More books.

      Imogen Lycett Green: Grandmother’s Footsteps is a travel book with a bit of a difference, I L G goes to retrace her Grandmother’s life and their previous journey through India. Grandmother is Penelope Chetwode aka Lady Betjeman, a formidable character who died aged 75 leading a cultural Himalayan trek. Fascinating as mentions several places I’ve visited, but she sounded terrifying, clients on the treks were more or less handpicked for knowledge, seriousness and brain power. I met her many years ago, within a few minutes she wrote me off as a lightweight, so the promised contacts in India never materialised. It sheds a little light on the rather stormy marriage to Sir John Betjeman.

        Adams: Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy “Trilogy” really hasn’t dated in ideas or humour, if anything improved like dusty port. Looking back at his inventions, he’s on a par with Jules Verne, The Book has to be the prototype iPad, the Infinite Improbability Drive is relatively easily explained by some of the quirks of the latest quantum ideas.

     Ramachandran: The Tell-tale Brain isn’t as good as his Phantoms in the Brain, a bit too philosophical, and not as clinical, but still interesting. He has some thought-provoking ideas on self, consciousness and autism.

    Goldacre: Bad Pharma is a scary account of what many of us really knew, that drug trials and the people publishing them are seriously flawed and biased in favour of the giant pharmaceutical companies. I had no idea, though that the ramifications were so wide. Not quite as entertaining as his “Bad Science”                      Kipling: Kim is a classic I’ve never read, an interesting insight into India, religious culture and “The Great Game”. Of particular interest to the India-traveloholic. There’s a passage about Kim’s Game, remembering objects removed from a collection that I remember being set as a précis at school, I have no idea why a short simple passage had such an impact.

     Sacks: The Mind’s Eye is not his best, he’s a bit to introspective, similar to “A Leg to Stand On”, he gets a bit too tied up in his own symptoms. I found most of his other books fascinating and educational.              Lister: In Xanadu With Kublai Khan, a good subject, but rather impaired by a plodding style. 

    Allen: the Devil’s Cup is a history of coffee and its worldwide spread and possible influence on the course of history. Not quite meaty enough to really tell the story, too much personal detail, but not quite a travel book. I ended up not being sure if he really was trying to write a serious history. His style was too informal, there were a lot of contradictions and he muddled port & starboard, so basic!

    Benton: Holy Terrors, Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings is another on gargoyles, some new ideas on why the forms are as they are, and what they might represent,  but as always hard to prove. Very good photos, a hard subject to capture as they’re invariably high and against a bright sky.