Categories
1960s 1970s Non Fiction Recommended books

The Mountain People – Colin Turnbull

  

…..our much-vaunted human values are not inherent in humanity at all, but a luxury of ordered society.

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Five words from the blurb: tribe, starvation, cruelty, individual, society 

In 1964 anthropologist Colin Turnbull spent two years living with the Ik, a tribe living in the mountainous borders of Uganda and Kenya. Crops had failed for two years in a row and people were dying from starvation. This book details the shocking events he witnessed as the people struggled to survive.

Turnbull saw that the basic structure of society seemed to have been lost as everyone cared only about themselves.

Children are useless appendages, like old parents. Anyone who cannot take care of himself is a burden and a hazard to the survival of others.

The old and young were left to die – food sometimes even being stolen from their mouths. The people failed to display any of the characteristics we think of as being common to all humans, failing to show the slightest degree of compassion for those who were suffering.

…she was totally blind and had tripped and rolled to the bottom of the oror a pirre’i, and there she lay on her back, her legs and arms thrashing feebly, while a little crowd standing on the edge above looked down at her and laughed at the spectacle.

The tribe were also unusual in that the structure of the family unit had completely broken down. Children were thrown out of the home at the age of three, elderly relatives were ignored, and even the husband-wife relationship was minimal.

This entire book had me gripped and questioning how strong our own society is. In many ways this book was similar to Blindness, but the scary thing is that Mountain People is true. Human beings actually did these things to one another and there is little to stop it from happening again somewhere else.

This book isn’t perfect – there are some points when the writing is a bit dry or when too many geographical or anthropological details are added to a section, but these are very minor issues.

This book is a fascinating insight into what could happen to a society when there simply isn’t enough food for all to survive. It is my favourite read of the year so far.

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So how did I discover this fantastic book?
After my disapproval of Anne Robinson as a host on the recent My Life in Books TV series (because she doesn’t like fiction) I am almost embarrassed to admit that I first heard about this book in an article she wrote for the Radio Times. All I can say is that Anne Robinson has a fantastic taste in non-fiction books and I will be keeping an eye out for more of her recommendations in future.

Categories
2008 Non Fiction Other Prizes

Leviathan – Philip Hoare

  Winner of the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction

Five words from the blurb: whales, humans, Melville, history, gigantic

I didn’t mean to read Leviathan this month, but I picked up a copy and couldn’t put it down. Leviathan contains everything that you’d ever want to know about whales; including their natural history, their interactions with humans and their role in literature.  

The book was packed with the type of facts that I love –  almost every other page contained something that I wanted to share with whoever happened to be closest to me. My family began mocking my new obsession with whales, but how can you not want to share a fact like this?!

A sperm whale can create a two-hundred-decibel boom able to travel one hundred miles along the ‘sofar’ channel, a layer of deep water that readily conducts noise. It seems strange that such a physically enormous creature should rely on something so intangible; but bull sperm whales, by virtue of their larger heads, generate sounds so powerful that they may stun or even kill their prey. These directional acoustic bursts, focused through their foreheads and likened to gunshots, are the equivalent, as one writer notes, of the whale killing its quarry by shouting very loudly at it.

I also discovered:

  • A sperm whale can eat 700 squid in one day.
  • Sperm whales were not filmed underwater until 1984.
  • A killer whale used to live in Windsor Safari Park.
  • A man is said to have been recovered alive from the stomach of a sperm whale several hours after being eaten by it.

I now have the ability to talk about whales for several hours!

One slight problem I had with the book was that I hadn’t read Moby-Dick. I’m sure that some of the sections would have been more meaningful had this been the case, but it has at least persuaded me to read it soon.

The only other tiny issue I had was that most of the photographs were very small and grainy. I can understand why this would be the case for the older examples, but even some of the more modern ones were unclear.  This book would have been improved greatly with the addition of a few larger, clearer photographs.

