Forces of Nature – Brian Cox (with Andrew Cohen)

In this book based on his recent TV series Professor Brian Cox (aided by the programme producer) sets out to answer some simple questions about our everyday experiences – the shape of a snowflake, the motion of the earth, the origin of life, and the colours of the rainbow.

Inevitably the answers are not so simple, involving atomic and molecular structure, relativity and space-time, the biochemistry of LUCA (our last universal common ancestor) and the nature of light and the electromagnetic spectrum. But in Cox’s capable hands the explanations are revealed to rest on simple foundations – universal laws of physics and chemistry.

I did not see the TV series and only acquired the book (a Christmas present) having browsed it in a shop and been pleasantly surprised at the apparent depth of science in the text. First impressions were confirmed by the reading; there is nothing dumbed down here, there are equations aplenty and all the concepts are painstakingly but elegantly explained. I almost, briefly, understood general relativity – but that point (event) in space time has now disappeared into my personal past.

The large format hardback edition is lavishly illustrated with colour stills from the programme, and only some feature Dr Cox looking butch and moody in scuba suit, pilot fatigues or mountaineering gear. Most of the others are stunning nature shots although not all seem relevant to the text. Similarly some of the diagrams and figures, despite looking nice, lack proper explanation.

But these are niggles, forgivable product design features, that do not detract from the quality of the writing that manages to be rigorous, informative and entertaining. The four sections – symmetry, motion, elements, and colour – hang together remarkably well with a tangible progression that leaves the careful reader feeling better informed and in awe at how scientists have decoded nature without detracting from its wonder.

Fleshmarket Close – Ian Rankin

In this, the fifteenth outing of Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh based detective, Rebus and protégé Siobhan Clarke have been farmed out to the suburbs having lost their office space at their old St Leonards police station. Rebus feels sidelined, but at least it gives him freedom to operate as he does best – independently and unconventionally.

When a murder crops up in one of the outlying housing projects he is quickly on the scene. The estate has a high proportion of immigrants and asylum seekers, and the victim is one of them.

Meanwhile Clarke is contacted by the parents of a girl whose rape (and subsequent suicide) she had investigated some years ago; now the other daughter has gone missing.

Added to the murder and missing persons are two bodies found buried in a cellar in Fleshmarket Close, just off the Royal Mile. Both Rebus and Clarke attend but there is something fishy about the find as the bodies turn out to be just bones picked clean.

The three cases develop with the expected complexity, interweaving and connecting (or not) and with the expected complications for Rebus’s and Clarke’s personal lives (will a clinch in the previous book translate to more) and professional prospects (Clarke is on the way up, Rebus is treading water).

In these later Rebus books Rankin always injects some topicality and while this dates from 2004 the context of immigration still has resonance today. The issues are handled well enough – exposing prejudice and inhumanity – with Rebus characteristically cutting in his assessment of all those around him, be they do-gooder or bigot. While unable to do much to right all the wrongs he sees, he does what he can, while solving the crimes, to help those in need that cross his path.

Rankin rarely disappoints and this outing is well up to standard, benefitting from being a bit shorter (at 400 pages) and tighter than its immediate predecessors.

Billy Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk – Ben Fountain

Read as leg 3 (Texas, USA) of the Bookpacking reading journey.

Billy Lynn and the rest of Bravo Platoon are nearing the end of their ‘victory tour’, their last engagement at Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, for the Thanksgiving Day game against the Bears.

The ‘engagement’ that got them here was a short, sharp and bloody firefight in Iraq, captured on newsreel footage which, being largely successful from the US viewpoint, has become an internet sensation at home and a totem for the war effort. Their reward is a short furlough back in the US – provided they perform in the media circus and accept their due as heroes of the nation.

Billy Lynn doesn’t feel like a hero, he didn’t exactly volunteer to serve, and the adulation is starting to wear thin.

There is a lot going on at Texas Stadium, a lot for Billy to process. Bravo now have an agent who is trying to cut them a film deal, promising big bucks but so far delivering nothing; their role in the half time show is vague and while it should include meeting the fabulously attractive cheerleaders, Beyoncé led Destiny’s Child will be on stage too; and the Cowboys owner has invited the platoon into his suite for hospitality among the rich and powerful, which takes them all far from their comfort zone.

