I Read, Therefore I Blog

The Blurb On The Back:

What is a ‘custard’ wind? - Why is a rainy wedding lucky? - What’s the difference between ‘daggle’ and ‘dibble’ weather? - Does sunshine make us kinder? - Why were weather reports once banned?

The British obsession with the weather is world famous. We talk about it endlessly - five whole months of our lives, to be precise. We use it to start conversations with complete strangers. It affects our moods, shopping habits and even how we vote.

This book is packed with information you’ll want to share about this most important subject - quirky history, surprising facts, fascinating folklore, strange words and intriguing people.

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The Verdict:

Alex Johnson is a journalist, magazine editor, designer and author. This is a lovely book about the British national obsession - the weather - that mixes folklore, local dialects, psychology, economics and, of course, the weather itself. There are loads of facts and nuggets grouped around different types of weather and, yes, there are 100 words for rain as well. It’s a perfect read to enjoy in your garden on a warm sunny day with a cold drink.

100 WORDS FOR RAIN was released in the United Kingdom on 11th April 2024. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

God Save Texas takes us on a journey through the most controversial state in America.

Texas is a Republican state in the heart of Trumpland; but it is also a state in which minorities form a majority (including the largest number of Muslim adherents in the United States). The cities are Democrat and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king but Texas now leads California in technology exports and has an economy only somewhat smaller than Australia’s.

Lawrence Wright has written an enchanting book about what is often seen as an unenchanting place. Having spent most of his life there, while remaining deeply aware of its oddities, Wright is as charmed by Texan foibles and landscapes as he is appalled by its politics and brutality. With its economic model of low taxes and minimal regulation producing both extraordinary growth and striking income disparities, Texas, Wright shows, looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create. This profound portrait of the state, completed just as Texas battled to rebuild after the devastating storms of summer 2017, not only reflects the United States back as it is, but as it was and as it might be.

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The Verdict:

Lawrence Wright is a writer, journalist and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at New York University. A mix of travelogue, anecdotes of his life in Texas and overview of Texas’s history, politics and economy, I enjoyed Wright’s conversational writing style but didn’t feel like I understood the contradictions within the state, partly because he skewers towards the view of the privileged rather than those with a lower income.

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

The Blurb On The Back:

Lucile is on a search for her perfect cabin so she sets off on an exciting trip around the world, looking for ideas. Travelling from the forests of Sweden to the comfort of snowy Siberia and the enchanting caves in Turkey, will Lucile find her dream home?

A stunning book that shows how people live around the world, while presenting the beauty of our planet.

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The Verdict:

Emmanuelle Mardesson’s picture book (translated from French) is a thoughtful and informative look at the types of places where people around the world live. Sarah Loulendo’s illustrations are excellent - rich in detail and expression and really conveying the landscape in which each type of cabin is set. It’s a beautifully put together book that will make young readers think about the world around us and how people live.

MY PERFECT CABIN was released in the United Kingdom on 7th April 2022. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Everything you need to know about climate change!

Join teenage activists Amy and Ella Meek on their mission to save the planet in this inspiring book, perfect for budding eco-warriors.

Be Climate Clever teaches young activists about the need to tackle global warning and cut carbon emissions. It shows kids what they can do to help and how to find their voice.

Along the way, Amy and Ella will share stories about their incredible journey from starting the charity Kids Against Plastic to winning the Pride of Britain Green Champion award.

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The Verdict:

Amy and Ella Meek founded Kids Against Plastic in 2016 to tackle plastic waste. This informative book for readers aged 7+ (illustrated by Sarah Goodreau) uses interviews with campaigners and scientists to explain the science of climate change, debunk climate skeptic arguments while advising readers who want to become activists but I wish the Meeks had used examples (particularly failures) from their own campaign to motivate readers.