On a more positive note, I thought the writing was fantastic. It effortlessly guided the reader from one topic to the next; managing to move from lighter humor to the darker aspects of whaling without any drop in pace.

I loved this book and will be forcing it into the hands of several people over the coming months. I highly recommend that you get hold of a copy.

Categories
2010 Audio Book Non Fiction

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot (Audio Book)

I don’t read much non-fiction, but so many people raved about this book that it became impossible to ignore it. Sandy persuaded me to get the audio book version* and I’m so pleased that she did because I think it added an extra dimension to the text – the narration was fantastic and the different accents brought the story to life.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor, black woman who died from cervical cancer in 1951. Shortly before her death a sample of cells was taken from her cervix and then used, without her permission, for scientific research. At the time cell culture was in its infancy and scientists found it very hard to keep cells alive in culture, but for some reason Henrietta’s cells were different – they divided quickly and easily. These cells revolutionised cell research. They became known as the HeLa line and were used by scientists around the world to find cures for a host of different diseases. This book explained how the Lacks family discovered that the cells existed and their search for the truth about how billions of dollars of wealth were created from them without the family receiving a penny.

The book gives a fascinating insight into the life of a family struggling to cope with the loss of their mother, whilst at the same time having to cope with the fact that a part of her lives on in test tubes around the world. I found the initial explanations of events to be gripping, but by disc 6 (out of 10) I was beginning to get a little bored. I felt I knew exactly what was going to happen next and found that things were beginning to be over-explained. The downfall of many non-fiction books is that they include too much unnecessary detail for me and although I appreciate that completeness is sometimes needed I felt that much of the last half of the book could have been left out. I wasn’t interested in the word-for-word transcripts of every phone call that took place between Rebecca Skloot and the family and I also found the detail of what happened to each member of the Lacks family to be unnecessary. I wish that the book had concentrated more on Henrietta and her cells and less on the process of researching a book.

The main benefit of the book is that it raises many important questions about who owns the various parts of our bodies. It is a fantastic discussion starter and I’m sure that almost everyone will find something to enjoy in this book.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is an important book and I’m really pleased that Henrietta Lacks is finally receiving the recognition that she deserves, but this book desperately needs an update. I found the ending to be quite abrupt and I would much prefer it to end on a high note, detailing all the wonderful things that are happening to the Lacks family now that this book has been successful.

*Note: The audio version is not available in the UK. I imported a copy from the US.

Categories
2000 - 2007 Memoirs Non Fiction

Born on a Blue Day – Daniel Tammet

Born on a Blue Day is the memoir of Daniel Tammet, a man who is probably unique in the world. Daniel not only has Savant Syndrome, a rare form of Asperger’s that produces amazing mental powers, but also synaesthesia, the ability to see numbers and words as specific colours and textures. This combination of conditions means that he is able to learn new languages in just a few weeks and they helped him to break a Guinness World Record by remembering Pi to 22,515 digits.

I found the whole book fascinating. Daniel explains exactly what he see and feels, giving the reader a good understanding of both Asperger’s and synaesthesia.

Thinking of calendars always makes me feel good, all those numbers and patterns in one place. Different days of the week elicit different colours and emotions in my head: Tuesdays are a warm colour while Thursdays are fuzzy.

It was particularly comforting for me to read about his early life, as my son (who has Asperger’s) exhibited many of the things he described (e.g. a constant need for rocking as in infant) which I haven’t seen in other books before.

After describing a difficult childhood, in which he felt isolated from his peers, Daniel describes how he found independence by taking a teaching job in Lithuania. He goes onto explain how he came to terms with his medical conditions and now helps scientists to try to understand differences in brain function.

I found the final section, in which he explains how he came to realise that he was gay and finally find love, particularly touching.

He isn’t the best writer in the world and his Asperger’s syndrome tends to mean he goes into unnecessary detail in some areas, but for the insight into this unique mind it is well worth putting up with less than perfect prose.

Recommended to everyone, but I think this is a ‘must read’ for anyone with an interest in Asperger’s or synaesthesia.

