Category: Review

Ignore the comments on the covers, Chisholm is no Bourdain. A good writer with a fascinating story to tell? Yes. But to compare him to Bourdain or Orwell seems premature. A Waiter in Paris chronicles the life of Chisholm as just that, a waiter in Paris, however, although experiencing the life for a short period,…

I have been thinking about this for a long time. The importance of objects around the house, how we engage with them, how they influence our behaviour, how they preserve our identities. Coccia touches on this but also more in this collection of themed essays covering rooms, spaces both physical and digital. I enjoyed his…

Seferis has an interesting story. He was born in Smyrna and Greek diplomat, he was also a Nobel prize winner, which isn’t surprising to me because I enjoyed his poetry and also recognised his personal connections. The poems here are all in English so I’m sure they’re missing the rhyming and aesthetics that usually come…

This is the second time that I have read Fooled by Randomness. I felt that this time I was able to comprehend it better, but it did not hit me as the revolutionary work as it did the first time. In this book Taleb discusses his philosophy on randomness, using examples from his life and…

Running Smart acts as a compliment to a hobby runner, discussing topical and novel theories with academic backing. Generally the book was easy enough to get through and had an enjoyable, simple style, but overall it often contradicted itself and offered limited additional practical guidance or insight for runners. My biggest issue with the book…

I first heard of this book after seeing an article in the Neos Kosmos. Just months later I found a copy in the Paperback Bookshop and was told that I purchased it on the first day after its delivery. Turns out that they had such a good reception with Nikos Papastergiadis’ book that they decided…

I was walking along Sydney Road with a bit of time to kill. I had a pie, walked through Princess Park and browsed through a Socialist Bookstore. The store is pretty new, and initially I was curious why it had been set up at all. Inside everything was political, the staff appeared to be young…

After reading Zorba – twice, because for some reason I thought I would process more from doing so – I decided to read another Nikos Kazantzakis book. For one, the author fascinates me. He story of excommunication, Nobel nominations, travels and literary standing is fodder enough, but the fact that he is also Cretan really…

Now this was a good book. This almost autobiographical tale follows a young Michael Lewis as he winds up on the office floor of Saloman Brothers, just as their hugely successful bond trading business begins to collapse. Michael Lewis is an engaging writer and the characters here ranging from a loyal Italian wall street visionary…

Following on from Hari’s other book, stolen focus, I picked up his earlier work Lost Connections. I was expecting to read about changing society, what I didn’t realise though was this book was actually focused on Depression. Like Hari’s other work, this book does a great job pulling readers into the emotional story hook line…

I picked up this book in Chania. I was happy with this pick because it was in Greek and English and I was just getting into poetry so this married up a new passion with an old passion of wanting to improve my Greek. I took ages to read this book, reading almost a poem…

Stolen Focus explores the modern factors that impact our attention spans. With a very human touch, Johann Hari presents a book that weaves in his own experiences, interviews with experts, and the most seductive modern research on the topic. Stolen Focus is anchored by Hari’s own battles with improving his attention by tracking the author’s…

Burnout to Brilliant is a light and fluffy pop-science book I enjoyed reading. Here, Dr Marny Lishman attacks the topic of Burnout in two parts, firstly describing what burnout is and secondly explaining what to do about it. It’s punchy, digestible and likely what people experiencing burnout actually need. There are a lot of short…

A Cook’s Tour chronicles Anthony Bourdain’s global adventures during the filming of his first television show. Each chapter focuses on a different leg of the journey taking us from Portugal to Vietnam and describing the food and people Bourdain encounters along the way. It’s the style of writing that shines, as usual, with Bourdain’s work.…

Lucky Jim tracks the professional and romantic struggles of Jim Dixon, an academic, as he navigates the stuffy English social scene in the mid-1900s. Jim is stuck in a world of subtle social queues and of a social anxiety that afflicts everyone just below the surface. All this of course is present even before Jim’s…

The Buddha of Suburbia tells the coming of age story of Karim, a second generation Indian migrant in 1970s England. However, oddly, the main character Karim never seems to need growing up but rather he presents as a fully formed observer making sense of the world rather than himself. Like many second generation migrants, Karim…

I’ve always enjoyed David Mitchell’s work and comedic tone. I’ve watched him on Peep Show, That Mitchell and Webb Look and of course on Would I Lie to You. Over the course of about 15 years and across these very different works, one thing has struck me about him which I can’t say about too…

Heritage Aesthetics is a collection of poetry from British-Cypriot writer Anthony Anaxogorou. It was one of the more modern poetry collections that I have read, and I enjoyed the contemporary feeling of the themes and writing. As I read this book, I feel that I placed less pressure on myself to absorb or analyse pieces,…