Billy has two other preoccupations. He had twenty-four hours at home, down the road at Stovall, that reintroduced him to his family’s troubles and during which his sister Kathryn tried to persuade him to dodge his return to war; and now he’s besotted with one of the cheerleaders who to his surprise seems to reciprocate. More immediately he needs a drink and some pills for his headache.

Through the blur in his head the contradictions between his current treatment as a ‘hero’ and his previous as a ‘grunt’, a nobody, lead to half-formed questions about who he is actually fighting for; whose will the victory be? But though war is hell, and victory maybe hollow, could he walk away from his platoon, his comrades, his true loyalty?

The narration places the reader firmly in Billy’s consciousness, making the language authentic and providing a lot of buy-in to his situation and mindset.

Billed as “the Catch 22 of the Iraq war”, this takes a swipe less at the military than the civilian context of the war. There is humour but the out-loud laughs are fewer and the cynicism is more bitter – Billy is only nineteen so his eyes are just opening to the self-serving and exploitation that abounds.

Billy Lynn is a book of its time and one that deserves to be read and enjoyed on its own merits.

Periodic Tales – Hugh Aldersey-Williams

In this book the author shares his fascination with the elements that go to make up the periodic table. He follows no scientific order in introducing them, preferring to group them in sections labelled Power, Fire, Craft, Beauty and Earth.

In Power we have the traditional riches of gold, silver and platinum along with the energy providing likes of carbon and plutonium. Fire includes the most reactive of elements such as sulphur, potassium, phosphorus and radium; while Craft covers the malleable metals – long discovered tin, iron and copper along with more recent additions of zinc, tungsten and aluminium. Beauty looks at the colour giving elements, both the physical tints of cadmium, chromium and cobalt and the bright light producing argon and neon. The Earth, or ‘rare earths’ elements are more recently won from the ground, the likes of scandium, strontium and yttrium, unsung but increasingly useful in modern industrial processes. These are just examples - there are of course over a hundred to go at, and he covers them all.

Although the chemical properties are covered, of more interest to the lay reader are the cultural references that have attached themselves – how they arose and are perpetuated independent of updated scientific reality.

Another interesting strand of the book is the human stories behind the discoveries made; the search to fill the gaps predicted by the periodic tabulation and the research into the chemistry and physics behind its organisation.

The trends and fashions in naming new elements is also of interest – Greek & Roman mythology (cerium, promethium), places (germanium, francium, scandium, californium), recently discovered planets (uranium, plutonium), and scientists (einsteinium, rutherfordium, mendelevium).  Geology also gets a look in (mining engineers often at the forefront of discovery) with Samarium.

Aldersey-Williams gets the balance right between science, history, biography, economics and trivia, making for a book packed with interesting information, obscure detail and memorable anecdotes.

The Favourite Game – Leonard Cohen

Read as leg 2 (Montreal Canada) of the Bookpacking reading journey.

Is this highly stylised novel just a curiosity or one only for the musician’s fans? In it we follow the early life of Laurence (Larry) Breavman, through whom Leonard Cohen paints pictures of his own time as a child and young adult in Montreal.

Despite, or because of, his middle class Jewish origins Breavman indulges himself in what the city has to offer. In short chapters, some snappy some lyrical, his boyhood, adolescence and student experiences involve girls, poetry, music and the search for novelty and meaning, often expressed through dialogue with friend and soul mate Krantz.

Relations with women feature throughout. Boyhood fascination with the tragic Bertha and first love Lisa (whose favourite game it was to be flung on to snow, to land crazily and leave bizarre impressions in the drifts) gives way to more long lasting involvement with muses Tamara “whose thighs made him a fetishist of thighs” and then Shell.

He meets and falls at first sight for Shell during an interlude in New York, her back story revealed in some detail as they spend lazy days and nights holed up in an apartment.

In love but never content, Breavman returns to Montreal to take up the offer of a summer camp job with Krantz and we get a more mature view of the City. Here the temptations of the women, still Tamara but also the red headed Patricia, persist and conflict with his enduring need for Shell.

