Recent Reviews

4 January 2009 (502 words)

The Turnpike Road System in England 1663-1840 (William Albert)
- development, administration, finance; repair and transport costs

3 January 2009 (220)

The Lecture (Lydie Salvayre)
- a comic extravaganza of a monologue

1 January 2009 (257)

*Aboriginal Art (Wally Caruana)
- brief description and analysis of 200 works, with photographs

23 December 2008 (457)

Lords and Lemurs (Alison Jolly)
Mad Scientists, Kings with Spears, and the Survival of Diversity in Madagascar

10 December 2008 (333)

War Trash (Ha Jin)
- the story of a Chinese prisoner-of-war in Korea

8 December 2008 (755)

Artificial Sunshine (Maureen Dillon)
A Social History of Domestic Lighting

29 November 2008 (346)

Outlaws of the Marsh (Shi Nai'an, Luo Guanzhong)
- an abridgement of the classic Chinese novel

21 November 2008 (278)

*Soul of the Desert (Philippa Nikulinsky, Stephen D Hopper)
- botanical and zoological illustrations from Australian deserts

15 November 2008 (521)

Development Economics (Debraj Ray)
- a textbook survey

10 November 2008 (454)

Much Sounding of Bugles (John Harris)
The Siege of Chitral, 1895

2 November 2008 (230)

Kipling Stories (Rudyard Kipling)
Twenty-eight Exciting Tales by the Master Storyteller

1 November 2008 (291)

Uncommon People (Eric Hobsbawm)
Resistance, Rebellion, and Jazz

22 October 2008 (623)

The Anatomy of Fascism (Robert O. Paxton)
- a historical approach

11 October 2008 (250)

The Truth About the Savolta Case (Eduardo Mendoza)
- violence and intrigue in 1918 Barcelona

2 October 2008 (361)

Violence in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 (Julius R. Ruff)
- a wide-ranging survey

28 September 2008 (274)

*Reads Like a Novel (Daniel Pennac)
- teaching and learning a love of reading

20 September 2008 (528)

Germany in Transit (Deniz Göktürk, David Gramling, Anton Kaes)
Nation and Migration 1955-2005

4 September 2008 (430)

Book of the Three Dragons (Kenneth Morris)
- a fantasy based on medieval Welsh stories

28 August 2008 (301)

In Search of Kazakhstan (Christopher Robbins)
The Land that Disappeared

27 August 2008 (230)

For Bread Alone (Mohamed Choukri)
- a bleak childhood and youth in Morocco

21 August 2008 (217)

The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds (John Bowlby)
A Secure Base (John Bowlby)

16 August 2008 (491)

Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction (John Rieder)
- explorations in the ideological background of early sf

10 August 2008 (338)

Death Comes for the Archbishop (Willa Cather)
- a novel of the Catholic Church in 19th century New Mexico

29 July 2008 (590)

*Infinite Tropics (Andrew Berry)
An Alfred Russel Wallace Anthology

27 July 2008 (130)

Tainted Blood (Arnaldur Indridason)
- an Icelandic murder mystery

25 July 2008 (266)

What We Know About Childcare (Clarke-Stewart, Allhusen)
- a survey of research into childcare in the United States

16 July 2008 (282)

The Logic of Life (Tim Harford)
Uncovering the New Economics of Everything

14 July 2008 (729)

The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump (Sandra Hempel)
John Snow and the Mystery of Cholera

2 July 2008 (240)

*The Prince (Hushang Golshiri)
- a dark novel about the Qajari lords of Isfahan

30 June 2008 (591)

American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century (Bruce L. Gardner)
How it Flourished and What it Cost

25 June 2008 (912)

*The History of the Countryside (Oliver Rackham)
The classic history of Britain's landscape, flora and fauna

15 June 2008 (801)

Maize and Grace (James C. McCann)
Africa's Encounter with a New World Crop 1500-2000

11 June 2008 (112)

The Laughing Policeman (Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö)
- a mass murder mystery set in 1967 Stockholm

9 June 2008 (318)

Banana (Dan Koeppel)
The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World

3 June 2008 (516)

King of Infinite Space (Siobhan Roberts)
Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry

29 May 2008 (243)

*The First World War (Hew Strachan)
A New Illustrated History

26 May 2008 (351)

Fatelessness (Imre Kertesz)
- a teenager in Buchenwald concentration camp

19 May 2008 (973)

**A Fragile Balance (Christopher Dickman)
The extraordinary story of Australian marsupials

16 May 2008 (140)

Baikal (Peter Matthiessen)
Sacred Sea of Siberia

3 May 2008 (546)

Allah is Not Obliged (Ahmadou Kourouma)
- the story of a child soldier in West Africa

30 April 2008 (720)

Sheep and Man (M.L. Ryder)
- a comprehensive study of sheep in human history

22 April 2008 (512)

Blockade Diary (Lidiya Ginzburg)
- life during the siege of Leningrad

Full chronological listing (long)