Sumit Paul-Choudhury
Words & Deeds
My favourite haunt at work is directly in front of the modest shelves to which unneeded books are consigned. A sort of literary service station on the heavily trodden route to the office kitchen, these are perpetually sway-backed under the weight of volumes donated by munificent publishers and discarded by New Scientist’s culture desk.
All literary life is there: glossy TV tie-ins reluctantly slum it alongside dour academic tracts, which in turn sneer down at cranky pamphlets. But much of the shelf space is occupied by doggedly single-minded popular reads: The Horse: A Biography of Our Noble Companion; Red: The Natural History of the Redhead; Coastlines: The Story of Our Shore. This monomaniacal subject matter is often presented with megalomaniacal ambition: consider Why Did the Chicken Cross the World? The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization. As a bibliophile, editor of New Scientist and a judge of this year’s Samuel Johnson Prize, I have to wonder: what purpose do such books serve?
The genesis of the noun book can be traced to Mark Kurlansky’s 1997 blockbuster, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. Emboldened by its success, publishers seem to have set out to produce a book expounding the specific import of each and every object in the known
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger
'The eight years he has spent in solitary confinement have had a devastating impact on his mental health ... human rights organisations believe his detention is punishment for his critical views.'
@lucyjpop on the Egyptian activist and poet Ahmed Douma.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/ahmed-douma