Prisoners of Geography – by Tim Marshall

This covers politics, history and geography, focusing on the effects on the development of a county of being a continent/island/landlocked/joined/separate/etc. 

There are lots of good stories, lots of interesting ideas and facts and it’s an interesting way to get to know more about some current conflicts in the world.

As with all books about current scenarios, there is a risk it will go out of date.  For example, it is confidently explained that while there are ongoing territorial disputes between China and India, this won’t turn into war largely because of the mountains on their shared border.  I read this only a few weeks after border skirmishes between the two armies were widely reported.

It may seem unbalanced that while Western Europe is the focus of one of the 10 chapters and Africa another, the much smaller area of ‘Korea and Japan’ also have a chapter.  This seems fair enough though, because it is not trying to be comprehensive and is aimed at the non-specialist.

It was interesting to learn more about the struggles of countries that are mentioned rarely in the news (such as Pakistan: with continuing tension with India and the north of the country essentially not under governmental control).  There is also a constant reminder of the mess that colonialism left behind it (in Africa, in Israel/Palestine, in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh).

The only negative for me was an unfortunate over-precision in numbers. We read (p221) of China “supplying 84.12 per cent of North Korea’s imports and buying 84.48 per cent of its exports” in 2014.  While this is referenced, it would seem far more sensible to round these off to 84%.  While a minor quibble, this sort of level of precision is off-putting (particularly given that earlier on the same page it was stated, much more sensibly, that there are “almost 30,000” US troops in South Korea).

The Second Sleep – Robert Harris

I think I have read all of his fiction, and this is another scorchingly good novel from Robert Harris. 

The previous one I read was Munich (confusingly, the Italian printing of this is called Monaco, which is what the Italians call Munich!) and while I did enjoy it, it wasn’t as gripping as his other novels.  

The Second Sleep really is brilliant.  It’s set in a medieval England that is entirely believable, with people who largely behave in character and where the daily grind, the mud, the cold and the sheer monotony of life is made clear.  The language the characters use is believable too. 

It’s a neat story, with the usual Harris twists and turns to the story and some amazing, jaw-dropping surprises. 

Somewhat ironically (given the title), I lost sleep over this, so anxious was I to finish it off.

My Book Blog – an introduction

I am a maths teacher who does lots of different things (music, running, learning Spanish) besides work.  I haven’t, however, been reading enough books.  (Lots of newspapers, lots of blogs, but not books.)

During the 6 weeks of the school summer holiday I am setting myself the target to read at least two books per week.  Some will be fiction, some non-fiction.  Some will be books I have read before and some will be new ones. 

I will then write a short essay about each one.  It won’t be a review of the book, it won’t be an explanation or synopsis of the book but will pick out a few things that resonated or interested me.  The entries will be brief!