08.06.18
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NEW TITLES: NON-FICTION SEPTEMBER
21
PSYCHOLOGY
MERVE EMRE WHAT’S YOUR TYPE? THE STRANGE HISTORY OF MYERS-BRIGGS AND THE BIRTH OF PERSONALITY
TESTING COLLINS, 20TH, HB, £20, 9780008201371
I was enthralled by this engagingly written, and—I gather—controversial history of the widely used Myers-Briggs personality test, de- vised by mother and daughter team Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. Emre, a US English professor, draws on original reporting and previously unpublished documents to try and account for the test’s global success and ubiquity. Ultimately, it’s a book about our often fumbling attempts to grasp, characterise and quantify our slippery human personalities.
POPULAR SCIENCE
HANNAH FRY HELLO WORLD: HOW TO BE HUMAN IN THE AGE OF THE MACHINE DOUBLEDAY, 6TH, HB, £18.99,
9780857525246 “You are accused of a crime. Who would you rather determined your fate—a human, or an algorithm? An algorithm is more consis- tent and less prone to error of judgement. Yet a human can look you in the eye before passing sentence.” Just one of the surprising conundrums to emerge from this consistently illuminating survey of the algorithms that now dictate our everyday lives, by the mathematics professor, and gifted communicator. Fry dem- onstrates their power, exposes their limitations and—as above—scrutinises whether they really constitute an improvement on the humans they are coded to replace.
NATURAL HISTORY
TONY HALL THE IMMORTAL YEW KEW PUBLISHING, HB, £25,
9781842466582
I find yew trees magical and have been known to detour for miles to seek out a particularly ancient one. I was immediately drawn to this wonderful book which tells the captivating story of the English or common yew (taxus baccata), among the oldest living organisms in Europe, with particular individuals thought to be over 2,000 years old. Taking us into the myth, mystery and biodiversity of this remarkable species, Hall— manager of the arboretum and gardens at Kew—also provides illustrated profiles of over 75 publicly accessible yews in Britain and Ireland.
NATURAL HISTORY
TIM DEE LANDFILL LITTLE TOLLER, 10TH HB, £18, 9781908213624
“Spending time in a rubbish place. . . let
me feel the weave of the rag-rug of our world.” From Chekhov to the forests of Madagascar, Dee confronts our throwaway species through the lives of gulls. We tend to think of seagulls as pests (I certainly have since a herring gull swiped my meal as I sat by Bristol harbourside) but only because we make so much rubbish, he explains. Rather than eulogising, this is nature writing that rolls up its sleeves and picks through the litter to deliver an alternative view of creatures that dare to get close to us.
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIRS
ALAN JOHNSON IN MY LIFE: A MUSIC MEMOIR BANTAM PRESS, 20TH, HB, £16.99, 9780593079539
The author of the award-winning and
delightful This Boy with a fourth volume of memoir, which this time views his life through the prism of the music which has inspired him. From being transported by the sound of “True Love” by Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly on the radio, to going out to work as a postman humming “Watching the Detectives” by Elvis Costello in 1977, and his lifelong devotion to The Beatles, it’s a melodious mélange of Dansettes and jukeboxes, heartfelt love songs and heartbroken ballads, smoky coffee shops and dingy dance halls.
BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIRS
SISONKE MSIMANG ALWAYS ANOTHER COUNTRY WORLD EDITIONS, 6TH, PB, £11.99, 9781642860009
Already a bestseller in South Africa, a deeply reflective and beautifully written coming-of- age memoir by a rising star who has been compared to Arundhati Roy and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Born in exile in Zambia to an ANC activist father and a working mother, and “into a community whose sole purpose is to fight apartheid”, Msimang spent her childhood on the move from Zambia to Kenya, and then to Canada. She returned at last to South Africa after Mandela’s release when she was 16 but this homecoming only deepened her quest to understand her own place and identity in our disordered world.
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