As to be expected from Cohen, the prose is captivating as he finds characteristically unconventional but apt ways to bring to vivid life landscapes, situations and people.

More than a curiosity and more accessible than his poetry, the book is a rewarding read whether or not you are a Leonard Cohen fan.

Red Bones – Ann Cleeves

This is the third of Cleeves’ Shetland series of detective fiction featuring Jimmy Perry, native of the islands despite his Spanish sounding name, which is a relic of the shipwrecked Armada.

This time the action takes place on the island of Whalsay, home of Perez’s sidekick sergeant Sandy Wilson, where a couple of archaeology students are conducting a dig at his grandmother’s croft. Human bones are found; they seem old but their discovery is rapidly followed by a death – accident or murder?

Perez investigates and has to unravel current relationships and hidden secrets within the Wilson family history. Another death occurs; again there is uncertainty as to whether it is suicide or murder, but two bodies and some old bones on a small island look more like enemy action than coincidence.

Perez’s personal life takes a back seat in this book (girlfriend Fran is shipped off to London) but Sandy’s fills the void to maintain the usual balance between human interest and police procedure.

Cleeves is a fine writer of the genre and the story rattles along nicely with its usual sprinkling of Shetland landscape and weather to give an authentic feel to the location.

I have enjoyed all three books read so far, and the series continues, but whether I will return to Shetland for further instalments is unsure. So many books, so little time!

Skippy Dies – Paul Murray

Read as leg 1 (Dublin, Ireland) of my "Bookpacking" reading journey.

Dublin’s exclusive Seabrook College for Boys is the setting for this close examination of events in one tumultuous autumn term. The action takes place in the parallel worlds of the masters and the pupils who meet physically in class but have little notion of what is really happening in each other’s lives.

The adult thread of the story centres on Howard “the coward” Fallon, like many of teachers a Seabrook old boy, back in the fold after a failed career in finance. His issues, apart from trying to promote in his class an interest in history, include: a long held feeling of guilt arising from a tragic event from his days as a pupil; the siren attraction of newly arrived temporary teacher Miss Aurelie McIntyre; and the unwelcome attention of acting (and would-be permanent) headteacher Greg Costigan, whose mission it is to modernise the school and wrest control away from the historic grip of the Holy Paracletan fathers.

Howard’s problems pale into insignificance against those of his second year class; their issues span the chaotic spectrum of early adolescence. Skippy (aka Daniel Juster) is the quiet boarder who unwittingly binds together a diverse set of friends including: roommate Ruprecht van Doren, bookish would-be intellectual who is obsessed with the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence in a multi-dimensional universe; Dennis Hoey, the cynic; Mario Bianchi, the self-appointed expert on sex; and straight man Geoff Sproke, whose bit part role in life is defined by him playing the triangle in the Van Doren quartet.

Though quiet and inoffensive, Skippy has his problems too – at home and in the swimming team – and is most comfortable in the alternate reality provided by the ‘Hopeland’ computer game. However that takes a back seat when, through Ruprecht’s telescope, he espies and immediately falls for an unknown girl he sees playing Frisbee in the adjacent St Brigid’s School for Girls.

Lorelei Wakeham (her of the Frisbee) has her own demons. In common with most of her schoolmates she is concerned (in her case needlessly) over body image, and has been drawn into the misuse of prescription drugs as ‘slimming pills’. These are procured and peddled by two older boys at Seabrook, entrepreneur Barry and hard man Carl. Carl also has designs on Lorelei, and has the leverage to obtain sexual favours that Skippy could only dream of.

Things come to a head for both Howard and Skippy at the Halloween Ball when St Brigid’s come to play. Howard and Aurelie are to chaperone the event; Lorelei will be there; the punch will be spiked; and several die will be irrevocably cast. Skippy may die, but not quietly, and his influence continues to affect the lives of the others.

It is a sprawling six hundred page roller coaster of a book. Paul Murray takes a scatter gun to numerous themes and nails most of them. The narration switches from character to character with good effect, providing not only humour and tragedy but also no little insight into the human condition. A recommended read.