Top 5:Books:Books I meant to read in 2024

Published on by Margaret9 Comments

Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm, and it is now being hosted by Meeghan at Meeghan Reads. For details of all of the latest prompts for October to December, see Meeghan’s post here.

Today the topic is Books I meant to read in 2024. There are so many books I would have loved to read this year but haven’t – yet. These five are nonfiction, because I mainly read fiction and forget to look at my nonfiction TBRs.

Highland Journey: a Sketching Tour of Scotland by Mairi Hedderwick

In Highland Journey Mairi Hedderwick retraces the steps of an obscure Victorian artist, John T. Reid, who made a sketching tour around Scotland in 1876. Hedderwick, a witty and immensely readable author of children’s books, achieves so much more than simply following in Reid’s footsteps; wonderfully realised, her quest becomes obsessional at times as she struggles to understand her mentor and guide with whom she shares a passion to conserve Scotland’s wild places and record them faithfully with exquisite illustration and insightful comment. I love her paintings.

Square Hunting: Five Women, Freedom and London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade

Mecklenburgh Square, on the radical fringes of interwar Bloomsbury, was home to activists, experimenters and revolutionaries; among them were the modernist poet H. D., detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and writer and publisher Virginia Woolf. They each alighted there seeking a space where they could live, love and, above all, work independently.

Francesca Wade’s spellbinding group biography explores how these trailblazing women pushed the boundaries of literature, scholarship, and social norms, forging careers that would have been impossible without these rooms of their own.

Plenty: a memoir of food and family by Hannah Howard

Hannah shares difficult moments along her foodie journey, such as when her joy for food is dimmed by an eating disorder. She also opens up about her struggle to start a family in an industry that takes her around the world and into the lives of people worldwide who help bring food to our tables. Their personal stories of love, discovery, and passion for food as a means of nourishing and connecting us all is a reminder that we’re all on the same journey.

Plenty is a love letter to the enterprising farmers, vintners, cheesemakers, baristas, and food people everywhere who have felt a calling to this community. Bon appétit!

Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to Happiness: funny, personal and meditative essays about happiness from a national treasure 

Comedian, musician & Strictly Come Dancing winner Bill Bailey brings a welcome breath of fresh air to our troubled times.
Bailey admits he doesn’t have the key to happiness, but in this book he does suggest plenty of ways to help you on the way. He covers topics as wide ranging as art, singing & playing crazy golf. The chapter in which he discusses a visit to an American zoo is hysterical, especially when he describes how difficult it is to refuse someone trying to give him something free when he buys his lunch.
Bill Bailey may not have the answer to happiness, but his book certainly made me laugh.

The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Survive and Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine Aron

Do you have a keen imagination and vivid dreams? Is time alone each day as essential to you as food and water? Are you “too shy” or “too sensitive” according to others? Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you? If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).

Most of us feel overstimulated every once in a while, but for the HSP, it’s a way of life. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Elaine Aron, a clinical psychologist, workshop leader, and an HSP herself, shows you how to identify this trait in yourself and make the most of it in everyday situations. Drawing on her many years of research and hundreds of interviews, she shows how you can better understand yourself and your trait to create a fuller, richer life.

Nonfiction November:Week 5 – New to my TBR

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Throughout the month of November, bloggers Liz, Frances, Heather,  Rebekah and Deb invite you to celebrate Nonfiction November with us.

Week 5 (11/25-11/29) New To My TBR:  It’s been a month full of amazing nonfiction books! Which ones have made it onto your TBR? Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book! (Deb)

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed taking part in Nonfiction November and there are so many fascinating books I could easily add to my TBR list. But I know my limitations, so these are my choices. I’ve listed them in A – Z title order:

Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History by Moudhy Al-Rashid from Stephanie @ Bookfever. Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time. Historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid brings us closer to this ancient past and the lives of the people who lived in this extraordinary society.

