Wellcome Book Prize 2018 || Longlist Discussion

Happy Saturday my lovely readers, and welcome to a bonus post this week in which I am going to discuss my most anticipated bookish event of 2018 so far – the announcement of the Wellcome Book Prize longlist.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Wellcome Prize , to summarise it is an an annual prize and eligible books are those which have central themes of medicine, health, illness, or biosciences. Because of this broad criteria the lists of books nominated are from a number of genres – both fiction and non-fiction, but can span across any sub-genres of those. And I love it.

Last year I managed to read the shortlist, this year I want to read the entirety of the longlist. As I write this I have already read 2 of the books – one is Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ which I read last Summer, and the second is The Butchering Art as when I was reading through the descriptions of each book that one was one I wanted to read asap. So I did.

So, without further ado, the books:-

 

image courtesy of WellcomeBookPrize.org

 

As you can see from the picture there is an enormous amount of variety – and something I am very happy about is the amount of books that I hadn’t even heard of on this list. I can say that there are 3 books here that I knew existed and the rest have me very, very excited (so excited that I have bought a huge number of them already!)

I’d be interested to hear if any of you reading this have seen any of these books (the ones I am familiar with are Stay With Me, The White Book and I Am, I Am, I Am – the rest I know nothing about!) and if you have read any too. If you have, are there any you think I ought to get to sooner rather than later?

The shortlist is announced on March 20th – thankfully a Tuesday (I don’t work Tuesdays) – and I’m hoping to have got through the bulk of this longlist by then. Needless to say I have a few very, very exciting reading weeks ahead of me and I for one cannot wait!

As I said above, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Wellcome Prize. For me it’s one of the most varied, vibrant literary prizes out there because it focuses across such a wide breadth of genres. I also think it’s a very accessible prize – those of you not as confident or comfortable reading science based non fiction can definitely still enjoy this prize as there’s a decent amount of variety and, for me at least, even the non-fiction is easy to read and get your teeth in to.

So, in the next few weeks you can expect to see all 12 (well, 11 because I don’t think I’ll be re-reading Stay With Me) of these books reviewed. Hopefully before March 20th! Wish me luck.

 

Review: The Gene – Siddhartha Mukherjee

Rating – 5*

This book is one that had been on my radar for quite some time before I decided to pick it up. I’d been umming and ahhing over it for a while, but it being shortlisted for the Wellcome Prize meant I finally got that kick up the backside and picked it up. How I wish I had picked this up when it was first released!

This may be a stretch, but this is up there at one of my favourite non-fiction books now, definitely top of the ‘popular science’ category! To put it in to perspective as to how much I loved this, I read it as the Kindle edition, also purchased the audiobook (also good, highly recommend) and on my lunch break Thursday – two days after I finished it – I bought the paperback. I just can’t get enough of this book. Seriously.

I love reading about genetics, the history and the future. While this book is a monster (I read the Kindle version which is over 700 pages) it was so engaging, I just whizzed through it. As I said, I love reading about genetics, and as a result I have read a huge number of popular science books on the subject (along with behemoth textbooks) – some are good, some are absolutely mindnumbingly boring. This though, this is possibly the most readable, most approachable, and most engaging one of the lot; not only that it is so in depth – I didn’t feel like anything was missed out from a scientific standpoint. So yes, this book is a non-fiction masterpiece in my eyes.

For a start, I loved the format of this. I don’t know how he did it, but it felt more ‘intimate’ than many other books which focus on the same subject. I think that this came primarily from the brief biographies that were given in the text of the scientist at the centre of particular discoveries; there were histories of Darwin, Mendel, and my personal favourite, Rosalind Franklin.

Going off on a tangent for a moment, I was pleasantly surprised with this book. Not only does it recognise the achievements and contribution (and subsequent overlooking) of female scientists in the history of genetics. It also looks in to the genetics behind sexuality and gender identity. I was on edge when the words “gay gene” were mentioned – but it was handled quite sensitively and I was pleasantly surprised at how open minded the handling of this topic was. Also included, and handled with immense sensitivity, was the subject of eugenics, forced sterilisation, Nazi studies in to genetics – some of that was hard reading!

Back to the book as a whole, I found that the chronology of this really layered up information piece-by-piece. It was so skillfully done, and I really think I would have benefited from reading this book when I was doing my A Levels, and my degree as a supplementary text to refresh the history of the subject, and because the science is there but the ‘popular science’ style of writing makes it more digestible and much less intimidating than a 1000 page textbook on the subject!

