“The Rise And Reign Of The Mammals” by Steve Brusatte (2022)

“For the first time in years, the sun broke through the darkness.”

A couple of years back, I read Steve Brusatte’s excellent book about the age of the dinosaurs. I was delighted that he decided to carry on in time and cover the mammals.

From humble beginnings to world domination, the story of the mammals looks like your standard “rags to riches” tale, but it is anything but. Our mammalian ancestors have been around since the dawn of the dinosaurs, but rarely had the chance to get very big, especially once the reptiles had taken over, and it was only the falling of an asteroid around 66 million years ago that allowed them to begin their true rise to power.

There have been ups and downs, as the book explains, but mammals have somehow always held on, usually in a small, rodent-like form, but not always. Monotremes and marsupials were once far more common than today, but it is the placentals that managed to spread successfully around the world, leaving the others to the southern hemisphere, in particular Australia. Although the evolution of humans is discussed in the book, we are but one branch on this enormous, sprawling family tree.

Along the way we meet familiar faces such as the woolly mammoth, the sabre-toothed cat, and even the ancient Dimetrodon, which is often mistaken for a dinosaur but is more closely related to us. These were definitely the sections I found easier to comprehend, because, unlike the dinosaurs, a lot of the prehistoric mammals are less well known. They are nonetheless fascinating. The chalicotheres are favourites of mine, which were giant horse relatives that walked on their knuckles like gorillas, and then there are the South American Toxodon, a beast somewhere between a rhino, a manatee and a guinea pig. The past is a world where great birds prey on tiny horses, whales have legs, anteaters swarm through central Europe, and sloths are simply enormous.

Brusatte also spends a lot of time talking about his own discoveries, and those of his heroes, colleagues and students. There are a lot of examples of great work done by female palaeontologists too, which felt really pleasing, as the media would often suggest it’s one of those fields dominated by men. We find out about the fossils that Thomas Jefferson worked on, how we can tell what a creature ate by its teeth, and how camels and horses spread around the globe, despite both evolving in North America (but having to be reintroduced by humans later on). There are plenty of mysteries too. We don’t have the missing link between bats and non-flying mammals, for example, and we’re still not really sure what drove all the megafauna of the last glacial period of the Ice Age to extinction.

We’re never going to have a complete picture of what the past looked like, but this excellent book shines some lights on some surprising corners.

“Quietly Hostile” by Samantha Irby (2022)

“This is not an advice book.”

I don’t know anything about Samantha Irby (or didn’t before picking up this book anyway) but since skunks are my favourite animals, and my attitude to the general public after a life in customer service can be described as “quietly hostile”, I was compelled to pick up this book anyway.

This is a collection of humorous essays by Samantha Irby, an American writer who has absolutely no filter. Be it her sexual proclivities, bowel movements or her favourite pornography, she is here to tell you about them. It’s a hard book to review due to the lack of a consistent plot, so this will be short, but it’s worth talking about because it’s a good, well-written collection, and might just make you go, “Oh, phew, it’s not just me.”

There are the adventures in trying to get a biographical sitcom off the ground with a shoestring budget, the etiquette surrounding the use of someone else’s bathroom, how to get teenagers to treat you with any sort of respect, how to panic-pack a car just before your city goes into lockdown from a global pandemic, and why liking stuff is so much better than not liking stuff.

I confess that I skipped a couple of the essays – one is about Sex and the City and another about Dave Matthews, two subjects I have no knowledge of or interest in – but others make up for it, be it the madness of having an entirely untrainable dog, or the poignancy of the death of her mother, with all its disturbing and awkward twists and turns.

A funny collection to lighten the mood of the world right now. And if nothing else, it might give you some new search terms for your next visit to a porn site.

“Different Times” by David Stubbs (2023)

“In 2011, in the sitcom Outnumbered, the Brockmans have taken in a German exchange student, Ottfried.”