Bibliomaniac: An Obsessive’s Tour of the Bookshops of Britain by Robin Ince – from Liz @ Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home. In Autumn 2021, Robin Ince’s stadium tour with Professor Brian Cox was postponed due to the pandemic. Rather than do nothing, he decided he would instead go on a tour of over a hundred bookshops, from Wigtown to Penzance; from Swansea to Margate. Packed with witty anecdotes and tall tales, Bibliomaniac takes the reader on a journey across Britain as Robin explores his lifelong love of bookshops and books – and also tries to find out just why he can never have enough of them.

The Diet Myth by Tim Spector – from Annabel @ Annabookbel. Professor Tim Spector demystifies the common misconceptions about fat, calories, vitamins and nutrients. Only by understanding what makes our own personal microbes tick can we overcome the confusion of modern nutrition, and achieve a healthy gut and a healthy body.

Endurance: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Legendary Ship by John Shears & Nico Vincent – from Stephanie @ Bookfever. In March 2022, an international polar expedition team made an astonishing find: the wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s legendary Endurance, lost in 1915 after being crushed by ice and then swallowed by the Weddell Sea. The harrowing story of Shackleton’s survival and rescue of all 27 men aboard is well known, but the ship has lain unseen for a century, 10,000 feet underwater—until now. The vessel remains incredibly intact, as crystal-clear photography and digital scans from the expedition reveal.

The Fat of the Land by John Seymour – from Liz @ Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home. I have The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency by John Seymour, a pioneer of self-sufficiency, first published in 1976, a handbook to living off the land. Years earlier, Seymour had written and published The Fat of the Land, telling of how he and his family settled in Suffolk and began a life entirely separate from the modern world. This new edition comes complete with Sally Seymour’s original illustrations, a foreword by Anne Seymour and a new introduction by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Gut by Gloria Enders – from Annabel @Annabookbel. For too long, the gut has been the body’s most ignored and least appreciated organ, but it turns out that it’s responsible for more than just dirty work: our gut is at the core of who we are. Gut, an international bestseller, gives the alimentary canal its long-overdue moment in the spotlight. Giulia Enders explains the gut’s magic, answering questions like: Why does acid reflux happen? What’s really up with gluten and lactose intolerance? How does the gut affect obesity and mood? Communication between the gut and the brain is one of the fastest-growing areas of medical research—on par with stem-cell research. Our gut reactions, we learn, are intimately connected with our physical and mental well-being.

In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein by Fiona Sampson. From Frances @ Volatine Rune. Fiona Sampson sifts through letters, diaries and records to find the real Mary Shelley. She uncovers a complex, generous character – friend, intellectual, lover and mother – trying to fulfil her own passionate commitment to writing at a time when to be a woman writer was an extraordinary and costly anomaly. Published for the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, this is a major new work of biography by a prize-winning writer and poet.

Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, edited by Jehad Abusalim, Jennifer Bing, and Mike Merryman-Lotze – From Rebekah @ She Seeks Nonfiction. This is a moving and wide-ranging anthology of Palestinian writers and artists. It constitutes a collective effort to organize and center Palestinian voices in the ongoing struggle and imagines what the future of Gaza could be, while reaffirming the critical role of Gaza in Palestinian identity, history, and struggle for liberation.

Two Way Mirror: The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Fiona Sampson. From Frances @ Volatine Rune. This vividly written biography, incorporates recent archival discoveries to reveal the woman herself: a literary giant and a high-profile activist for the abolition of slavery who believed herself to be of mixed heritage; and a writer who defied chronic illness and long-term disability to change the course of cultural history. It holds up a mirror to the woman, her art – and the art of biography itself.

Patronage by Maria Edgeworth: Book Beginnings & The Friday 56

Published on by Margaret9 Comments

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring Patronage by Maria Edgeworth. This is one of my TBRs and I meant to include it in my Top Ten Tuesday post this week. Maria Edgeworth (1768 – 1849) was a contemporary of Jane Austen, publishing novels at the same time – Patronage was published just 5 months before Mansfield Park in 1814.

