In Yoga for People who Can’t be Bothered to do it, Geoff Dyer staggered through an autobiography of adventures, all of which “really happened, but some of the things only happened in my head”. Essentially, Dyer describes incredible experiences around the world but laces descriptions of them with profound bathos, either by pointing out their intrinsic absurdity or by drawing unflattering comparisons to humdrum daily life. I very much enjoyed this, and found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion. The careful balance between earnestness and knowing humour was very well judged and really tickled me. And every now and then, there were sparklingly brilliant passages. I particularly enjoyed the exhortation: “It’s all about moderation. Everything in moderation. Even moderation itself. From this it follows that you must, from time to time, have excess. And this is going to be one of those occasions.” (Amazon | Goodreads)

Graham Norton, of chat show fame, recently published Holding, a witty and engaging novel describing the aftermath of a body being found in a sleepy Irish village. I wouldn’t have guessed this was by Graham Norton if his name wasn’t on the cover, and I wouldn’t have guessed it was a first novel. The characters were endearing, and the plot was relatively pacey while still allowing space for carefully observed description, in equal parts wry and touching. The resolution of the main plot was a bit disappointingly ‘crime novel by numbers’ and didn’t tonally fit with the rest of the book, but I enjoyed reading this nonetheless. (Amazon | Goodreads)

In Messy, Tim Harford gave a spirited defence of messiness, suggesting that it is undervalued. Each chapter discussed at a different aspect of ‘messiness’, from musical and oratorical improvisation, to workplace design, to email inboxes. I remained unconvinced that these were all facets of the same thing – some of the similarities seemed a bit tenuous – but it seems oddly forgivable for a book about messiness to be a bit messy when it comes to taxonomy. There’s even a section in the book about messy taxonomies. As someone who has previously enjoyed Marie Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying-Up” (or “The Life-Changing Magic of Throwing Out All Your Stuff” as Harford re-christens it), I particularly enjoyed Harford’s skewering of it. I also appreciated that Harford acknowledged that there are places for order and tidiness in the world, including places where it is absolutely required. (Amazon | Goodreads)

On Liberty was Shami Chakrabarti’s autobiography of her professional life, concentrating mainly on her time at campaigning organisation Liberty. In it, she discusses many of the pressures that come with occupying legal posts in the Government and in the third sector, and offers genuine insight into how law is practised in these different settings. I really enjoyed these bits of the book. Overall, though, I was disappointed that the book turned out not to be quite the masterclass I had hoped for. I struggled to see the moral consistency between Chakrabarti’s positions on a number of issues, and felt that the arguments were sometimes overly dismissive of the democracy they claimed to defend. But still, the book made a passionate and detailed case, and was probably worth reading anyway. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Jon Ronson’s The Elephant in the Room was a very funny feature-length article sold as a short book, in which Ronson profiled the Trump presidential campaign. I read this just before the election. I think Ronson’s writing is best when he is discovering hidden absurdity in a world of essential normality, and this account of the Trump campaign doesn’t have any rational, normal characters in it to ground the madness; but maybe that comes with the territory. I’d quite like to see Ronson do something similar about the Trump White House, but it seems doubtful that he’d get access following this artcile! (Amazon | Goodreads)

Jeffrey Archer’s risible seven-book Clifton Chronicles limped to a conclusion with the publication of This Was A Man. Archer reached new heights of absurdity when his own characters rants about his unbelievable dialogue, suggesting “You’d never get away with it in a book”. For future reference, here’s a few other things Archer might want to consider whether he can really “get away with” in a book: small family gatherings routinely breaking into spontaneous applause; taxi drivers repeatedly declining payment because their political views align with those of their passengers; and using your own novel to complain about not being awarded the Booker Prize, which “will never be awarded to a storyteller”. Self-indulgence doesn’t begin to cover it. (Amazon | Goodreads)

A little while ago, someone recommended Glen Weldon’s The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture, saying that interest in Batman was not prerequisite for enjoying it. I can now vouch for this recommendation: I loved the book despite having never read a Batman comic, having never seen a Batman film all the way through, and having only vague memories the “Bam! Pow! Zap!” Batman series on Saturday morning kids’ TV. Despite my lack of prior knowledge, I was won over by Weldon’s fascinating and funny sociocultural history of the development of Batman character over time. The book also gave one of the most coherent and insightful accounts I’ve read of the development of and influence of the internet on nerd culture. I would never have even considered picking up this book if it hadn’t been recommended to me – and yet I very much enjoyed it. (Amazon | Goodreads)