BE CLIMATE CLEVER was released in the United Kingdom on 7th April 2022. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Russia’s relationship with its neighbours and with the West has worsened dramatically in recent years. Under Vladimir Putin’s leadership, the country has annexed Crimea, begun a way in Eastern Ukraine, used chemical weapons on the streets of the UK and created an army of internet trolls to meddle in the US presidential elections. How should we understand this apparent relapse into aggressive imperialism and militarism?

In this book, Sergei Medvedev argues that this new wave of Russian nationalism is the result of mentalities that have long been embedded within the Russian psyche. Whereas in the West, the turbulent social changes of the 1960s and a rising awareness of the legacy of colonialism have modernised attitudes, Russia has been stymied by an enduring sense of superiority over its neighbours alongside a painful nostalgia for empire. It is this infantilised and irrational world view that Putin and others have exploited, as seen most clearly in Russia’s recent foreign policy decisions, including the annexation of Crimea.

This sharp and insightful book, full of irony and humour, shows how the archaic forces of imperial revanchist have been brought back to life, shaking Russian society and threatening the outside world. It will be of great interest to anyone trying to understand the forces shaping Russian politics and society today.

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The Verdict:

Sergei Medvedev is a Professor in the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. This is a very readable book (translated from Russian by Stephen Dalziel) first published in Russia in 2017 and published in the UK in 2020 that’s scarily relevant and prescient to Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine. Through short essays, Medvedev describes what’s driving Putin’s colonialism and how it’s caused by Russia’s failure to reckon with the traumas of its past.

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

The Blurb On The Back:

A major new book on why the most urgent issue confronting us all needs national solutions.

In the past two centuries we have experienced wave after wave of overwhelming change. Entire continents have been resettled; there are billions more of us; the jobs done by countless people would be unrecognisable to their predecessors; scientific change has transformed us all in confusing, terrible and miraculous ways.

Anatol Lieven’s major new book provides the frame that has long been needed to understand how we should react to climate change. This is a vast challenge, but we have often in the past had to deal with such challenges; the industrial revolution, major wars and mass migration have seen mobilisations of human energy on the greatest scale. Just as previous generations had to face the unwanted and unpalatable, so do we.

In a series of incisive, compelling interventions, Lieven shows how in this emergency our crucial building block is the nation state. The drastic action required both to change our habits and protect ourselves can be carried out not through some vague globalism but through maintaining social cohesion and through our current governmental, fiscal and military structures.

This is a book which will provoke innumerable discussions.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Anatol Lieven is a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and a Fellow of the New American Foundation in Washington DC. This book posits that a civic nationalist approach based on patriotism and common necessity is needed to tackle climate change rather than an internationalist approach but he’s more focused on what Greens and Liberals should give up than on getting US right-wingers on board and the constant criticism of immigration grates.

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

The Blurb On The Back:

A new look at the future of life on Earth by the great scientific visionary of our age.

James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia hypothesis and the greatest environmental thinker of our time, has produced an astounding new theory about the future of life on Earth. He argues that the anthropocene - the age in which humans acquired planetary-scale technologies - is, after 300 years, coming to an end. A new age - the novacene- has already begun.

New beings will emerge from existing artificial intelligence systems. They will think 10,000 times faster than we do and they will regard us as we now regard plants - as desperately slow acting and thinking creatures. But this will not be the cruel, violent machine takeover of the planet imagined by sci-if writers and film-makers. These hyper-intelligent beings will be as dependent on the health of the planet as we are. They will need the planetary cooling system of Gaia to defend them from the increasing heat of the sun as much as we do. And Gaia depends on organic life. We will be partners in this project.

It is crucial, Lovelock argues, that the intelligence of Earth survives and prospers. He does not think there are intelligent aliens, so we are the only beings capable of understanding the cosmos. Maybe, he speculates, the novacene could even be the beginning of a process that will finally lead to intelligence suffusing the entire cosmos. At the age 100, James Lovelock has produced an important and compelling new work.