From the back cover:

Patronage was one of the most eagerly anticipated novels of Jane Austen’s day. It sold out within hours of publication.… an adventurous soap opera about the trials and fortunes of two neighbouring families in Regency England, both of which had sons and daughters setting out in the world. … a bright and mischievous critique of the way young men gained careers and young women gained husbands.

It begins:

‘How the wind is rising!’ said Rosamond. ‘God help the poor people at sea tonight!’

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

‘I hope, with all my heart, I hope,’ continued Rosamond, that Buckhurst will have some sense and steadfastness to refuse, but I heard his father supporting that foolish Colonel Hauton’s persuasions and urging his poor son to go with those people to Cheltenham.

Description from the publisher:

Meet the Percys and Falconers, neighbouring families, each with three sons and two daughters to launch into Regency society. The hardworking, independently minded and dutiful Percys are happy to work their way up in the world but are undermined by their scheming rivals who use Patronage to grab at instant fame and fortune. With their sons eased into lucrative but ill-suited diplomatic and clerical jobs, and their daughters bankrupting themselves to scale the heights of fashion, the Falconers are heading for a tumble; while the moral steadiness and strong family ties of the Percys allow them to attain both the heights of their chosen professions and a glittering match.

Nonfiction November:Week 4- Mind Openers

Published on by Margaret12 Comments

Throughout the month of November, bloggers Liz, Frances, Heather,  Rebekah and Deb invite you to celebrate Nonfiction November with us.

Week 4 (11/18-11/22) Mind Openers: One of the greatest things about reading nonfiction is the way it can open your eyes to the world around you—no plane ticket required. What nonfiction book or books have impacted the way you see the world in a powerful way? Is there one book that made you rethink everything? Is there a book that, if everyone read it, you think the world would be a better place? (Rebekah)

Ultra Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … And Why Can’t We Stop? by Chris van Tulleken, who has impressed me on numerous TV programmes on diet and nutrition.

About the Author: ‘He is an infectious diseases doctor at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London. He trained at Oxford and has a PhD in molecular virology from University College London where he is an Associate Professor. His research focuses on how corporations affect human health, especially in the context of child nutrition, and he works with UNICEF and the World Health Organization in this area. As one of the BBC’s leading broadcasters, his work has won two BAFTAs. He lives in London with his wife and two children.’

I kept hearing about ultra processed food (UPF), but had little idea what exactly it is, so when I saw this book I thought it would be ideal – and it is! It is absolutely fascinating, a real eye opener, and it has changed what I think about what I eat! For a long time I have checked the labels on food packaging without actually realising what all those additives are, nor how the food has been processed. For example it has definitely put me off eating crisps and Pringles. It is shocking!

But it’s not easy to give a simple definition of what UPF is! A very short definition is that ‘if it’s wrapped in plastic and has at least one ingredient that you wouldn’t usually find in a standard home kitchen, it’s UPF.’ (page 5) It’s the processing that is the problem and the additives that are used - such as emulsifiers, flavour enhancers and sweeteners – and it is addictive.

Description from Amazon: An eye-opening investigation into the science, economics, history and production of ultra-processed food.

It’s not you, it’s the food.

We have entered a new ‘age of eating’ where most of our calories come from an entirely novel set of substances called Ultra-Processed Food, food which is industrially processed and designed and marketed to be addictive. But do we really know what it’s doing to our bodies?

Join Chris in his travels through the world of food science and a UPF diet to discover what’s really going on. Find out why exercise and willpower can’t save us, and what UPF is really doing to our bodies, our health, our weight, and the planet (hint: nothing good).

For too long we’ve been told we just need to make different choices, when really we’re living in a food environment that makes it nigh-on impossible. So this is a book about our rights. The right to know what we eat and what it does to our bodies and the right to good, affordable food.