The same can’t be said for I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes, which was 800+ badly written pages of absurd and frankly boring “thriller” plot mired in xenophobia and sexism of type I thought (or maybe hoped) had died out decades ago. As much as the meandering plot centres on anything, it’s about a Saudi terrorist trying to infect the US with genetically modified smallpox through contamination of flu vaccines. Luckily, there’s an all-American retired brilliant super secret agent on the trail. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Old Filth by Jane Gardam was an expertly crafted novel in which Sir Edward Feathers, a retired judge, reflects on the story of his life. An orphan, he seems to feel he never quite fit in anywhere, and doesn’t seem to realise quite how remarkable the events of his life have been. All the while, his acquaintances tend to assume he’s led a rather dull, uneventful life. This was a moving fictional biography which gives an interesting perspective on assumptions people make of their own experiences, and assumptions we all make of others. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Stephen King’s The Green Mile often appears on people’s “must read” lists, so I picked it up. I’ve never seen the film, and beyond sort of broad cultural references, had no idea that it was about the residents of death row at Cold Mountain Penitentiary in the 1930s awaiting execution by electric chair (with a few supernatural phenomena scattered through). I thought this book was drawing a comparison between imperfect criminal justice and imperfect natural justice: in law, as in life, people don’t always get what they deserve. Sometimes bad people thrive and good people suffer. I really enjoyed it on those terms, but reading through other reviews online, most people seem to have a polar opposite interpretation about “pure evil”, so maybe I missed the point. Either way, it was great. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Following Farage was fairly entertaining account by tabloid journalist Owen Bennett of his time following Nigel Farage during the 2015 General Election. While it was entertaining, it dragged a bit at times, and didn’t give any new insight into UKIP as a party. I was also a bit disappointed that Bennett didn’t really explain his motivation to follow Farage, despite even changing jobs to stay on his tail. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Reputations by Juan Gabriel Vásquez is a critically acclaimed novella about a political cartoonist reaching the end of his career. At an event celebrating his life, he meets a young female journalist who he had previously met as a child, when an event pivotal to the novel’s plot occurred. Revisiting ‘the event’ risks the reputations of many of the novel’s characters. The prose is spellbinding, but I thought it was let down by a plot that was hard to follow, very implausible (seven year olds drinking themselves unconscious?!), and unresolved by the ending. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Ian McEwan released his latest novel Nutshell this month. It’s a novel with a crazy premise: the story of a complex parental relationship narrated by a foetus. I found it utterly engaging and infused with humour. For an McEwan novel, there’s also a surprising amount of plot, much of which is fast-paced. McEwan’s masterstroke comes in making the foetus a well educated and utterly pretentious plotter, who sounded to me like a foetal version of Stewie from the Family Guy cartoon series. In what other voice can one read the line, “We wave from the quayside as their little ship of bad intent departs. Bon voyage!” (Amazon | Goodreads)

On the other hand, Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie did nothing for me. I didn’t feel involved with the characters (who all seemed flat and characterless), the humour didn’t tickle me, and the flexible approach to chronology was just a bit wearing. The idea that the school education system is constrained and unworldly is interesting, but the message seemed hammered home rather than developed. Others may consider this a great work of literature, but it just left me a bit cold and bored. (Amazon | Goodreads)

I’m absolutely not a member of the target audience for Mindy Kaling’s Why Not Me?. I have no idea who Laverne Cox is, nor whether “her legs are like whoa”. I have never engaged in a “juice cleanse”. And I would have guessed that a “Tria Clearing Blue Light” was a tool used by crime scene investigators. Despite all that, I found some of the anecdotes genuinely funny, and Kaling’s central message was refreshing: most highly successful people invest a huge, usually underestimated, amount of hard work and sacrifice to achieve that success. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Ed Yong’s I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life was exciting for being one of the first well-researched popular science books on the human microbiome. It contained lots of interesting stuff, much of which was new to me. Unfortunately, the book rambled a bit in places and became hard to follow, became a bit repetitive now and again, and didn’t make a strong distinction between established principles and emerging research. In other words, I enjoyed this book and learned some stuff from it, but think it would have benefited from a bit more editing. (Amazon | Goodreads)

In Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference, William MacAskill argues that when donating time or money to charity, one should maximise the quantifiable benefit to human health and wellbeing, using QALYs or ‘WALYs’ as a measurement. The book contains a lot of good pointers on assessing charity effectiveness, and lists some highly effective underfunded charities. However, MacAskill did very little to address the ‘edge’ questions that this proposition raises, which left his argument feeling underdeveloped and incomplete: How should we compare charities that benefit humans with charities that benefit animals? How should we quantify the benefit of interventions whose longterm outcomes are uncertain? If the aim is to maximise benefit, is there a moral obligation for people to refuse aid if others may benefit more? Is it fair to quantify benefit with measures that implicitly favour the young? Is relief of suffering the only noble aim of charity? Should we all really keep our early career options open rather than pursue eg medicine or law – and if so, what would be the societal impact? (Amazon | Goodreads)

I often enjoy xkcd cartoons, and was intrigued by the premise of xkcd cartoonist Randall Munroe’s book, What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. As the title suggests, Munroe took absurd questions – “How many Lego bricks would it take to build a bridge capable of carrying traffic from London to New York?” or “What would happen if everybody on Earth stood as close as they could and jumped, everyone landing on the ground at the same instant?” – and offered well researched scientific answers. Munroe’s approach weaved scientific principles with humour and panache, and provided me simultaneously with a good laugh and new insights. However, much like xkcd, it occasionally got too geeky (on science fiction themes) for me to follow the jokes. A few errors of fact in areas I’m familiar with made me worry about the accuracy of content that was new to me: for example, Munroe mixed up the stories of the murders of Alexander Litvinenko and Georgi Markov in a most peculiar way. Nonetheless, this book lived up to its clever conceit. (Amazon | Goodreads)

I continued reading Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter series this month by finishing off Dearly Devoted Dexter, a book with a truly ridiculous body-part-littered plot which was so tightly written and infused with such good humour that I enjoyed it nonetheless. It was a worthy sequel to the first book. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Bill Bailey’s Dodgers blew me away: I’ve never read anything quite like it before. The protagonist, East, was introduced as a 15-year-old boy living in a cardboard box in the basement of his drug addict mother’s house in a deprived area of LA. He ran a team of lookouts defending a drug house. After his team failed to see a drug raid coming, East – who had never left his neighbourhood – was ordered to drive across the country with his 13-year-old half-brother and two other youngsters to shoot a witness in a drug trial. Unsurprisingly, things didn’t go to plan. Dodgers turned out to be a deeply personal coming-of-age novel set against a background of crime, deprivation and America. It was written in the sparingly tight prose of many classic American novelists, but with the detail required to make even the minor characters believable. This was a book that I’ll remember for a long time to come – and will certainly re-read at some point. (Amazon | Goodreads)

On the other hand… Dave Eggers’s The Circle didn’t do much for me at all. It was a dystopian novel set in the near future focusing on Mae, an employee of Google-like tech company. Fertile ground, but unfortunately the book was entirely one-dimensional, essentially consisting of a series of long hardline speeches in which characters espoused the pros or cons (depending on the character) of modern technology. No character ever conceded a single point, and Eggers’s own views were not even thinly veiled. A predictable plot strung the speeches together, and the book was bulked up with a few heavy handed allegories about the effect of monopolies. That the most notable of these centred around a shark eating smaller creatures neatly sums up the degree of novelty, insight and suspense this book had to offer. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was an autobiography in which she described how she raised her children using a “Chinese” parenting style. Along the way, she described making some extreme choices: for example, insisting on her children practising musical instruments for hours a day even when away on holiday. But the whole book felt as though Chua has deliberately chosen to focus on the most extreme examples of her parenting. Hints of a more traditional “Western” style were glossed over, such as occasional mentions of “family time” organised by her husband. When I turned the final page, my first thought was “so what?”. It was a moderately interesting and entertaining read, but it didn’t strike me as anything more than that, and certainly not worthy of the media ruckus it appeared to cause on publication. (Amazon | Goodreads)

A lot of my friends have been strongly recommending Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air, and this month I found out why. It was the extraordinary, deeply moving memoir of a neurosurgeon dying of lung cancer as he reached the end of his specialty training. The similarities between Kalanithi’s life and my own made this hit close to home, and I shared many of his reflections on life and death. The writing was brilliant. This was an unforgettable book which I will certainly read again. (Amazon | Goodreads)

