{"id":3314,"date":"2019-12-30T23:02:07","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T22:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/?p=3314"},"modified":"2019-12-30T23:09:49","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T22:09:49","slug":"books-read-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2019\/12\/30\/books-read-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Books read in 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a kinder, happier age, when I used to write regularly for the Guardian\u2019s science blog network<\/a>, I would post summaries of the books I had read at the end of each year. Since the network closed in 2018 I have rather lost the habit. Looking back a the list of titles I got though in 2019, I realise how much I share with Robin Ince the problem of retention<\/a>. I can only marvel at those who seem to be able to analyse the plotlines and arguments of books that they have read months and years ago. My recollections are more impressionistic. I should take more notes.<\/p>\n

\"Superior<\/a><\/p>\n

But let me at least share with you my impressions, such as they are. Here, in the order that they were read, is my year\u2019s worth of books.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A Bigger Prize: why no one wins unless everyone wins, Margaret Heffernan<\/li>\n
  2. The Hunt for Vulcan, Tom Levenson<\/li>\n
  3. Science 3.0, Frank Miedema<\/li>\n
  4. The Good Immigrant, Various<\/li>\n
  5. Heroic Failure: Brexit and the politics of pain, Fintan O\u2019Toole<\/li>\n
  6. I\u2019m a joke and so are you, Robin Ince<\/li>\n
  7. Utopia for Realists, and how we can get there, Rutger Bregman<\/li>\n
  8. The Tyranny of Metrics, Jerry Muller<\/li>\n
  9. Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez<\/li>\n
  10. Superior: the return of race science, Angela Saini<\/li>\n
  11. The New Silk Roads: the present and future of the world. Peter Frankopan<\/li>\n
  12. Made to Stick, Chad and Dan Heath<\/li>\n
  13. Natives: race and class in the ruins of empire, Akala<\/li>\n
  14. Intelligence, Stuart Ritchie<\/li>\n
  15. The Lagoon, Armand Marie Leroi<\/li>\n
  16. The Gene Machine, Venki Ramakrishnan<\/li>\n
  17. Beyond Weird, Philip Ball<\/li>\n
  18. Adventures in the Screen Trade, William Goldman<\/li>\n
  19. Red Notice, Bill Browder<\/li>\n
  20. Manhattan Transfer, John Dos Passos<\/li>\n
  21. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt<\/li>\n
  22. Why do so many incompetent men become leaders? Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic<\/li>\n
  23. Generous Thinking: A radical approach to saving the university, Kathleen Fitzpatrick<\/li>\n
  24. Translations, Brian Friel<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It has been another bad year for reading fiction \u2013 just two novels and one play. Co-incidentally, both novels were largely set in New York, separated by about a century. While I disliked the fragmented, panopticon storytelling in Dos Passos\u2019s Manhattan Transfer<\/em>, Tartt drew me page by page into her intricate web of love and loss. The movie version of The Goldfinch<\/em> was a bland disappointment, but Fabritius\u2019s original painting, which I finally saw in the Mauritshaus in The Hague in October, radiated complex, new life.<\/p>\n

    \"The<\/a><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s also not been a great year for reading books by women \u2013\u00a0just five-and-a-half* out of twenty-four. That said, it\u2019s arguably also been a good year since three of my top four picks of 2019 were by women: Angela Saini\u2019s Superior<\/em>, a magnificent and powerful exposition of the science of race and the racism of science; Caroline Criado Perez\u2019s brilliantly illuminating Invisible Women<\/em> \u2013 which does that rare thing of making you see the world anew; and Margaret Heffernan\u2019s A Bigger <\/em>Prize, a lucid and disarming examination of the dark side of competition.<\/p>\n

    The fourth spot goes to The Lagoon<\/em>, by my Imperial College colleague Armand Leroi, whose affectionate and deeply informed guide to Aristotle\u2019s science I found wonderfully companionable. (I reviewed Superior<\/em> for the Cosmic Shambles blog<\/a> back in July and would agree with every word of Adam Rutherford\u2019s assessment<\/a> of The Lagoon<\/em>. I\u2019m afraid I only managed to tweet about Heffernan\u2019s<\/a> and Criado Perez\u2019s<\/a> books).<\/p>\n

    Beyond that, I enjoyed to a greater or lesser extent every book I read. Levenson\u2019s The Hunt for Vulcan <\/em>was a nicely wrought tale of how science actually works, while O\u2019Toole\u2019s Heroic Failure<\/em> helped me a little more to deal with the pain of Brexit. In Natives<\/em> Akala provided a personal and political examination of racism in the UK; along with The Good Immigrant<\/em> it was a chance to listen to voices that are still too often unheard.<\/p>\n

    Peter Frankopan\u2019s The New Silk Roads<\/em> returned in the 21st<\/sup> Century to the ground he had covered historically and magisterially in The Silk Roads<\/em> (which I read in 2017<\/a>), while Philip Ball\u2019s Beyond Weird<\/em> did not disappoint; if it still left me somewhat baffled, that is only because I raced through it on my summer holiday. When relaxing I should really stick to easier reads. On that same holiday I enjoyed William Goldman\u2019s gossipy Adventures in the Screen <\/em>Trade, a behind-the-scenes look at the movie business and was electrified by Bill Browder\u2019 terrifying story of corruption and murder in Putin\u2019s Russia (Red Notice<\/em>).<\/p>\n

    This past week I have finished off Kathleen Patrick\u2019s Generous Thinking<\/em>, which touches on the over-metricisation of academic life, a theme also covered in Muller\u2019s The Tyranny of Metrics<\/em> and Bregman\u2019s Utopia for Realists<\/em>. I have found inspirational material in all three books for my roles championing equality, diversity and inclusion at my university and as chair of DORA<\/a>, an organisation campaigning to reform research evaluation. All three authors are searching for ways to repair the damage done to ideas of the \u2018public good\u2019 by the relentless machinations of the market**. I will surely draw on their wisdom in the year to come.<\/p>\n

    \"Translations<\/a><\/p>\n

    And finally, I went back to Brian Friel\u2019s Translations<\/em>, a play I first saw in Boston in the mid-1990s and then again a couple of weeks ago at the National Theatre in London. Although I felt that the drama was ill served by the staging in the most recent production, I was sufficiently stirred to revisit a text that is a richly layered meditation on language, history, memory, and belonging.<\/p>\n

    None of the above does proper justice to the books or their authors but I hope it might light a few flickers of interest for some people. I have already embarked upon my first title for 2020, Oliver Morton\u2019s The Moon: a history of the future<\/em>, which even in the first chapter is proving to be poetically entrancing.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    *About half the authors in Nikesh Shuklah\u2019s edited collection, The Good Immigrant<\/em>, are women.<\/h4>\n

    **While I\u2019m on the subject of the \u2018public good\u2019, let me also recommend Michael Sandel\u2019s lecture<\/a>, A New Politics of Hope<\/em>, a humane and much-needed response to the populism that seems to have overtaken the UK and the US.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In a kinder, happier age, when I used to write regularly for the Guardian\u2019s science blog network, I would post summaries of the books I had read at the end of each year. Since the network closed in 2018 I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}