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The Verdict:

James Lovelock is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the originator of the Gaia Theory that the Earth is a self-regulating organism. Bryan Appleyard is a journalist. This is an interesting but light weight and contradictory book that asserts humanity is entering a new age called the novacene where cyborgs (essentially AI machines) will become dominant but, due to the nature of Gaia, will partner with humans due to their equal dependence on Earth.

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

The Blurb On The Back:

We have the chance to live better than ever. But, as humans become ever more powerful, can we avoid blundering into disaster?

Feeding the world, climate change, biodiversity, antibiotics, plastics - the list of concerns seems endless. But what I most pressing, what are the knock-on effects of our actions, and what should we do first? Do we all need to become vegetarian? How can we fly in a low carbon world? Should we frack? How can we take control of technology? Does it all come down to population? And, given the global nature of the challenges we now face, what on Earth can any of us do?

Fortunately, Mike Berners-Lee has crunched the numbers and plotted a course of action that is practical and even enjoyable.

There Is No Planet B maps it out in an accessible and entertaining way, filled with astonishing facts and analysis. For the first time you’ll find big-picture perspective on the environmental and economic challenges of the day laid out in one place, and traced through to the underlying roots - questions of how we live and think. This book will shock you, surprise you - and then make you laugh.

And you’ll find practical and even inspiring ideas for what you can actually do to help humanity thrive on this - our only - planet.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Mike Berners-Lee is Professor at Lancaster University’s Institute for Social Futures and in this informative, thought-provoking but depressing book (that at times gets too caught up in the numbers and analogies), he sets out some of the facts and figures relating to climate change (which he expands to look at food supply, biodiversity and plastic use) to give the reader ideas for how to reduce the damage they do to the planet.

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

The Blurb On The Back:

One country, four languages, 26 cantons and 8 million people (but only 75% of them Swiss): welcome to Europe’s most individual country. But there’s more to Switzerland than banks and skis, francs and cheese. This is a place where the breathtaking scenery shaped a nation not just a tour itinerary, and where tradition is as important as innovation. It’s also been home to travel writer Diccon Bewes for over a decade.

Diccon started his Swiss explorations by seeking Heidi and finding the best chocolate, but soon became the ultimate outsider on the inside. He discovered that not all the cheese has holes, cuckoo clocks aren’t Swiss and the trains aren’t always on time. In fact, he uncovered the true meaning of Swissness and, in this new edition, started on the road to becoming Swiss himself.

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The Verdict:

Diccon Bewes is a travel writer and British expat who lives in Switzerland and is currently applying to be a Swiss citizen. In this 3rd edition of his wryly amusing, informative and well set out book, he aims to get under the skin of Switzerland, combining a jaunt through its tourist highlights with an examination of the country’s structures and values to create a fascinating look at this most neutral of nations.

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

The Blurb On The Back:

The Real Politics Of The Horn Of Africa delves into the business of politics in the turbulent, war-torn countries of north-east Africa. It is a contemporary history of how politicians, generals and insurgents bargain over money and power, and use violence to achieve their goals.

Drawing on a thirty-year career in Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, including experience as a participant in high-level peace talks, Alex de Waal provides a unique and compelling account of how these countries’ leaders run their governments, conduct their business, fight their wars and, occasionally, make peace. De Waal shows how leaders operate on a business model, securing funds for their ‘political budgets’, which they use to rent the provisional allegiances of army officers, militia commanders, tribal chiefs and party officials at the going rate. This political marketplace is eroding the institutions of government and reversing state building – and it is fuelled by oil exports, aid funds and western military assistance for counter-terrorism and peacekeeping.

The Real Politics Of The Horn Of Africa is a sharp and disturbing book with profound implications for international relations, development and peacemaking in the Horn of Africa and beyond.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Alex de Waal is Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation and a Research Professor at Tufts University and in this thought-provoking but depressing book, he analyses the political factors at play in the countries comprising the Horn of Africa through the prism of a rentier political marketplace where loyalties are bought and sold in a high-stakes game that prevents genuine state-building and undermines democratic convention.

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