Micro review 18 (Non Fiction November)

 

Space: The Human Story by Tim Peake (Cornerstone)

Regular readers, and people who know me IRL are aware that I am something of a space nerd, and that I love meeting astronauts and reading about them. Since Peake's flight into space he has written and spoken a lot about his experiences and I was slightly nervous that this was going to be another remix of what he's already said.

I was soooooooooooooo very wrong - this book is fascinating history of human spaceflight and even though I've read quite few (!) books on this topic there were lots of new to me anecdotes and he presents a new take on a lot of the history. 

He has a very wry sense of humour and makes some very pertinent points about the future of space travel, and even when talking about his space flight/training has new stories to tell.

If I am being picky I'd have liked to know more about the European Space Agency history and selection process, and n the Chinese crewed space programme doesn't event get a but these are minor points. My other disappointment was to do with the bibliography - I was poised, pen ready, to add new books to my wish list but out of the 44 books mentioned I'd only not read 9!

Reading this tied in nicely with the new series of For All Mankind - the AppleTV and also as a fitting tribute to the two Apollo era astronauts who sadly died recently.

Micro review 17 (Non Fiction November)

 

The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie (Chatto & Windus)

Earlier in the year I read (and enjoyed) the novels The Dictionary of Lost Words & The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams which were all about the creation of the first OED and book publishing at the Oxford University Press so I leapt at the chance to read more about the people behind the story.

In idle moments (mostly when cataloguing my own book collection) I had thought how hard it must be to write a formal dictionary -  and indeed Black Adder has a whole episode dedicated to the process - but it had never occurred to me that it was in fact an enormous crowd sourced project that is still ongoing!

Obviously over more than 150 years there have been 1000s of contributors to the OED and reading about them all would be overwhelming but Ogilvie has cleverly created 26 chapters all dedicated to different groups of people working on the project.  L is for lunatic for example and there are some incredible stories of people working on the project from asylums...

In picking a thematic approach Ogilvie manages to paint a full picture of all the types of people working on the project as well as those trying to wrestle the mammoth undertaking into a publishable format. It was really nice to see how egalitarian the project itself was, even if the celebrations by the 'good and the great' when it was published weren't...

I loved dipping in and out of this book during my tea breaks - each chapter was just the right length and contained just the right amount of information to enjoy in a limited gulp - I'm sure there must be a work for that...

Many thanks to the publisher for granting me access to an advance copy via NetGalley

And now for something completely different

 

The Runaway Heiress by Emma Orchard (Allison & Busby)

I was very lucky to be offered a chance to read this in advance of publication and it arrived at the perfect time. I'm reading (and enjoying) lots of non-fiction books right now but really struggling to find fiction that captivates me.

The Runaway Heiress is so far away from my normal reading choice that I hoped (rightly) that it would break the run of 'did not finish' books.

The blurb for the book reads:

London, 1815. Cassandra Hazeldon is on the run.

Under duress to marry a repellent friend of her uncle, Cassandra has made her escape, but now she is very much alone. With luck and quick thinking, she finds a refuge in a grand mansion in Mayfair, and a protector in Lord Irlam, or Hal to his friends.

Posing as a friend of Hal's sister, Cassandra is swept up into the social whirl of a Brighton summer. But the attraction between her and Hal is starting to scorch, and when jealousy is added to the mix, things are set to reach boiling point.

I don't read a lot of romance and this isn't a period of history I know about,  other cultural touchstones such as Bridgerton and Georgette Heyer have passed me by completely too. 

It was all these novelties that helped me to race through the book, along with the very vivid writing style. I was somewhat taken aback as to just how raunchy the book was in places - and if I am honest  I did prefer the less explicit romance scenes  where the tension was more erotic than the full on scenes - but I did feel like I was an eyewitness to all of the plot and could really 'see' a lot of the characters and settings in colour, so to speak.

I don't think that this period of history is ever going to become a favourite setting of mine but once in a while it will be nice to visit and it has reminded me to read books from genres I don't often touch as they are fun!

Huge thanks to Allison and Busby for the book and for widening my reading as well as my eyes!