I read Charles Glass’s Syria Burning in a day. It was an astonishing account of recent events in Syria set in some historical and political context. As the foreword said, “The war in Syria has long needed a good book to explain what and why it is happening. Few events in recent history have been subjected to so much inadequate reporting” – and this book set that right. I’m sure that the relative brevity meant that some of the political nuance was lost, but for a newcomer to the wider picture (like me), it was well pitched. It’s hard to have any reaction other than “what a tragic mess”. The statistic that will stick long in my mind was that 92% of Syria’s ambulances were no longer functional – it’s a weird measure in a way, but it gave a picture of the extraordinary scale of loss in a country that was once the region’s medical leader. (Amazon | Goodreads)

I’ve never been able to get along with history books, but reviews of Mary Beard’s SPQR have been so positive that I thought I’d give it a go. It was brilliantly lightly written, underpinned by a clear wealth of knowledge, and explained eloquently how conclusions about many aspects of Roman life have been reached from archaeological findings and surviving written accounts. I found the many discussions of bias in historical accounts interesting, both in terms of the sources of bias and ways in which historians can work out where the truth lies. The Prologue and Epilogue also made some especially powerful points about the place of history in modern society. But despite all of that, I struggled to finish this book. There was a bit in the Prologue where Beard said that “history is what you ask of it”; all too often, the question appears to have been “Can you give a chronological list of Roman Consuls and Emperors?” I just couldn’t bring myself to care. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Roy Porter’s Blood & Guts may also have been unduly affected by my general dislike of history books: while there were some interesting historical stories and some great pictures, the haphazard arrangement into topics meant that it lacked any overarching narrative. Combined with its brevity, it came across as a bit like a bullet pointed list of interesting things, which made for a less than riveting read. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Now I come to think of it, Steven Johnson’s How We Got to Now was also a history book, and one that I actually enjoyed. Johnson took six innovations and followed them through human history, demonstrating their wide-reaching effects. The six innovations Johnson chose (“Glass,” “Cold,” “Sound,” “Clean,” “Time” and “Light.”) are probably arguable, as the subsequent developments clearly require other innovations along the way, but he spun such a convincing and engaging narrative that this seemed forgivable. In the manner of many popular science books, Johnson had a slight tendency toward using unnecessary jargon, referring repeatedly to “long zoom history” and “the adjacent possible” as though to reveal some profound insight. Nonetheless, this was a light, enjoyable and engaging bit of thematic scientific and social history. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Will Storr is one of my favourite journalists. He writes for outlets like Wired and The Guardian, usually on science stories, and often on health-related stuff. His is a byline that almost guarantees I’ll enjoy the article. This month, I finally got round to reading Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science. This is an illustrated discussion of cognitive bias, backed up by astounding and revealing investigative journalism. Storr takes no prisoners, dissecting the claims of ‘skeptics’ as forensically as those of with outlandish beliefs. Heretics is entertaining, thoughtful, and genuinely insightful. It is one of my favourite books of the year so far. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Ian McEwan is one of my favourite authors. Saturday, which I read this month, ranks among my favourite of his books. Like all the McEwan novels I’ve read, it is heavy on keenly observed description and close examination of human nature. Saturday tells the story of a particularly eventful day in the life of middle-aged neurosurgeon. It is particularly notable for the astonishingly accurate portrayal of the surgical world – I think this book captures surgical patter and medical thought patterns with more authenticity than any other fiction I’ve ever read. (Amazon | Goodreads)

I’ve been having a bit of a Jon Ronson moment lately, having been particularly impressed with some of his newer books. This month, I caught up with Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries – a compendium of articles from periodicals and other relatively short-form bits of investigative journalism – and The Men Who Stare at Goats – the book that really put Ronson on the map. While both of these were perfectly good reads, I didn’t enjoy either of them quite as much as the later books. Reading Lost at Sea through from cover to cover is probably not the best way to treat it, as there are only so many consecutive short stories I can take. The Men Who Stare at Goats felt like a collection of amusing anecdotes of military absurdity that didn’t dive deeply enough into the underlying reasons for that absurdity prevailing. (Lost at Sea: Amazon | Goodreads; The Men Who Stare at Goats: Amazon | Goodreads)