Look at Twitter or whatever it’s called this week and you’ll quickly find someone – invariably a middle-aged white man with a car for an avatar and three Union Flags in his bio – complaining that “you can’t say anything anymore”. Comedy, like all aspects of society, has shifted now to place where it’s trying to be more inclusive and less offensive. You can still offend, of course, but context remains key, and it’s agreed generally that we should punch up rather than down. But it wasn’t always this way. In his fascinating book, David Stubbs takes a look at the changing face of comedy for the last one hundred years.

Starting off with Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel – both of whom found fame in the USA but were born in England – Stubbs powers us through the decades, showing us how the likes of Tony Hancock, Joyce Grenfell, John Cleese, Eric Morecambe, Ken Dodd, Jo Brand, Stuart Lee and many others have evolved the comedy of Britain. From the misogyny of the Carry On films to the racism of Til Death Us Do Part, he takes a look at how our attitudes have changed, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, and other times slipping back and forth. Comedy is also shown as having changed hands as the political landscape changed too. Once upon a time most comedians voted Conservative, but now they’re almost all on the left.

There are discussions on the surrealism of Monty Python, the cruelty of Borat, the innocence of Tommy Cooper, and the downright unacceptability of Spike Milligan’s infamous Curry & Chips, in which he played Pakistani immigrant in brownface. It’s a really interesting look at why some shows are still beloved by modern audiences, but others have slipped away. Few in our past were perfect, but shows like Love Thy Neighbour, Fawlty Towers, Rising Damp and Round the Horne show clearly how people have shifted in their beliefs on race, class, gender and sexuality. Stubbs never defends the indefensible, and merely seeks to show what a long and winding road we’ve been on. Sometimes we’ve even gone back on ourselves – who would ever have thought that blackface would make a reappearance after the 1970s, but since 2000 the likes of David Walliams, Harry Enfield, David Baddiel and The League of Gentlemen have all given it a go, with varying levels of regret afterwards.

I fully accept that a complete history of the last century of comedy would require a book ten times the size of this one, but it is still quite odd who doesn’t get a mention or is skirted over. Stubbs himself admits in the introduction that it’s missing any reference to Bill Bailey, Johnny Vegas, Terry-Thomas, Jerry Sadowitz, Alan Davies and One Foot in the Grave, but there seem to be other gaping omissions to me. For one, if this was your introduction to all British comedy, you’d entirely miss the existence of the Two Ronnies, Viz or Eddie Izzard. Granted, there are lengthy and brilliant dives into the genius of Fawlty Towers, Dad’s Army and Absolutely Fabulous, but the entire careers of Billy Connolly and Victoria Wood are over in three pages apiece. They’re surely as influential, if not more so, than the comedians and shows featured elsewhere.

Like I said, I understand why it can’t be comprehensive about everyone, and the subjects chosen are good ones. The vast majority of the book takes in the seventies – when Morecambe & Wise, Les Dawson and Tommy Cooper ruled the comedy landscape, and over one hundred sitcoms, many of them still classics, aired – which is understandable, but I was also a little disappointed by Stubbs’s lack of analysis of the last twenty years or so. He says that it’s because the likes of Friday Night Dinner, Mock the Week and Ghosts are still finding their place, which I see to some degree, but it would be interesting to know why he rates The Catherine Tate Show above Little Britain, and what he thinks about the likes of Joe Lycett and Nish Kumar using their platforms for political discussion.

A great book, full of really interesting nuggets and plenty of things to make you laugh, but I could’ve read a tome twice this size and still not thought it was long enough. You can’t please everyone, unless you’re Tommy Cooper.

“It’s All A Game” by Tristan Donovan (2017)

“In February 2014, Nick Curci crawled through a hole in the hardboard sealing up a railway arch in East London and discovered his future.”

Board games are always great fun. From the simplicity of Ludo to the deep, complicated set up of Betrayal at House on the Hill, there is something for everyone these days. It’s not all Monopoly and backgammon. In Tristan Donovan’s book, he takes us on a whistle stop journey through the history of board games, from chess to Catan, exploring how they came to be, what they tell us about society, and why they endure.

