My 38th book finished in 2023.

My friend Stewart gave me this book before I left the UK. I've been carrying it around the Caribbean, South America and Asia since then. I began reading it in Peru, then started again three months later in Vietnam. I left it in a homestay in Hue.

I hated this book. I hated every single thing about it. With every turn of the page, I had to quell the urge to kill myself. This rubbish took me three months to get through, and I could only do that by playing it through text to speech using Google Lens.

Nick Lane is a talented author - talented at turning the most curiously interesting subjects into the most mundane droll trash I've ever heard. How can he possibly make evolution, sex, dinosaurs and death so goddamn boring??

I absolutely hate myself for sticking with this book. By far the most boring thing I've ever had the displeasure to put myself through.