There are chapters on such subjects as why we can’t control what we eat, how our bodies really manage calories and about will power, how UPF hacks our brains, destroys traditional diets and how it is addictive.

I highlighted so much in this book and I think the simplest way of writing about it is to post some of those passages to give you an idea what is in the book that convinced me to cut out eating ultra-processed food (UPF) as much as possible. It’s not easy as so much is now ultra-processed!

Page 5: UPF now (2023) makes up as much as 60% of the average diet in the UK and the USA.

Page 6: a vast body of data has emerged in support of the hypothesis that UPF damages the human body and increases rates of cancer, metabolic disease and mental illness, that it damages human societies by displacing food cultures and driving inequality, poverty and early death, and that it damages the planet.

Page 153 – 154: most UPF is reconstructed from whole food that has been reduced to its basic molecular constituents which are then modified and re-assembled into food-like shapes and textures and then heavily salted, sweetened, coloured and flavoured. … without additives these base industrial ingredients would probably not be recognisable as food by your tongue and brain: ‘It would be almost like eating dirt’.

Page 189: the basic construction materials of UPF are industrially modified carbs, fats and proteins, and the processes they are put through remove all the chemical complexity. The intensity of ultra-processing means that vitamins are destroyed (or deliberately removed in the case of bleaching), fibre is reduced, and there’s a loss of functional molecules like polyphenols. The result is lots of calories but very little other nutrition. … we may be eating more food to compensate for becoming increasingly deficient in micronutrients. … modern diets lead to malnutrition even as they cause obesity.

I could go on and on, but read this book and see for yourself if it makes you think about what you are actually eating. It is a brilliant book!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on my TBR list with the Earliest Publishing Dates

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For the rules see her blog.

This week’s topic is Books on my TBR list with the earliest publishing dates.

The IIiad by Homer – in the 8th century B.C., around 750 B.C, telling the story of the Trojan War

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra – 1605 and 1615

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe – 1722

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift – 1726

Waverley by Sir Walter Scott – 1814

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens – 1837

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell – 1848

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell – 1855

The House by the Churchyard by Sheridan Le Fanu – 1861

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky – 1869

Nonfiction November:Week 3 – Book Pairings

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

Throughout the month of November, bloggers Liz, Frances, Heather,  Rebekah and Deb invite you to celebrate Nonfiction November with us.

Week 3 (11/11-11/15) Book Pairings: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. Maybe it’s a historical novel and the real history in a nonfiction version, or a memoir and a novel, or a fiction book you’ve read and you would like recommendations for background reading. Or two books on two different areas have chimed and have a link. You can be as creative as you like! (Liz)

Liz further clarifies in her Pairings post:  ‘I offer a mix of fiction/nonfiction pairs, fiction/nonfiction/memoir sets and nonfiction/nonfiction.’

After the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 I decided I needed to know more about what had led up to it. And I found lots of books, including these:

Nonfiction/Fiction – I’m aiming to write more about these books in due course.

Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs And Jews In Palestine And Israel, 1917-2017 by Ian Black (nonfiction)

This is an extremely detailed chronological account of events in this conflict from the years from 1882 preceding the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to 2017. Ian Black was a British journalist who worked for The Guardian holding the posts of diplomatic editor and Europe editor as well as Middle East editor. I’m quoting from his obituary in January 2023: ‘he embodied the correspondent’s duty to show fairness to both parties. That refusal to reinforce the narrative of one side alone informed his writing on the Israel-Palestine conflict from the start.’ So I thought this could be a good place to start. And as far as I can tell it is an unbiased and factual account,with many references to Black’s sources, and it took me a long time to read it. In the Preface Black states:

It tries to tell the story of, and from both sides, and of the fateful interactions between them. … This book is intended for the general reader … It is based on a synthesis of existing scholarship and secondary sources: primary research covering the entire 135-year history is far beyond the capability of any one author. Specialised publications like the Journal of Palestine Studies, Israel Studies, and the Jerusalem Quarterly are vital resources.