Along the way, the book explores the games that were buried with the pharaohs and how it took us until the 1980s to work out how to play them, how Monopoly was used to help prisoners of war escape from Colditz (which in turn would lead to the board game Escape from Colditz), why Twister struggled to sell because American retailers deemed it too sexy and how chess pieces vary around the world. It introduces us to such characters as Marvin Class, the Wonka-like recluse who invented Mousetrap and was terrified of anyone stealing his ideas, Elizabeth Magie who pioneered the game that would become Monopoly as a way of showing the evils of capitalism, and Anthony Pratt, whose fondness for detective novels would lead to the invention of Cluedo.

It’s a really fascinating read that takes us around the globe and really analyses our psyches in the last couple of centuries. Trivial Pursuit ensured games were no longer just for children, and people thought it was the end of humanity when the computer Deep Blue first won at chess. Cluedo‘s weapons originally included a bomb and a hypodermic syringe, and the attack on Pearl Harbour was planned out on a board not unlike Risk. I was really interested to learn, too, about how anthropologists have explored ancient games and tracked down the rules, and why backgammon was once the coolest game in the world, attracting celebrities by the score to Las Vegas to play it.

Whatever your board game of choice is, there’s something in here for you. A really intriguing history. Now roll the dice and move on.

“Otherlands” by Thomas Halliday (2022)

“Dawn is breaking in the Alaskan night, where a small herd of horses, four adults and three foals, huddle against the frigid north-easterly wind.”

Thanks to film and television, we think we have a very clear picture of what the planet used to look like. However, what we know is but a fraction of what happened back then. Fossilisation is a very rare process, despite how it appears, so there are likely billions of species we don’t know about. Even the ones we have, we can’t guarantee we’re picturing them correctly. Look at the mess we made of the Iguanodon at first.

And this is all before we get away from the animals. We think of grass and flowers as ubiquitous but they had to evolve like everything else. Dinosaurs and grass don’t overlap at all, and fungi dominated the landscapes before trees showed up. And then there’s the land itself. We all know the continents didn’t always look like this, but how did they look? When did the Mediterranean get filled in, and when was the tallest waterfall on Earth flowing?

Choosing one moment in every prehistoric era, from the Pleistocene when mammoths still march across the northern hemisphere, right back to the Ediacaran when multicellular life is still the new kid on the block, Halliday takes us on a journey through the history of the planet. Throughout, we see what evolution was doing. As the book runs in reverse, from the most recent eras to the oldest, the life we see gets odder and odder. Quickly gone are the mammals and birds we recognise, the dinosaurs don’t seem to last long, and we’re on to seas teeming with bizarre life.

The book is a love letter to the planet, beautifully written  and with so much heart. For a popular science book, it’s remarkably poetic. Halliday loves his subject, clearly, and it feels like a David Attenborough documentary with a twist. The subjects he’s chosen are really interesting, too. We spend very little time with the big names. Mammoths and Tyrannosaurus rex get passing mentions in favour of the first horses, and seafaring pterosaurs. There are giant penguins, the first hominids, unusual reefs and the birth of the seasons. It’s a truly remarkable look at how we got here, and how we very nearly didn’t.

A must for every lover of nature, past and present.

 

“Rental Person Who Does Nothing” by Shoji Morimoto (2023)

“I’m starting a service called Rental Person Who Does Nothing and I’m available for any situation in which all you want is a person to be there.”

Memoir can be a funny old thing. We want them to be full of excitement, thrills, drama and, let’s be honest, gossip. It’s great when an old actor throws their life story onto the shelves, and, to my mind anyway, always just a waste of time when it’s a twenty-something reality TV star who hasn’t had time to live a life. Ironic, then, that I chose to read this, which is a memoir about a man who literally does nothing.

In 2018, Shoji Morimoto set himself up on Twitter as a “Rental Person Who Does Nothing”. This is exactly as it sounds. You can send him a DM and request his company for wherever you’re going. He won’t help you move, give you advice, work for you, or look after your children, but he will just sit with you, listen and do nothing. Maybe there’s a restaurant you’ve always wanted to try but don’t have anyone to go with, or you need a final player for a board game, or maybe you just simply need a spot in the park reserved to meet some friends. Shoji, in exchange for travel expenses, will do just that.

