Scireadr will have its first meeting tomorrow night. We’ll be discussing A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. I’ve never taken part in a book club like this before, so I’m preparing. I don’t have answers. I don’t know if I need answers, what I need are questions so I’m making some notes [...]
Note: Giulio Magli was one of the examiners of my thesis, so his book is hardly likely to get a bad review. This review rounds off a trilogy to go with Skywatchers, Shamans and Kings and People and the Sky. Like the other two books this could be said to be part of a World [...]
I could draw up quite a list of people who won’t like this book. I certainly disagree with a few of the author’s characterisations of archaeology. Despite (or even because?) of this it’s a challenging and engaging view of the development of archaeology in the UK.
In short, the best archaeopolitics book I’ve read since Edward Fox’s Sacred Geography. I was kindly sent a review copy by the publishers and I have a feeling that they were hoping for a bit more than that, so I’ll add a bit more. It’s subtitled “The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient [...]
Michael E. Smith is looking for what you think are the best new archaeology books. It made me realise that this year I don’t think I’ve really taken much time out to read for pleasure.
On Deep History and the Brain by Daniel Lord Smail shows that there is a place for ‘Neurohistory’ and that some basic assumptions in history have remained unchallenged despite decades of advances in related fields.
The God Delusion. Photo (cc) somefool. I bought this a while ago when it came out in paperback because Sainsbury’s had it on special offer. I’ve read it, but haven’t commented on it for a few reasons. Partly because I seem to have bought a faulty copy. The God Delusion is a vicious angry screed [...]
Photo (cc) Analog Photos. Phil sent me a link to the Amazon UK page for the new book by Richard Littlejohn. He’s a hack for the Daily Mail, a news organisation that makes Fox News look fair and balanced, so I thought that Phil’s recent trip to Syria had left him with mental trauma. Not [...]
I did have some qualms about reviewing this book before it arrived. It’s a free review copy, so I was wondering what to do if it turned out to be awful. I tend not to write negative reviews if I can help it, unless something is surprisingly bad, because I prefer to spend my time [...]
Why read? These days it’s mainly work. This in contrast was for pleasure, and it is a pleasure. I’ve has this for a while but I haven’t written a review because I wanted to be able to refer back to the book as I wrote – and I mislaid it. The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas [...]