How Britain Really Works
Stig Abell
John Murray, £20, pp416
Sun managing editor turned TLS editor Abell’s first book, a wry and insightful examination of Britain’s major institutions, reflects his background of populism and erudition. Abell produces potted summaries of the history and traditions of the political, educational, media and military forces in the UK – not, interestingly, the church – and offers a mixture of criticism and praise of the often baffling rules and regulations that have made Britain the country it is. While one occasionally longs for more depth, it’s a pleasure to read Abell’s opinionated and hugely engaging prose – though he is wrong about what he calls the “overrated” Lucky Jim.
Smoking Kills
Antoine Laurain
Gallic, £8.99, pp208
“There are various ways to embark on a criminal career. The first is to discover you have a calling.” Laurain’s brisk black comedy, as translated by Louise Rogers-Lalaurie, applies an appropriately French insouciance to its tale of headhunter Fabrice Valentine and his increasingly homicidal activities, driven by his frustration at not being able to smoke in the workplace. While another writer might have plunged headlong into giddy farce, Laurain’s considered tale retains an elegant detachment from Valentine and his milieu, even as the bodies pile up. And it does, fittingly, make cigarettes seem seductive again, even to committed non-smokers.
Tamed: Ten Species That Changed Our World
Alice Roberts
Windmill, £9.99, pp368
If you’ve stroked a dog or gazed into a Nando’s today – or done both – then you may well enjoy Alice Roberts’s lively and accessible work of popular scientific history, in which she looks at 10 species that have gradually become part of our everyday existence. Moving briskly over thousands of years of evolution with illuminating facts – we learn, for instance, that apples originated from Kazakhstan, via the Silk Road, and that humans have lowered their testosterone in order to live more compatibly as a species – Roberts is an informed but never didactic guide to the oddities that have made the world what it is today.
To order How Britain Really Works for £17, Smoking Kills for £7.64, or Tamed for £8.49, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