It’s an endearingly sweet memoir about a man whose entire USP is that he’s bland. He’s entirely average in many ways, and over the book we don’t learn very much about him, as perhaps it should be. This is simply the story of some of the things he has done (or not done) as a rental person, and his philosophies on money, capitalism, AI, loneliness, relationships and the modern world. Whether he’s accompanying someone to have their divorce papers finalised, or simply sending someone a text at a specific time, Shoji is on hand to help make life a little easier for whoever asks.

I’m not sure his idea would work so well in the UK, but the culture of Japan seems ripe for something like this, and he’s had over four thousand appointments since he started, so there’s obviously a call for it. He talks frankly about how much he disliked an old boss who never liked his passiveness, and he talks positively about the effect he has on people, and how they sometimes treat him in unexpected ways, but most of the time he remains startlingly neutral on most topics. He’s quite wise too, with some lovely insights into how we could all be living better, which was a surprise.

A really unique book with a good heart.

“Taking Flight” by Lev Parikian (2023)

“Take yourself, if you can, to a stretch of clean, fresh, flowing water.”

One of the most requested superpowers of all is flight. Humans look to the skies with jealousy, and have turned to technology to conquer them. But other species didn’t need that. They worked it out themselves. In this book, Lev Parikian explores the animals that took flight, how they did it and why they’re such biological geniuses.

Flight, we learn, has appeared four times in evolution. First it was the insects, then the pterosaurs (RIP), then the birds and finally bats. We take it for granted now that these animals have this ability, but it’s really all quite remarkable when you stop and think about it. Defying gravity is quite the skill. Parikian explores this evolution with fourteen examples, from the bee and the butterfly, to the goose and the pigeon. Two of his examples – the pterosaur and the archaeopteryx – are no longer with us and one of his examples – the penguin – actually can’t fly.

With his usual wit and genuine fascination and love of the topic, Parikian teaches us to stop a while and appreciate these creatures. From the intricate lifecycle of the mayfly to the way that swifts are so adapted to the skies they can barely cope on the land anymore, it’s a beautiful exploration of all things winged. While flight might look like it’s all happening in the same way, we quickly realise that it isn’t. Bees and dragonflies don’t move in the same manner, and bats are entirely different, too. The gannets and owls have their own methods, and then there are hummingbirds, who are just weird on every level.

Packed with interesting information for you to unleash at your unsuspecting friends, it’ll make you look at nature in a different way, and fully appreciate what it’s capable of. A lovely, funny, passionate read.

 

“The Transgender Issue” by Shon Faye (2021)

“The liberation of trans people would improve the lives of everyone in our society.”

It seems you can hardly glance at a news outlet these days without someone – invariably a heterosexual, cisgender someone – having something to say about the transgender community. Nine times out of ten, it’s something negative. The way they talk, you’d like some sort of demon species was stalking the landscape and every third person you pass had changed gender and that was, apparently, a Wrong Thing. While I don’t personally know any transgender people – to my knowledge – I do have a few people in my circles who are non-binary, so that coupled with the general headlines made me think it was time to do a bit more reading on the subject.

Shon Faye, a trans woman herself, is a great communicator, and has a no-nonsense approach to the subject, dealing out facts and figures with authority (all backed up with countless references) and brings to the forefront many of the struggles that trans people go through. It’s not an easy read necessarily, but it’s an important one, and written in an engaging way that keeps you interested.

Each chapter tackles a different part of society, including the medical services – or lack thereof – available to trans people, how it is experienced in context of the class system, how trans identities interact with feminism, and how and why so many trans people turn to sex work. It’s harrowing, but there also does feel a bit of hope. Things are not good for the trans community when you look at the wider stage, but they are still probably much better than they have ever been, but we still have a long way to go. As with all minorities, it seems that society is moving slowly in the right direction, but we’ve got a long way to go.