Luke Harding’s extraordinary investigation into the Linvinenko affair, A Very Expensive Poison, is one of the most arresting non-fiction books I’ve ever read. Harding gives a clear, detailed and compelling account of murder by the Russian state – including all of the cack-handed bungling which humanises the story and makes it that much more horrific. He also dives deeply into the investigation of the murder, and the judgement of the subsequent public enquiry. A must read. (Amazon | Goodreads)

I’ve long thought that the premise of the Dexter TV show had promise – an exploration of ‘just’ murder through a serial killer with a conscience – but I couldn’t ever really get into it (not least because Michael C Hall will always be David Fisher to me). I picked up Darkly Dreaming Dexter on a whim to see if Jeff Lindsay’s source material was more engaging, and really enjoyed it. The plot was silly (psychic visions abound), but it was tightly written, and had a dash of dark humour that brought much needed levity. It was a fun read for a couple of hours or so, and I’ll certainly pick up the next in the series. (Amazon | Goodreads)

Nemesis is the fourth book in Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series, which I started reading in January. It’s a pacey, multi-layered instalment which I raced through. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as The Redbreast: I thought the historical portions of The Redbreast added something extra, and the series of false revelations at the end of Nemesis was a bit wearing after a while. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed it, and look forward to picking up The Devil’s Star some time soon. (Amazon | Goodreads)

There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment for people writing little blog posts each month talking briefly about books they have been reading. I always enjoy reading these posts, and often pick up interesting book recommendations from them – so here’s my own attempt for May.

Amanda Ripley’s The Unthinkable is a book about disasters, like plane crashes or hotel fires, profiling those who survive. It’s a bit heavy-handed with emotional anecdotes and fairly vague theories of what makes a “survivor”, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless. It offers some genuine and unexpected insights, and makes a compelling argument for Governments and officials to worry less about public panic. (Amazon | Goodreads)

A lot of my friends have previously read and recommended Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, but I’ve held off until now. This is a book profiling the rise of “public shaming” in the context of social media. There’s been so much written about ‘cyber-bullying’ and the perils of social media that I thought I’d struggle to get through a whole book regurgitating the same stuff. I should have known better. Like most of Jon Ronson’s writing, it’s really about people and the human condition, but viewed through the lens of a particular topic. As always, Jon Ronson brings interesting fresh perspective and insight to the topic by approaching it on the human level. Like most of my friends – I found it eye-opening and totally absorbing. (Amazon | Goodreads)

On that basis, I also read Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test this month. Jon Ronson’s book about psychiatry and psychiatric services is another I’ve avoided for a long time: I was put off by the title, which suggested to me that the book was going to be very light-touch on science. Disappointingly, I was right. I enjoyed reading the stories, but extremes were too often discussed as though they were reflective of norms. I think many people would come away from reading this book with a very distorted view of psychiatry, which is a bit of a shame. The particular cases discussed are, though, very engaging. (Amazon | Goodreads)

I’ve always enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s columns, but have never quite got round to reading his books. So this month, I thought I’d try Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell’s book about the power of snap decisions taken within two seconds. I was a bit disappointed. It was weirdly superficial and inconsistent: the main message seemed to be that snap judgements based on training and experience are often right (except when they’re wrong), and that those based on emotion and prejudice are often wrong (except when they’re right). There’s no denying that Malcolm Gladwell writes fantastic prose, but – to my mind – this book just didn’t hang together as a coherent whole. (Amazon | Goodreads)

William Boyd’s Booker-prize nominated Any Human Heart didn’t do much for me – given the esteem within which Any Human Heart is held by many, this may say more about me than the book. I just found most of it dull, and the narrator deeply unlikeable. But then, I rarely enjoy this sort of historical fiction, so maybe I should have known to give this one a miss. (Amazon | Goodreads)

I’ve been reading Jo Nesbo’s series of Harry Hole books this year, and this month reached The Redbreast. This is the third in the series, and the first in the famed Oslo Sequence of books (the first two were set in Australia and Thailand respectively). Harry Hole is the classic troubled police officer with unorthodox methods. In The Redbreast, he attempts to prevent an assassination attempt which has its roots in the Second World War. This was a really gripping, page-turning read – and a big step up in clarity and pace from the first two in the series. I really enjoyed this. (Amazon | Goodreads)