So here we are reviewing more books

Haven't been reading as much as I would like, but here are the latest tomes to have transited via the bedroom table.

The World according to Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith

In a nutshell : 8 year old Bertie and a cast of a dozen or so inhabitants of Edinburgh's 44 Scotland street go around their daily lives of whinging about the neighbours, falling in and out of love, having a new baby brother (half brother actually, the father is your shrink), being an artist etc.

The blurb : We follow a sprawling set of people's lives, all interconnected in some way or another. A lot of the storylne is slightly absurd - a dog on death row, control freak adulterous mothers seen through an 8 year old's eyes, rocky relationships in particular circumstances. We switch from one set of characters to another (i admit, i occasionally got confused) and get to know them through all the little details that AMS captures brilliantly.

IMHO this is not as funny as the Number 1 Ladies detective agency series, also by AMS. It is quite fun to read but it doesn't really go anywhere, which I suppose is the point as none of the characters lives are at any stage building up to a kind of climactic dénouement. It tootles along, hopping from one person to the other, then just ends. Ok, but I'd check out his other books first.

Notes from an exhibition by Patrick Gale

In a nutshell : Artist Rachel Kelly was manic depressive and has committed suicide. Through a series of her exhibition notes and flashbacks of her life and that of her family we learn about her creativity, her illness and her family history.

The blurb : this is an airy book, full of Cornish light and Quaker Meeting houses, but filled with leaden stories of a bipolar artist genius and her dysfunctional family. The story of the family is pieced together from bits of everyone's lives : the father, the mother, and the four children. Main themes are tolerance, creativity, conformism, rebellion, depression and death, presented at various paces.

IMHO I can't work out whether I liked this or not. On the one hand it is beautifully written, very evocative with a powerfully bleak storyline. On the other it is a little slow, as one plunges into the thoughts of each of the protagonists and can read like a group psychotherapy session. Strangely though it ends a little abruptly imho. Good winter reading, when the world is a little dark and slow. Not one for the beach.

What Einstein told his cook by Robert L. Wolke

In a nutshell: Why is meat red and what is the catch with low-sodium salt? How do microwaves work and does a bit of potato really absorb excess salt in soup? And how about the diference between raw sugar, treacle, molasses and golden syrup? Or baking soda and baking powder? and what the hell is umami?

The blurb : all these questions and many many more are answered in this brilliant book written by a chemist. It is all divided by theme (sugar, salt, fat, "fire and ice", etc). We all know cookery is chemical, but here we discover what exactly is going on and what the things we eat are. Clear, very funny (as in laugh out loud), comprehensive and with just the right amount of science, it brings answers to many questions you'd never asked, or even thought about.

IMHO this is the best book I've read since... ages, and certainly the best non fiction food related book. Other than its qualities described above, it is also a must read for anyone who is serious about cooking and good fun in general. Full of incredibly interesting facts, and a good way of learning a bit of chemistry too. Very highly recommended.