I think the biggest hurdle to overcome is still how the media talks about trans people, hopping between disdain, rage and treating them as if they’re a circus sideshow. What many people who have a problem with transgender folk seem to forget is that these are people, and they just want to be allowed to live their own life, like cisgender people. Transphobes will be quick to jump up and tell you that letting everyone live their own life will lead to an increase in attacks in women’s bathrooms, and that drag queens will brainwash children, but I’ve never seen a single one of them ever provide any statistics for bathroom attacks, or raise a complaint about a pantomime dame. Why can’t people just let others get on with things. As long as you’re not hurting anyone, you should be free to do what you want.

Up there with the landmark works on race and feminism by Reni Eddo-Lodge and Sara Pascoe, respectively, this joins the list of books that everyone should be issued with in order to be a better person. A really interesting, thoughtful read.

“Death By Shakespeare” by Kathryn Harkup (2020)

“William Shakespeare occupies a special place in history.”

Death comes for us all, and writers are some of the biggest killers. Throughout his works, William Shakespeare sees off over 250 named characters, never mind the hundreds killed in wars and violence offstage. In this book, Kathryn Harkup goes through the plays to work out the truth behind the fiction, and whether Shakespeare really knew what he was talking about.

Previously exploring the poisons of Agatha Christie’s novels, Harkup here as a wider range of endings to look at. The book is divided up broadly by kinds of death, exploring poisonings, stabbings, executions, plagues and suicides. She looks at whether you really can kill someone by putting poison in their ear, how painful an asp bite would actually be, whether it’s possible for grief to kill you, and what the effects are of being struck by lightning.

Even more interestingly, she takes a look at how these deaths would have been staged at The Globe and elsewhere, and it turns out quite a few plot points only happen so actors have enough time to clean the stage, or go into the wings and wash the blood off their skin. Costumes were treasured things, and while it was easy to acquire real blood from butchers to use in the shows, it was no good if the clothes were already stained every night. We also get to learn about how the Elizabethans thought of death. This is a world, after all, where public executions are still prevalent and popular, and plague ravages the country every few years. Death was cheap, so would they have been shocked by all the bloodshed and bodies on stage?

Harkup also looks at the historical accuracy of Shakespeare’s plays, finding out whether Richard III was as bloodthirsty as Shakespeare says, or whether the dates line up with the wars. The plays are really only a starting point for a journey though myriad historical and scientific topics. It’s an interesting read, a touch dry at times, but the stuff about how theatre was actually staged is especially interesting, as it’s not something I’d ever given much thought to, being too used to modern productions. As long as humans have loved the theatre, though, it seems we’ve had special effects.

A nice idea for a look at history through a slightly different lens.

Looking for something else? Try my novels, The Atomic Blood-Stained Bus (the story of a cannibal and an ex-god) and The Third Wheel (a comedic alien invasion tale), test yourself with a quiz from my book Questioning Your Sanity, or visit my website and I’ll cultivate you a whole quiz on whatever subjects you like. If you just want more reviews, guide yourself around my blog with the navigation bar and find hundreds of reviews at your fingertips.

“The Science Of Storytelling” by Will Storr (2019)

“We know how this ends.”

Just a quick one today as, ironically, there’s not much plot here. In Will Storr’s book The Science of Storytelling, he explores why humans tell stories, how to tell them well, and what makes a good one. Without being too technical, he covers psychology, philosophy, neurology and narratology in small bitesize chunks.

Along the way we learn why we’ve been telling the story of King Lear since before we came down from the trees, what it would take to make a three-hour biopic of Mr Nosey, and how all stories are simply about change. He discusses in depth the magic of an opening line too, indicating that all the best ones – from Charlotte’s Web and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, to The Iliad and even The Communist Manifesto – mark that some kind of change is coming.

A lot of the things we do to make a good story are subconscious, and it’s really quite interesting to see them laid bare for once, as everything he says makes sense, even though you’ve probably never thought about it before.

A nice little read for anyone interested in the power of stories.

Looking for something else? Try my novels, The Atomic Blood-Stained Bus (the story of a cannibal and an ex-god) and The Third Wheel (a comedic alien invasion tale), test yourself with a quiz from my book Questioning Your Sanity, or visit my website and I’ll cultivate you a whole quiz on whatever subjects you like. If you just want more reviews, guide yourself around my blog with the navigation bar and find hundreds of reviews at your fingertips.