I Read, Therefore I Blog

The Blurb On The Back:

Behind every great woman …
Is another great woman.

Connected Women is a collection of 84 illustrated portraits that celebrate female collaboration and the extraordinary achievements, relationships and secret histories of pioneering women.

From ground-breaking scientist Marie Curie to political activist Malala Yousafzai; from feminist author Virgina Woolf to the game-changing Billie Jean King; Connected Women creates a gigantic web of womanhood, threading tales from across the globe and throughout history.

Featuring Michelle Obama, Gala Dalí, Emma Watson, Nina Simone, Frida Kayla, Coco Chanel, Greta Garbo, Eleanor Roosevelt, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and many more inspired and inspirational women who have shaped the world we live in today.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Kate Hodges is a journalist with over 25 years of experience. First published in 2018 and re-republished in 2023, this book of 84 portraits (illustrated by Sarah Papworth) shows the connections between women from the 19th century to the present day. While it mixes lesser known women with the great and the good, it’s very western focused, some of the connections are tenuous and Papworth’s illustrations somewhat anaemic and lacking in personality.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

This is the remarkable story of a family, and the sacrifices and silences that marked a generation and their descendants. Mark Mazower uncovers the history of his ancestors, who fate drove into the siege of Stalingrad, the Vilna ghetto, occupied Paris, and even into the ranks of the Wehrmacht. His British father was the lucky one, the son of Russian Jewish emigrants who settled in London after escaping the civil war and revolution. Max, the grandfather, had started out as a socialist and manned the barricades against tsarist troops, but never spoke of it. His wife, Frouma, came from a family ravaged by the Great Terror yet somehow making its way in Soviet society.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Mark Mazower is Professor of History at Columbia University. This fascinating book looks at Mazower’s family history starting with his grandfather, Max, a Jew born in the Russian Empire to piece together who they were and what drove them overseas. However while Mazower does his best to fill in the blanks, there is a lot of supposition here, so while you learn a lot about the politics, his family themselves remain to an extent unknowable.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Let the world’s most celebrated drag artists transform and empower you with their sick’ning style, wit and wisdom.

However you want to werk it - out-there eleganza, easy-breezing realness and everything in-between - Serving Face is like the gentle hand of your Drag Mother guiding you towards a life more fabulous. Featuring interviews with 20 artists, it has all the inspiring motivational and practical tips and tricks you need to jack up your confidence and tease out your own special blend of charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. So dive in, discover your inner diva and bring joy, love and laughter to life’s runway.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Felix Le Freak is an artist, comedian and winner of Drag Idol UK 2018. This diverse, informative collection of 20 mini biographies on a mix of drag queen and king performers (including contestants from Drag Race and its UK, Canada and Australian spin offs), details on how they got into drag, what they think of it as an art form and tips for those looking to get into it. If you’re interested in drag then this will broaden your horizons about it.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Make yourself heard - on and off the bench

Whether you spend your days arguing your case at work, fighting gender discrimination, or raising the next generation of dissenters, call an adjournment and ask yourself,

”What would RBG do?”

Grab your collar and get motivated to change the world with words of inspirational wit and wisdom from Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

In this peculiar self-help book based on Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a brand, Marilyn Easton frames aspects of Ginsburg’s life and experience as a motivational tool for the reader. It’s a very US-centric book and I found it both patronising and shallow without ever doing Ginsburg or her career justice but if you’re absolutely desperate for a self-help gift for the feminist or lawyer in your life, then it may be worth a shot.

BE MORE RBG: SPEAK TRUTH AND DISSENT WITH SUPREME STYLE will be released in the United Kingdom on 1st October 2019. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Teen Pioneers celebrates the groundbreaking achievements of twenty young people. From journalists to political activists, and from inventors to green entrepreneurs, each of these teenage pioneers has acted to help others and make our world a better place in which to live.

This book will inspire and empower you and prove that anyone, no matter their age, can make a difference.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

In this inspirational YA book, Ben Hubbard compiles mini biographies on 21 people who were all teenagers when they acted to try and change the world. Some you may have heard of, e.g. Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and the Hong Kong activist, Joshua Wong, and others you will hear more of in the future. It’s the perfect book to wave at any grown-up who dares to complain about young people lacking motivation and seeking to take all the time.

TEEN PIONEERS: YOUNG PEOPLE WHO HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD was released in the United Kingdom on 11th April 2019. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

In September of 1941, Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what was to become one of the longest and most destructive sieges in Western history – two and a half years of bombardment and starvation. More than a million citizens perished. Survivors recall corpses littering the frozen streets, the relatives of the dead having neither the means nor the strength to bury them. Desperate citizens burned books, furniture, and floorboards to keep warm; they ate family pets and – eventually – even one another to stay alive.

Trapped between the Nazi invading force and the Soviet government itself was composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who would write a symphony that roused, rallied, eulogised, and commemorated his fellow citizens – the Leningrad Symphony. This testament of courage was copied onto microfilm, driven across the Middle East, and flown over the deserts of North Africa to be performed in the United States – where it played a surprising role in strengthening the Grand Alliance against the Axis powers.

