Book 1 - Melvin Bragg "The Adventures of English"

Melvin Bragg "The Adventures of English" (Hodder & Stoughton)






In scholarly and lively fashion, Bragg traces the development of the English language from the first arrival here of Germanic tribes, and Anglo-Saxon scripts, to `coca-colonisation' and texting, taking in on the way literature, dialects. accents, bowdlerisation, class, international influences, industry, sci/tech, the internet.

Some apposite quotes are irresistible. As Norman French came to dominate the language in the 13th century `There was, however, a fifth column: English women (through intermarriage); in the 16th century `Poetry became the benchmark for English'; with the rise of Jane Austen, `An unofficial academy of language was developed through the novel'; `Mrs Beeton could not bring herself to write the word "trousers"'. There are beautiful illustrations, from early manuscripts to phorographs of jazz, jitterbugging and Singaporean comics.
A long and fascinating read for lovers of the language.

Book 2 - John Suchet "The Classic FM Friendly Guide to Beethoven"

John Suchet "The Classic FM Friendly Guide to Beethoven" (Hodder & Stoughton)




This is a good introduction to the composer and his music. It covers the cultural background and his approach to music in a very easy to read and clear manner. I do not know why I struggled to get through it around the festive season and the few weeks before. I had a definite funk and my reading mojo had dissipated.

So, apart from my problem at thh time, if you know little or nothing about Beethoven , this small paperback of 252 pages is a good place to start, with a CD attached of some of the composer's highlights.

Book 3 - Lewis Dartnell "Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History"

Lewis Dartnell "Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History" (Vintage)






Starting with the hypothesis that humans developed the way we did in East Africa due to the climate created by the Great Rift Valley - a drying out of the land leading to the forest being replaced by savanna, amongst other factors - through the forces that raised mountains from which flowed rivers, depositing mineral rich alluvial soils in Mesopotamia and the Indus and Nile valleys, enabling the development of agriculture - extending this to show how voting patterns in US elections closely match the areas where African slaves were brought to farm cotton, and still have large black populations; how these geological forces allowed civilisation to flourish on the North and East coasts of the Mediterranean rather than the South; how the patterns of wind and ocean currents enabled European expansion and colonisation; how geological processes have given us the materials to build structures, make our technology and power our civilisations.

His arguments are well made and convincing, although sometimes written a little simplistically - an indication of this is that the footnotes sprinkled throughout the text are of the ‘fascinating aside’ variety, but I found most to be those I’d consider common knowledge. Perhaps that’s simply as I’m someone who reads quite a lot of this type of thing, of course, and a reader newer to the subject may get more out of these.

Overall, a great overview of how the unimaginably long and powerful processes of geology shape not only our world, but us as a species.