Arthur C. Clarke

1953

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An entirely unexpected take on alien invasion. The aliens come, take over – and then allow humanity to proceed as its wants, without revealing themselves or really taking much control at all. Why? What are they hiding? And how is it that, when they do reveal themselves, they look so familiar?

The reasons are all thought out with the rigour and open-endedness you'd expect from Arthur C. Clarke. The very fact that he can build such a narrative is a testament to his abilities as a world-creator, with an ability to pose questions and then not answer them definitively without this spoiling the enjoyment of the story.

4/5. Finished 16 October 2022.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Jeremy Farrar

2021

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I wonder if this book was too early: were we sufficiently out of the coronavirus pandemic to assess it and our healthcare systems' abilities to deal with it? Perhaps. But this is a good look at the early days from the perspective of the Wellcome Trust, one of the world's biggest medical charities.

4/5. Finished 16 October 2022.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Patrick Radden Keefe

2021

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If there was ever a story that demonstrated one rule for the rich and another for the poor, this is it.

The Sackler dynasty has had a huge social prominence, with its name adorning university medical research institutes and wings of art galleries. The wealth all came from selling oxycontin, one of the most potent painkillers available and a boon to many with chronic pain. Their innovation was to own the company that developed a slow-release mechanism to allow a morphine derivative to be delivered orally. All this is a great service to humanity.

But... In Keefe's telling, the way oxycontin was sold made no attempt to ensure that it wasn't being over-prescribed or abused, and indeed targeted doctor and pharmacists who were clearly off-loading more pills that their communities could possibly need. And it's hard to believe that the company didn't know this, given that they'd also been early investors in medical information collection and analysis that could spot such patterns. The rest of the story degenerates into legal wranglings designed to keep the Sackler name out of any court decisions and away from personal blame.

It's a troubling history that taints what should have been a clear and welcome medical breakthrough by the search for enormous profits by any means.

5/5. Finished 16 October 2022.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Tamsin Calidas

2020

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Moving to an island is many people's dream (including mine). This is a cautionary tale of the challenges, both inflicted and self-inflicted.

Calidas and her then-husband took the hardest possible route, leaving London to start crofting with sheep and horses. That's a challenge at any time, but when utterly separated and with no friends or relative nearby it becomes almost impossible. The hostility from the locals varies in intensity from indifference to outright abuse, running into assumptions of who is "allowed" on the island and under what circumstances – a situation that becomes worse when her marriage breaks down and she nevertheless stays and attempts to make things work, something that no-one (including the local women) expects, understands, or supports.

Times change. The later parts of the book show her almost accepted and with a new influx of islanders who are less ... well, insular than the original inhabitants.

It's hard to decide what to take from this book. For a start, it's unclear how much of the hostility was triggered by Calidas and her husband themselves, not understanding the local sensibilities (although of course it's also hard to know how they'd've learned them). A lot of the tension comes from their efforts at crofting: running a shop would have been easier and perhaps less threatening to others, who felt their life was being intruded-into. But it's also an indication that moving from anonymous city life to a tiny community means adapting to a way of life that normalises surveillance and comment, and makes it difficult to remain aloof.

3/5. Finished 16 October 2022.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Darren McGarvey

2022

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A troubling tale of disaffection between classes in Britain – it's resolute in its class-based analysis, despite how out of fashion that is, and after reading this book it's difficult to disagree. That makes it an uncomfortable read for any middle-class person, since it's the middle class who takes the brunt of Garvey's assignment of blame. By allowing the working class to be demonised, and by allowing the creation of a benefits and support environment at least as "hostile" as that facing immigrants, the stage has been set for a breach between people that allows everyone to be manipulated by those in power.

All this came about (in Garvey's telling – and I have to agree to a large extent) because social mixing across class lines has collapsed, leaving groups in echo chambers that exclude views that might challenge their established beliefs. And indeed it's hard to think of counter-examples, beyond perhaps sporting and music events (and even they are now segregated by ticket price).

There are some very uncomfortable ideas in this book, and for that reason it should be recommended for everyone in Britain wanting a challenging explanation of how we find ourselve in our current predicament.

4/5. Finished 16 October 2022.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)