Reviews and Comments

This 1934 book is a history of typhus presented as popular science (and apparently as a biography, although it doesn't really follow any such form).

The first four chapters are pretty much unreadable. One Stanford University scientist in the 1930s grinds an axe about many different scientists and writers for about 80 pages of text. Once he finishes with this rant, it gets more interesting as he begins a historical exploration of the spread of disease, and in particular how disease and war travelled together.

The writing stays on point mostly, except for a few more veiled jabs at other writers and some questionable classist comments that are troubling even for that time (a 'humerous' anecdote about having the police arrest a homeless non-white man so that he could gather lice from him sticks out in my mind). The fascinating two chapters on lice are by far the best of the book, however, where Zinsser shows a real affection for the louse.

Another fascination of this book is how it is a historical document of a specific time and sentiment, between two world wars, recording the history of typhus resonates today, when vaccination has made it a much more sedate disease. Zinsser has great moments when writing about disease, and disease history.

I'm not sure what to write about this book. It is a print edition of a 17th Century encyclopaedia of birds published by a writer and artist working in Italy at that time. The text is full of wild assumptions and ideas about the birds from that time, and the images, although wonderfully made, are often very strange – some are made from taxidermied critters and some from life.

The book becomes a documentation of a time when a type of observational science was becoming very popular in western Europe. For that, it is a fascinating document, even if it is strange to have it presented this way in modern print and type. While reading, I felt like I needed more information on the book and its content, and on what it may have led to or been useful for. But it's also hard to know what this book is useful for, maybe as a reference point for a historical science that we have left behind. Or maybe just as a coffee table book with interesting moments that pique mild curiosity.

Arendt is a philosopher who always turns my thoughts upside-down, even when I have read so much of their work. On Revolution focuses on two major events of the past 250 years: The French Revolution (1789) and the American Revolution (1783). By using texts and letters from the time of these events, Arendt shows how much the thinking of the 'revolutionaries' in these events was guided by a very different ontology and way of looking at western politics.

The most striking revelation for me early in the book seems so glaringly obvious now: The word 'revolution'. The word does not imply a new system, it implies that we are revolving back to the same system, with new people in power. Today, we think of things that are 'revolutionary' as somehow counter-cultural or against the norm, but Arendt illustrates very well how this language was co-opted and altered over the last 250 years to mean something very different than it originally meant. As always with Arendt, this is then opened up into a deep consideration of language, culture and power. I felt the argumentation drags on a little in the middle of the book, but that's mostly because I don't hold a great interest in the finer details of the French Revolution and its protagonists. Yet as always, there are gleaming moments in the brilliant philosophy of one of the 20th Century's most brilliant philosophers.

Rebecca Solnit is one of those brilliant writers who I love reading regardless of the content. Her respect for the craft of writing, along with her brilliant and multifaceted research methods, make her work a joy to read. Another author who I have always loved for this skill is George Orwell, particularly in his essays and nonfiction writing. So reading a book by Solnit about Orwell's nonfiction writing was just a treat.

Solnit doesn't waste too much time with biography, instead leaping into Orwell's contradictory ways of living, his politics and his home life, through the lens of his essay writing. She constructs a person through his work, and the work others have made about him. And she begins with his work not as a writer, but as a gardener who planted roses outside a rented cottage in Hertfordshire, England in the 1930s.

The rose is used by Solnit for its metaphors, its culture, and its relationship to Orwell. She weaves in stories about Orwell's personal and political life with modern issues. The best example is when she threads together Orwell's protest writing about miners (eg. The Road to Wigan Pier) with a narrative about the modern rose trade and the mistreatment of Columbian workers. She is perfectly on point throughout the book, and it is a fluid and enjoyable read, a true homage to a writer who, like Solnit, has pushed back time and again against hegemonic structures and systems.

Sofia Samatar's unusual memoir The White Mosque is a hard book to categorise. On the surface, it could be described as a travel book of an author taking a journey through historical sites. But it is far more complex and unusual. The author is Mennonite-Muslim with German-Somali heritage, raised in the USA; her skin, education and accent identify her as 'other' in between so many liminal identities that other people place on her. The place is a pilgrimage route in Uzbekistan that was taken in the mid-1800s by Mennonites fleeing conscription in Prussia and Russia. Samatar's colleagues on the journey are the other Mennonite tourist-pilgrims and she is also accompanied by her large catalogue of biographies of those mid-19th Century travellers.

The result is wildly interesting and completely unique. Samatar's brilliant writing helps her cause in telling this story, because it is all so foreign to me that I worried at the beginning I would not be able to persevere with the book, despite the interesting moments. The anecdotes and histories are beautiful but all tinged with sadness and often invaded by violence, and this makes it a hard read at times. It is also an incredible journey and gives space as a reader with little knowledge of either Uzbekistan or Mennonite culture to open up to two things in this complex multicultured world we are lucky to be part of. And for me, this is the gift of this unforgettable book.

Butter seems to be the hit novel of 2024 in English, although it was published over a decade ago in Japan. Asako Yuzuki's story centres on Rika and her relationships with the world around her, particularly with her friend Reiko and with a convicted serial killer Manako Kajii who she wants an exclusive interview with. It also knits in food and feminism, with a focus on fatty golden butter and the immediate joy is brings to a life.

The book is episodic, and each chapter feels like another story arc from beginning to end. Some are brilliant, engaging and fully alive; some are less so, but every one has something to tell. The treatment of women in society is a central focus, and finding oneself within that is paramount to Rika's (and Reiko's) story. The ending tidies itself up into much too neat of a bow, and some of the motivations for behaviours leave a little to be desired, but overall this is a strong story with deep and well written characters, and is worth the time.

Kathryn Rundell's wonderful book considers the worlds and perspectives of animals, and does so with a gentle and playful hand. Each chapter takes one creature that exists in our world, and considers how that creature is looked at scientifically, historically and metaphorically. Each is brilliantly and deeply researched, and then edited carefully to be both informative and interesting.

But The Golden Mole is far from a scientific bestiary; instead, it considers story and art on an equal footing with science and history, and for this it is a marvel. It is written beautifully, the words carefully chosen with none wasted. Each chapter concludes with a lament for what would be lost should the extraordinary creature it describes be lost from the world. Then the final chapter uses an old parable to consider all that can be lost, and all that can be saved. With this brilliant stroke of the keyboard, the book becomes not only documentation but a call to action, carefully and perfectly done.