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| Water matters |
10. Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind by Brian Fagan (Bloomsbury Press)
What it says on the bottle – an
accessible account of how various past civilisations engineered water sources
to irrigate their crops, flush away their shit, supply themselves with drink
and, when supplies were abundant enough, prettify their gardens and public
spaces. Being mankind, though, we’re on the way to exhausting our natural
supplies through illogical idiocy like too many golf courses, gardens and
swimming pools in places like California, Phoenix, Texas and Arizona, resulting
in a chronically cost-ineffective use of energy and precious H2O. Sample quote: “The Owens River turned
Los Angeles into a megalopolis, located in an arid landscape where, by the
rules of common sense, no city should ever stand. Los Angeles hefts enough
political clout to capture any river within 600 miles. Today, the city receives
water not only from the Owens River but also via aqueducts from the Colorado
River and the California Aqueduct, which runs from the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta to Lake Perris, in Riverside County, 444 miles to the south.”
9. Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy by John Julius Norwich (Random House)
This is an objective but
entertaining chronological rundown of everyone who’s ever claimed to be Pope,
how they got there, and what they did when adorned with the office of the
Papacy. It wasn’t always good and godly things, you know. Sample quote: “Hadrian’s successor, John VIII (872-882), was at
least energetic, but he also had the dubious distinction of being the first
pope to be assassinated – and, worse, still, by priests from his own entourage.
According to the Annals of the Abbey of
Fulda, they first gave him poison; then, when this failed to act quickly
enough, they hammered in his skull. The enthronement of his successor, Marinus
I, in 882 is said to have been marked by the murder of a high Roman dignitary,
that of Hadrian III two years later by the victim’s widow being whipped naked
through the streets. On Hadrian’s death on his way to Germany in 885 foul play
was also suspected. The next two popes, Stephen V and Formosus, died in their
beds,
