andrewspink's reviews
552 reviews

This was a very difficult read. Horrendous actually.  Not because it was badly written,  quite the opposite in fact. Because it was so well written, the reader feels all the pain, all the anguish and all the injustice of the situation that it describes.  Of course, we all know that slavery was appalling, but this book helps us (no, makes us) feel it. 
In the same way that every European needs to read about the Holocaust,  every American needs to read this book.

A nice introduction to the world of mushrooms and toadstools. The book is written in California, but many, perhaps most, of the species mentioned also grow here in Europe and the main groups identified are certainly the same. I appreciated the remarks about not just quickly identifying a species, but also taking time to enjoy and appreciate it. I would add the same goes for mosses and flowering plants. One other addition; the authors mention a few things to take into the field with you when you are looking for mushrooms. I would add that a small mirror, ideally one on a stick (like a dentist has) is useful for looking at the underside of caps, saving either lying in the mud or picking the mushroom to see what sort it is.

This was an enjoyable detective story/thriller with a few extra elements. The main 'extra' was that the reader gets to learn (or at least read, if your memory is like mine) a whole load of Maori words and also some customs. That made it more interesting and added some depth, as did the issue of racism.
The book was easy to read and after a while turned into a real page turner; I really wanted to know what happened next.
There were a couple of less good points, at least in my opinion. How likely is it that someone would accidentally come across someone's search history? Why didn't the divers use drysuits (which are much warmer)? The incident with the magpie was a little too predictable.  What was the point of the first arrest? 
Nevertheless,  those were minor points and I enjoyed reading the book. 
This book was kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review. 

I really enjoyed reading this book. The characters are a treat, the plot carries you along and the social comment is sharp. Classic Barbara Kingsolver, in fact. As a botanist myself, I loved Mary Treat, and when I found out at the end that she was based on a real person, that was even better!  The experiment where she sat there with a venus fly trap digesting her finger, that was also great fun, I could just imagine myself trying that out. Wonderful!

I have only one complaint. Why on earth give one of the main characters that dreadful name? For an English reader, that's like calling someone ' Trump', even decades on. It is not so easy to view a character positively with that name, it takes some getting used to.

The book is an interesting collection of anecdotes, history, natural history and reflections on seven animal species living in the far north. Some of the chapters, like the one on polar bears, happened to contain mostly information which I already knew, and so were not so interesting, others (like the one on giant red king crabs) were about animals that I hadn't even heard of and so were fascinating.
The book is easy to read, with the chapters being split into small sections, some very small. It does jump around a bit from history to anecdote to biology, but that is not really a problem. Because of that, this is more of a book to read a bit at a time, than to sit and plough through in a few long sessions.

To be wrapped up in a story by Alexander McCall Smith is always a treat. The people are good  but fallible. They have meaningful conversations with each other, instead of their phones. There is a gentle mystery,  which is solved. There is hope for the world. Everyone has pride in the place they call home, but without nationalism. It is pure blissful escapism. 

The central message of this book is that modern evolutionary theory is perfectly compatible with Christian theology, and all but the most literalist fundamentalists should have no problem accepting evolutionary science. No one thinks that the parables that Jesus told actually happened, and if we read the first few chapters of Genesis in the same spirit (as theological, not scientific or historical texts) then there is no reason to doubt evolution. Apparently, in the US, there are many people who do not see this.

He also presents the case that recent ideas in evolutionary theory provide reasons to believe in God. I must admit, I found that unconvincing. They all seemed to me to fall very firmly under the 'God of the gaps' idea, which he later mentions. That is the idea that is something is too mysterious or unexplainable, then it must be caused by God. For instance, we have little idea how evolution proceeded from a few biochemicals to something looking like a cell, seeing you actually need something like a cell membrane for that to be able to occur. Garte's answer is that that is where we see God. I have two problems with that. Firstly, that if and when we do find a convincing mechanism for those steps, God is then removed. Secondly, it seemed to have the idea that God is like the watchmaker who winds up the clock he has designed, and steps back and observes it. That does not rhyme well with Christian theology based on the incarnation. That points to a weakness of the book that it is much stronger on science, especially biochemistry, than on theology. Decades ago, I was lucky enough to hear a series of lectures by Jürgen Moltmann (who unfortunately died last year). He wrote many books, including God in Creation which tackle the theological aspects of Garte's book in some depth. The issues discussed by Garte are actually as much theological as biological and some heavier theology, for instance Moltmann's ideas would have been welcome in that respect. For instance, Garte posits that 'consciousness is transmission of God's thoughts', but how on earth does that work with evil thoughts? 