Ultimately, this is an incredible book (can you tell I think that?) and I absolutely loved it. I’m glad that the prize actually made me pick it up because I honestly think I’d have missed out on something important had I not read this. I’d urge anyone looking for a good non-fiction book to give this a whirl, yes it’s big, but it’s the best book on the subject I’ve read.

Review: Cheer Up Love – Susan Calman

Rating – 5*

If you don’t know who Susan Calman is, go no further in this review and have a google, find a clip on YouTube – she’s hilarious. She’s appeared on numerous UK TV panel shows including QI, Mock the Week, and (my personal favourite) Have I Got News For You. She’s also does a lot of radio work (Susan Calman is Convicted). When I heard she was writing a book I immediately knew I had to get my hands on it and it did not let me down, in fact it is possibly one of the best books I’ve read all year. I chose to listen to this as an audiobook, and I highly recommend that to everyone, but I loved it so much I immediately went and purchased a physical copy so I could read passages to people.

This book is about depression, but while brutally honest about the experience of living with The Crab of Hate (as Susan so beautifully names it), it is truly one of the most hilarious books I have read. I laughed until I hurt listening to this. It was poignant, uplifting, intensely relatable too. And as for a book to explain depression? I would recommend this over Reasons to Stay Alive – for me, this was immensely more powerful. I’m aware that saying that is very high praise, given how loved Reasons to Stay Alive is. But for me, what that book lacked this book contained in abundance, and it had so much more on top of that.

I feel this is a book which has to be experienced, I have already recommended it to several friends and will be suggesting it to more! It is honestly one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read lately. If you’re unsure as to whether an audiobook is for you, just give the first 5 minutes a go on Audible because I promise you it’s worth it!

Purchase on The Book Depository

Review: Spectacles – Sue Perkins

I don’t often read an autobiography/memoir, but when I do it’s because I really like the person who has written them. So, somehow this slipped under my radar until the week it was published and naturally I had to get my hands on it. I’m so glad I did!

Reviewing autobiographies is hard because it’s essentially someone’s life you’re commenting on, or at least how they’ve put their lives across to the world. This book was great. It had me laughing and, at one point in particular, I did cry a little. Reading it, it was one of those books that the authors voice was clear as a bell in my head. It could have definitely been longer for me, I don’t think I could tire of her anecdotes or her turn of phrase and some of it did feel a little truncated; I respect that she wanted to keep some of it quiet and personal but still touch on it, but there were parts I was really getting in to and they just seemed to stop. Maybe that’s just me?

Favourite parts were definitely those about Pickle. I’m a Crazy Dog Lady so reading about other people who love their dogs and their experiences is always going to get me a bit emotional. She did recently release the open letter she wrote to Pickles, and I read that with my own dog at my feet and, like any good dog when I needed comforting he grunted and ran away.

I also loved the more backstage stuff about Maestro, some Supersizers and GBBO, obviously. Then there was her friendship with Mel, her family, it was all great. I loved it on the whole. For me though, there was just a tiny something missing – so it’s a 4*. It’s a great read though, it has to be said!

Review: Jeremy & Amy – Jeremy Keeling

If there is one thing I want to say about this book it is read it. I don’t think I have ever read a memoir in one sitting but I genuinely could not put this down. I even read it while eating my dinner!

This is a story of Jeremy Keeling – a man who co-founded Monkey World in the UK. Many people have probably seen an episode of Monkey Life or Monkey Business, which has been airing on British TV for a number of years now on various channels (Animal Planet, Channel 5 and now Sky!) and this book is his story of how the monkey sanctuary was founded and the uphill struggle it was. It’s a story of love, human nature and, not only is it a personal story it also gives a look in to how conservation has changed in the last 30-40 years.

We follow Jeremy from his early years, growing up on his family zoo where it was commonplace for the puma to have a room in the house and a bear in the outhouse! The story meanders through the pitfalls of his life, the periods he was living out of his car and working odd jobs to the point where he met Jim Cronin; a kindred spirit. From here we read about the birth of Monkey World. From Monkey World we follow the story in to present day, through the devastating loss of Jim and the incredible rescue of 88 capuchin monkeys from Chile in 2008.

At times this is heartbreaking, others it is laugh out loud. The stealer of the show is, of course Amy. Amy the orang-utan which Jeremy himself hand reared. If she could speak I think she would have some incredible stories to tell. He saved Amy and, one day, Amy saved him. It’s just incredible the bond that he has, not just with her, but with all of the other apes and monkeys he encounters daily.

I read this in one sitting. I lost an afternoon because I just could not put this down. It may not be a masterpiece but what I have taken out of this book, it made me laugh and it made me cry. For that reason alone it deserves a 5/5 from me.