I learnt a lot that I hadn’t known before, but I decided I still needed to know more and next I bought:

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know by Dov Waxman (nonfiction), which I’m still reading.

Dov Waxman is the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair of Israel Studies at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the director of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. His research focuses on the conflict over Israel-Palestine, Israeli politics and foreign policy, U.S.-Israel relations, American Jewry’s relationship with Israel, Jewish politics, and contemporary antisemitism. He frequently gives media interviews and public talks on these topics. (Taken from his website).

This book is more readable than Black’s and is written as a series of questions and answers covering the conflict from its nineteenth-century origins up to the present day (2019). It explains the key events, examines the core issues, and presents the competing claims and narratives of both sides. In the Preface Waxman states he has tried

to present the different perspectives and narratives of Israelis and Palestinians and avoid ‘playing the blame game’. … Neither side is wholly innocent or completely guilty, and both have legitimate rights and needs.

Out of It: a novel about Israel, Palestine and Family by Selma Dabbagh, fiction.

Selma Dabbagh is a British-Palestinian writer and lawyer. Her 2011 debut novel, Out of It was nominated for a Guardian Book of the Year award in 2011 and 2012 and is one of The Guardian’s list of five best books to explain the Israel-Palestine conflict.

I haven’t read this. I saw it reviewed in The Guardian. It’s set in Gaza City during the Second Intifada in the 2000s. It’s about the Mujahed family, chronicling their hopes and dreams as well as their suffering.

Blurb from Amazon:

Gaza is being bombed. Rashid – an unemployed twenty-seven year

old who has stayed up smoking grass watching it happen – wakes to hear that he’s got the escape route he’s been waiting for: a scholarship to London. His twin sister, Iman – frustrated by the atrocities and inaction around her – has also been up all night, in a meeting that offers her nothing but more disappointment. Grabbing recklessly at an opportunity to make a difference, she finds herself being followed by an unknown fighter.

Meanwhile Sabri, the oldest brother of this disparate family, works on a history of Palestine from his wheelchair as their mother pickles vegetables and feuds with the neighbours.

Written with extraordinary humanity and humour, and moving between Gaza, London and the Gulf, Out of It is a tale that redefines Palestine and its people. It follows the lives of Rashid and Iman as they try to forge paths for themselves in the midst of occupation, religious fundamentalism and the divisions between Palestinian factions. It tells of family secrets, unlikely love stories and unburied tragedies as it captures the frustrations and energies of the modern Arab world.

To the End of the Land by David Grossman, translated by Jessica Cohen (fiction) – another book I haven’t read.

David Grossman is one of the leading Israeli writers of his generation, and the author of numerous works of fiction, non-fiction, and children’s literature. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, and been translated into twenty-five languages around the world. He lives on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Description from Fantastic Fiction:

Ora is about to celebrate her son Ofer’s release from Israeli army service when he voluntarily rejoins. In a fit of magical thinking, she takes off to hike in the Galilee, leaving no forwarding information for the ‘notifiers’ who might deliver the worst news a parent can hear. Recently estranged from her husband, she drags along an unlikely companion: their once best friend Avram, who was tortured as a POW during the Yom Kippur War and, in his brokenness, refused to ever know the boy or even to keep in touch with them.

Now, as they hike, Ora unfurls the story of her motherhood and initiates the lonely Avram in the drama of the human family – a telling that keeps Ofer alive for both his mother and the reader. Her story places the most hideous trials of war alongside the daily joys and anguish of raising children: never have we seen so clearly the reality and surreality of daily life in Israel, the currents of ambivalence about war within one household, the burdens that fall on each generation anew.

Grossman’s rich imagining of a family in love and crisis makes for one of the great antiwar novels of our time.