corblimey has got too many books

8. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania Paperback (Larson). Like the last Larson book, there's no major plot twists in this book about the sinking of the Lusitania off the Cork coast in 1915, the skill comes in constructing the story leading up to that point. Focusing on the ship and its passengers (possibly a little too much on the passengers), the captain and crew of the submarine (as it stalked the waters around Ireland and UK) and the men back in London listening in on everything going on, it moves along at a fair old pace.

Since the sinking only took 18 mins, the actual meat of the book takes only a few pages towards the end, and then there's the aftermath and the recriminations, along with a quick synopsis of what happened to the main survivors. Great book, thoroughly recommended.

10. TV, the Book (Sepinwall). How do you pick the 100 greatest (American) (scripted) TV shows of all time and write something interesting about subjects that have been milked for years, perhaps decades? Answer, you can't, as this book illustrates. Quite apart from the fact that I didn't agree with a lot of the choices nor the order in which they appear, the short essays amount to little more than Wikipedia cut n paste and add very little to the understanding of each show. Pointless.

12. Worst Hard Time (Egan). Well researched and very well told account from the turn of the 20th century when homesteaders arrived in the areas of land around the Texas panhandle, that area of the US in between Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, etc. As the price of wheat hit all time highs, the land was stripped bare of any nutrients and quite quickly the soil was completely eroded away. As the depression hit, and the land suffered from a prolonged drought, events known as 'dusters' start occurring on a regular basis, getting worse each time.

I knew next to nothing about the eponymous 'dust bowl' before reading this book, and the tragedy and consequences are made all too clear by the author. How people hung in there for so long ius either a testament to their bravery or their hubris, I really can't decide. Great book.

14. Information is Beautiful (McCandless). I'm torn on this: the graphic design is gorgeous (or 'beautiful', I guess), but the information isn't that interesting. I also got the feeling of sanctimony from some of the pages, like the author was criticising me for not caring more about my carbon footprint, paticularly when displayed as a bar chart.

PS: for those of us off the eighties, this is the same Dave McCandless who used to write for Your Sinclair and those sorts of magazines. Still can't recommend it though.

16. Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey (Hewitt)
I picked this up based solely on the blurb, and the fact that a history of map making in the British Isles could be fascinating. It isn't. It's either the subject matter or the author, but this is a deathly dull trawl through the ages. After several false starts that seem to be there only to thicken the book out, the history finally gets started with a whimper rather than a bang. To be fair to the author, how interesting can you make triangulation anyway? The answer is zero interesting. Shame.

18. Stiff (Roach)
Had no idea what to expect, and the blurb at the back which spoke to 'What Happens to Your Body When You Die' had me a little worried, but this is a fun book, nonwithstanding its rather macabre theme. The author trundles through the history of corpses, from grave robbing through cannibalism and onto decomposition with tongue firmly in cheek along the way. If you think burial is the only option for you, read this book.

21. The Daily Show (the Book): An Oral History (Smith)
I stopped watching the Daily Show when John Stewart left (although I hear the chap in charge now has his moments) so this history of the Stewart era is quite interesting. It goes year by year, but focuses on some particular aspect from each year (2001: 9/11, 2008: Obama election) and describes what happens behind the scenes, etc. Everything is done through the filter of talking heads, so there's a fair bit of "x did this" and then x saying "no, I didn't" that could have been done away with a more objective narrator, but pretty interesting nonetheless.

23. Disrupted (Lyons)
This should've been fun, 50-something journalist let go from Newsweek finds a new career in a tech startup. Hilarity ensues. Except it doesn't. The book is about 80% "tech startups are cray-cray" and 20% "curmudgeonly old man has had it up to here with you millennials." Nobody leaves the book looking good including the author, who seems constantly surprised by the inanity of his chosen tech startup, something called Hubspot(?). "They have candy in the kitchen and everyone sits on bean bag chairs, the ridiculousness!!" Meh. Made me miss 'Microserfs' and nobody misses 'Microserfs'.

25. Alibaba's World (Erisman)
I'm on a bit of an early 2000s Internet kick these days, with The PayPal Wars and ... er that's it. And I read The PayPal Wars back in January. Still, they share the common link of making eBay the enemy, which I guess was the thing in early 2000s Internet. However, this book is not good. The author joins Alibaba when it's small, leaves for a year, and comes back when it's big. And then things happen, and it becomes bigger and bigger, while the author apparently sits and watches, waiting for his shares to divest. It's just very very dull, like I wrote a book about my business - we have meetings most days and one time, somebody brought in a dog. Dull.

27. We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy (Gaines)
I enjoyed this, with plenty of behind the scenes information, talking heads - actors of course, but also crew - and various trivial knowledge about the only trilogy I like all 3 movies of. More time is spent on the first movie than the other 2 combined, and it loses its way in the final chapter which is about its legacy (the fansites and conventions, and that sort of nonsense), but exhaustively researched and a very entertaining and easy read.

29. It's on the Meter (Archer, Ellison)
It sounded like fun, 3 "mates" go on a round the world trip in a knackered black cab. It should be like those car challenges they do on Top Gear and hilarity must ensure. It does not. To be honest, I gave about half way through, as it seemed to be just an endless sequence of 'got to x, got absolutely sh*tfaced in a local bar, slept for y hours, got up and left x'. For page after tedious page. For all I know the second half was an hilarious tour de force, but I've got better things to be doing.

31. Heyday: The 1850s and the Dawn of the Global Age (Wilson)
Quick, what's the best ever decade? 1980-1989? 1430-1439? 100-0 BC? Nope, you're all wrong, because according to the author it was 1850-1859 (and slightly later, apparently). Actually, this is a great book, although the concept is a bit flimsy. It's a potted history of things like the 1851 Great Exhibition in London, the settlement of Australia and NZ (via the first gold rush in Oz in 1851), slavery and the American South, and the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable in 1858. I guess he makes a decent case, but I felt the idea that this all happened in one decade is a little flawed. However, the histories themselves are well written, well researched and interesting, so I'll buy into the notion entirely.

33. Word by Word (Stamper)
Fun little book, equal parts history of dictionaries in general (and Merriam-Webster specifically) and history of English language. The author has a keen sense of humour and doesn't take the art of lexicography too seriously. Not much more to add, if you like words, you should read it. And who doesn't?