I did have a few issues with the biology side, though. Since when is "biology the youngest of the traditional natural sciences"? What about Pliny? Crick and Watson are mentioned a couple of times. Nowadays, we know that Franklin should be included. The role of symbiosis (e.g. mitochondria being derived from bacteria) is a part of modern evolutionary theory that is an important addition to traditional Darwinism. The claim that there are no 'laws' about fitness is a bit odd. For example, population dynamics (which is essentially about fitness) is very mathematical - mostly expressed in models because it is too complex for simple equations. Likewise, the claim that biology is notoriously short on theory is not one that I recognise. I worked for ten years in ecological research, and much of that was about developing and applying theories. My work was not unusual in that respect. The statement that bees have no brains is just wrong. The assumption that human consciousness is fundamentally different from the consciousness of other species is rather out of date. See the work of the late great Frans de Waal, for instance. 

In conclusion. If this book succeeds in opening the eyes to some of the more fundamentalist
 American Christians that there is really no conflict between evolutionary science and taking the Bible seriously, then it will have served its purpose. It is easy to read and explains complex ideas clearly. However, its theology is a bit light and when the biology strays outside the author's own area of biochemistry it is sometimes a little inaccurate. 

Thanks to the publishers for providing an advance review copy (via NetGalley) in return for an honest review.

I was very lucky to pick up this early predecessor of the Discworld series at a second hand book market last year. It doesn't quite have the sparkle of his later works, but nevertheless, it is an entertaining read. 
Here is a gem, "he was ... undeniably dead. If he had believed in reincarnation,  he'd come back as a corpse. " A promise of what was to come in his later writing. 

Yolande Ligterink did an excellent job translating this thriller. Sometimes with translations of thrillers, you are ripped away from enjoying the plot by a strange choice of words, literal translation of a saying, or ignorance of obscure bits of British culture which can take away the pleasure of a story. With this book, I was immersed the whole time. The original helped as well, of course. In some ways, it was rather predictable; the remote location guaranteed that it would be cut off from the outside world and as soon as the protagonist made friends with

Boy

, you were sure that they were not on the side of good. But there were enough twists and turns and unexpected elements that it was entertaining enough, and certainly page-turning. I am not a fan of too much gore and violence, so could have done with a bit less of that, but I suppose it goes with the genre.
I am recovering from flu and this was just the light entertaining read that I needed.

I found this book hard going. It doesn't really have a plot, but it is more of a long diatribe. It jumps back and forth in time so that sometimes it is not clear if you are in the present or the past. Points are made by discussions between the characters, but they all sound the same; a group of teenagers swearing and making dirty jokes all of a sudden switch to long articulate paragraphs, for instance. 
An odd aspect of her use of language is that she has invented her own word for parent, 'verwekker' (conceiver). That is ok when it is the narrator/protagonist, but is very odd when it is in speech marks from other characters who would never say that. Once or twice she forgets and uses the normal word ('ouder'). 
There are some internal contradictions. There is no internet in their holiday village, but later we hear that the mother video-phones with her mother there every day. She says they never watched Dutch TV as children, but only a few lines later on says that they watched Dutch cartoons. 
The worst is that it is one long rant. I feel that someone is banging a sledgehammer against my head the whole time. The same points are made time and again. There is little pleasure to be had in the story. 
Ironically, it is a very Dutch story. Typical Dutch literature centres around a miserable childhood caused by a strict religious upbringing. Her experiences could easily be transplanted to Maasluis a few decades ago (and perhaps Staphorst today). The difference is that Maarten 't Hart wrote, beautifully, she doesn't. The coarse language is probably a deliberate style choice, designed to ram her points home with anger, but it doesn't make for fun reading.
It is, of course, a tremendous accomplishment to break free of such a restrictive controlling environment and even more of an accomplishment to write her experiences in a novel like this.