 1922, and as the Greeks were finally forced out of Smyrna, there was a great fire which destroyed much of the city. I’m guessing Giles — as well as setting the background as normal — fills in his thoughts on the what, where, when, who, how and why…

And then finally we reach the end of the TBR pile…

Jeffrey Deaver’s The Broken Window

This is another one of Jeffrey’s stories about the quadriplegic crime scene expert Lincoln Rhyme (probably most famously known from his first appearance in The Bone Collector). As I’d enjoyed the other ones in this series (and other stuff by Jeffrey — I’d particularly recommend The Blue Nowhere), it was only natural that when I saw this one it would jump into my hand.

So, which ones should I jump to the top of my list? Cider with Roadies will probably be finished today, and then, unless there’s a very good reason not to, I’ll pick up Foreskin’s Lament again. But where should I go after that?

So I went to an ‘author event’ at Newcastle City Library the other day. It was the first time I had been to the library since it had been considerably redeveloped, and I must say — particularly in contrast to the Hancock — how impressed I was with the whole thing.

Admittedly, the key element to any library has to be the books, and I didn’t actually look at them, but in terms of the the bits I did see — the building, the very nice cafe, and the lecture area — there was a lot to be impressed with.

The author event featured Lee Child, the man behind the Jack Reacher novels, and David Levien, with his hero Frank Behr. I had not previously encountered David Levien, but after hearing some of his stories — and listening to people talking enthusiastically about his two books (he’s more known as a screenwriter) he’s on my list of people that I want to check out as soon as I’ve worked through my TBR pile.

The event had quite a simple structure: Lee and David would start talking about something, and then they would invite questions from the audience. This tended to prompt the conversation to wander about the place somewhat, but it did also give the feel of a conversation: this was a two-way thing, rather than the authors simply lecturing on their books.

Given David’s background in screenwriting, he talked a little about his early film Rounders and it was interesting to hear this contrasted to Lee Child’s experiences with film: the Jack Reacher novels have been optioned more than once but until recently little progress seemed to be occurring with them, although Lee did indicate that a screenplay was being written (and no, he wasn’t doing it, but he was happy with the person who was).

This lead to some speculation about who would be cast to play Reacher, and the problems with finding an actor sufficiently tall to play him convincingly (the character is 6 foot 5), but you obviously need someone who can act, as opposed to someone who is simply huge, so certain size compromises might need to be made. He also related an anecdote where he’d been talking to the Australian media a few years earlier and was asked whether Hugh Jackman could play Reacher, and upon saying that yes, he thought that he could, this came out as “Hugh Jackman the perfect choice for Jack Reacher, says author”, which obviously Lee’s film agent wasn’t too happy about as it sounded like he was trying to muscle in on prospective casting…

Garry (the chap with whom I attended the event) asked Lee whether he had any plans to write a stand-alone book, not featuring Jack Reacher, but Lee pointed out that as he was only really willing to put the time in to write one book per year, this would see a two year gap between Reacher novels, and he didn’t really feel that this was what the fans wanted: he felt that Reacher was what they were after. I couldn’t help but feel that he was doing himself a slight disservice here: I think a lot of people enjoy reading Lee Child’s stuff, and they would also enjoy other books written by him in a similar style, regardless of the cast of characters.

This led to a little discussion on whether people set out to write a series of books featuring one character, or whether they just started and waited to see where that lead them. David talked about initially having a two book deal, and then signing up to a second two book deal, so he was pretty convinced that there would end up being at least four featuring his Behr, whereas Lee Child has now Reached his teens.

There was then a discussion about which authors the two authors liked reading — one member of the audience recommended Val McDermid, which I can second, although I’d also add Stephen Booth for what I can only say is something of a cross between detective fiction and a love poem to the Peak District.

What was also interesting was that Lee Child in particular, unlike many authors I have seen before, was also prepared to say (or at very least imply) who he didn’t like. But I’m not going to relate them here…

Someone then asked how the authors felt about the practice where some authors work ‘with’ someone else, where there is an implication (or at very least a suspicion) that the person named as the ‘with’ is the one who has done most of the work. I personally will admit to a certain scepticism here: I generally avoid this sort of thing — for example, the novel Sail, which at first glance looks to be written by James Patterson, has “& Howard Roughan” on the cover in a font which almost completely blends into the background.

The consensus seemed to be that the authors didn’t like the idea of handing over control to anyone else: that he wanted to write the whole thing himself, although Lee did point out that there was no way there in that room could prove at that moment that he personally was the author of the Jack Reacher series (he might have been simply a tall, smart-looking guy they used to help sell the books, or something…)

There were a few more bits than that, but that’s pretty much the gist of what I remember, and then as me and Garry were sat near the back, we disappeared out and were near the front of the queue for the book signings. Garry is very much a book collector; he likes his hardbacks, and he likes to have them signed if he can, so he’d brought books for both Lee Child and David Levien to sign, whereas I am more a collector of the stories (less interested in the physical book object than the text it contains) and so I tend to get paperbacks and hadn’t brought any along to sign, so I just stood next to Garry while he was having his stuff signed.

I had spoken to David and Lee at the start of the event to ask if it was okay to take a couple of photos, as I was planning to blog about the event, and David asked about the blog while Garry was talking to Lee, so I ended up giving him a business card with my site on it. Which felt rather odd: after all, surely he was the writer, not me… but at least I wasn’t cheeky enough to ask him if he’d like me to sign it!

For those of you interested in this sort of thing, Lee Child appears to be on twitter as @LeeChildReacher, although of course whether or not it’s actually him may be open to debate. Or if you’re interested in finding out about similar events in Newcastle, it might be worth following @ToonLibraries.