Categories
2010 Non Fiction

Fordlandia – Greg Grandin

In 1927, Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, bought a 5,000-square-mile area of the Amazon rain forest. He wanted to combat rising rubber costs by creating his own supply and to bring his idealised version of America to a remote area of Brazil. Ford created a small town in the middle of the rain forest. Neat rows of houses were built, along with everything an American family would need to entertain them. Unfortunately golf courses and cinemas were not enough to distract from the dangerous wildlife and diseases that plagued Fordlandia. The battle between Man and nature was constant and it wasn’t long before Ford’s dream of creating a civilized society in the jungle was shattered.

I knew nothing about Ford’s jungle city and was intrigued by a community constructed from scratch. Unfortunately the book was more like a biography of Henry Ford than an insight into life in the jungle and so there were many points when I found this read frustrating.

It was interesting to learn about Ford’s ideas for creating perfect societies. I thought his plan to build cities in long lines, instead of around a dense city centre made a lot of sense and I admired his desire to give everyone high wages and free health care, but I thought there was too much politics in this book. My lack of knowledge of US politicians in the 1930s compounded the problem, but I think that even if I had known who all the people were I would still have become bored by the level of detail.

Most of the country’s prominent liberal internationalists, intellectuals, and religious leaders, like William Jennings Bryan, William Howard Taft, and Louis Brandeis respectfully declined the industrialist’s invitation to join his odyssey. “My heart is with you,” apologized Helen Keller for not being able to make the trip. Jane Addams did accept but fell ill and couldn’t sail. That left Ford with an odd and volatile assortment of lesser-known dissenters, vegetarians, socialists, pacifists and suffragists as companions.

I loved learning about the construction of Fordlandia, but I longed for some personal or emotional insight into the town. The facts were delivered in a cold, clinical way and I wish they had been brought to life by focusing on individuals instead of just general statistics.

By the end of 1929, ninety people had been buried in the company cemetery, sixty-two of them workers and the rest “outsiders who had died on the property.” Most of the deaths were from malnutrition and common disease. But lethal snakebites, from vipers especially, infections from ant, hornet, or vampire bat bites, and, before proper shelters were built, jaguars, which occasionally snatched babies right from their hammocks, all made the plantation especially dangerous during those early years. 

The density of the facts meant that this was a very slow book for me to read. I couldn’t manage more than a few pages at a time and often became bogged down in the detail. This book is very well researched and contains everything you could ever wish to know about Henry Ford, but I hope that someone grabs this idea and creates a wonderful piece of historical fiction from it.

Categories
2010 Non Fiction Richard and Judy Book Club

Operation Mincemeat – Ben Macintyre

 Richard and Judy Winter Read 2010

I don’t have any interest in military history or spy stories so when I saw that Richard and Judy had selected this as one of their Winter Reads I decided to challenge my preconceptions and give it a try. I’m afraid that it hasn’t converted me to into a lover of the genre, but I’m pleased that I gave it a chance.

Operation Mincemeat is a non fiction account of the planning that went into the invasion of Sicily during WWII. It details the deceptions that the British created to persuade German forces that an invasion would take place elsewhere – the plot centring on dropping a dead body into the sea off the coast of Spain with fake invasion plans.

The main problem I had with this book was that the plot was very simple. I was expecting a complex plan with lots of negotiations, spies and double-crossing, but I didn’t find Operation Mincemeat to be particularly cunning or original. It was interesting to see the massive amount of planning that went into this operation, but if this is the most exciting plot in WWII then I definitely don’t want to read any more military history.

This 400 page book was incredibly well researched, but I found many of the details boring. We were told the complete history of every person who was introduced and while some of it was relevant I didn’t care where they went to school or who their parents were.

I’m far more interested in the human side of war and this book lacked emotion. It was well written and readable, but I’d only recommend it to people who have an interest in military history.

Have you enjoyed any military history?

Can you recommend any that I might enjoy more than this one?