This is the true story of a city under siege: the triumph of bravery and defiance in the face of terrifying odds. It is also a look at the power – and layered meaning – of music in beleaguered lives.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

M. T. Anderson leaves the world of fiction to create that YA rarity: a non-fiction book for the commercial market, which mixes history, biography and music in a way that had me gripped from start to finish.

Thanks to Walker Books for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, the inspiration behind Conan Doyle’s novel The Lost World, was mong the last of a legendary breed of British explorers. For years he explored the Amazon and came to believe that its jungle concealed a large, complex civilization, like El Dorado. Obsessed with its discovery, he christened it the City of Z. In 1925, Fawcett headed into the wilderness with his son Jack, vowing to make history. They vanished without a trace.

For the next eighty years, hordes of explorers plunged into the jungle, trying to find evidence of Fawcett’s party, or Z. Some died from disease and starvation; others simply disappeared. In this spellbinding true tale of lethal obsession, David Grann retraces the footsteps of Fawcett and his followers as he unravels one of the greatest mysteries of exploration.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

The book is a curious mix of biography, history, anthropology, tropical disease, geography and, in the case of Gann himself, self-discovery. Fawcett’s story is a compelling one – driven, complicated and ambitious, he was one of the last gentleman explorers who genuinely loved the jungle he explored but who had no tolerance for weakness in others and who had a slightly more enlightened attitude to the indigenous people of the region than his contemporaries. However, the book doesn’t give a definitive answer as to what happened to Fawcett, which is a major failing and worse, Gann never even tries to test the answer that he does find. The writing at the start of the book is a little disjointed, with Gann going off on tangents as he seeks to introduce Fawcett, his own mission and then the kidnapping of James Lynch, a banker who set off on his own mission to discover what happened to Fawcett, only to get kidnapped by an indigenous tribe. I was particularly irritated by the Lynch element because Gann sets this up as a big deal very early on and then the resolution is given away as an aside when Gann finally meets him. I would have also liked to have known a bit more about Fawcett’s loyal wife, Nina, who stayed loyal to him until the end despite Fawcett originally breaking off their engagement on the grounds of a slanderous rumour about her chastity. Ultimately, I did find the story fascinating enough to keep turning the pages and Gann has a comprehensive bibliography, which I found interesting and as such I would recommend it albeit with the caveat that it doesn’t quite deliver on its set up.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Alexander Masters, the bestselling author of Stuart: A Life Backwards, discovered his first subject on the streets; the second, he’s found under his floorboards.

Dr Simon Philips Norton lives under Alexander’s flat in Cambridge. One of the greatest mathematical prodigies of the 20th century, today he stomps about his rooms in semi-darkness eating tinned kippers stirred into packets of Bombay mix, fulminating against automobiles and attacking a theoretical concundrum so vast and intricate that he calls it ‘The Monster’. He says it is the Voice of God. The Monster looks like a Sudoku table. A Sudoku table has nine columns of numbers. The Monster has 808017424794512875886459904961710757005754368000000000.

Simon’s toilet has fallen through the floor. Supermarket bags swollen with bus timetables pile like stalagmites on his tables and chairs. Ruts in the floor debris mark his route from bed to kitchen, kitchen to toilet, toilet back to bed. He is unemployed and unemployable.

In The Genius In My Basement, Alexander Masters offers a tender, humorous, intimate portrait of a supposedly ‘collapsed’ genius and a happy man.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Although this book doesn’t offer any real explanations for how Simon Norton came to be the person he is or what happened to his early maths genius, it’s nevertheless an entertaining book that shows who Simon is and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

THE GENIUS IN MY BASEMENT was released in the UK on 1st September. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the ARC of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

For his many friends and fans, Peter Cook was quite simply the funniest man they'd ever met. Cook's unique gift for laughter and the way he changed the British sense of humour forever has been celebrated in several posthumous biographies, but until now there's been no book by Cook himself. This is it.

Despite the image he liked to affect, Cook was a prolific writer who penned countless outrageous sketches, plus heaps of hilarious articles. Some of these pieces have never been published before and many have only ever been seen or heard, rather than read.

This collection gathers together the treasures of Cook's comic career, from school and university via Beyond the Fringe, alongside Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore, to his surreal, satirical journalism for Private Eye. Illustrated with his own drawings, Tragically I was an Only Twin is the definitive collection of the wit, humour and genius of Peter Cook.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Something for dedicated comedy fans more than it is for those interested in knowing precisely who Peter Cook was, there are some interesting nuggets in this book and I did learn more about what Cook's work was all about. This is most definitely not for everyone though, and be warned that the Derek and Clive transcripts have some very unpleasant moments. It is also, by William Cook's own admission, most definitely not the complete Peter Cook as some of his work has been omitted.