Category: Nonfiction

By Kwame Anthony Appiah (2018)

This is wonderful, just so clear and wholesome in a discussion of a subject – identity – which can of course be pretty fraught.

It belongs to that rare class of writing where the language is so crisp and readable, you barely notice you’re being lead to some really philosophically interesting places. I particularly like his take on meritocracy, which is an idea that exercises me a lot. He does talk quite a lot about himself – but then he’s had such an interesting life and background, I hardly blame him.

The Scramble For Africa by Thomas Pakenham (1990) & The State of Africa by Martin Meredith (2005)

The Scramble For Africa. This is just fascinating – surely one of the strangest few decades in history. Other than the pretty horrific behaviour of the colonists – who, perhaps Brazza excepted, were tremendously low-rent graspers and cheats (as well as plain brutal) – what most strikes me is how shoestring the whole business was. Regions the size of France “claimed” by a few dozen troops, etc. I’ve actually read this before – but the weird format (it’s all chronological, rather than by area) meant I struggled to piece together the whole arc of regions like the Congo. So I only read the central Africa sections in sequence this time, about half the book.

By Peter Godfrey-Smith (2016)

This really is excellent! Learnt loads on this (pretty fascinating) subject (intelligence and cognition in octopuses and cuttlefish). To my surprise it also includes a short account of the theory of ageing – which I had a chapter of my PhD on. Usually you see the cracks when an author moves onto something you’re very familiar with, but I have to say he pretty much nails it. It actually sent me back to my thesis (for the first time in 8 years) to refresh myself on the background.

Genuine sense of affection and pathos for these wonderful animals. Was quite cut-up at the inevitable death of the short-lived intelligent giant cuttlefish.