Miscellaneous Reviews (early 1990s-present)

by Simon Whitechapel

...the critic has to assume the mantle of omniscience to carry out his job, though in reality he is perhaps considerably less than qualified or worthy to judge the work of others.

By Subject (click on buttons to expand)

• Science & Technology


• Artforms of Nature (Kunstformen der Natur), Ernst Haeckel (10/i/2005)
• Cats’ Paws & Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature & People, Steven Vogel
• The Country Flowers of a Victorian Lady, Fanny Robinson; Flowers in Colour, A.C. Hellyer, watercolors by Cynthia Newsome-Taylor, woodcuts by J.D.C. Sowerby; The Pocket Encyclopedia of Indoor Plants, Age Nicolaisen, illustrated by Palle Brennhoi and Otto Frello; An Illustrated Guide to Flowering Houseplants, Jack Kramer; A Guide to Fuchsias, Leo Boullemier (14/xi/2006)
• Exotic Orchids, ed. Wilma Rittershausen (10/iii/2006)
• Fire on Earth: Doomsday, Dinosaurs & Humankind, John and Mary Gribbin
• Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Matt Ridley
• Germany’s Secret Weapons in World War II, Roger Ford
• An Illustrated Guide to Pollen Analysis, P.D. Moore and J.A. Webb (6/iii/2005)
• Impact Earth: Asteroids, Comets and Meteors: The Growing Threat, Austen Atkinson
• Influence: Science and Practice, Robert B. Cialdini
• Jet, Helen Muller
• The Left-Hander Syndrome: The Causes and Consequences of Left-Handedness, Stanley Coren
• Living Jewels: The Natural Design of Beetles, Poul Beckmann (29/vi/2005)
• Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell Us about Human Nature, Kenan Malik
• Mapping the Mind, Rita Carter
• A Mind to Crime: The Controversial Link Between the Mind and Criminal Behaviour, Ann Moir and David Jessel
• The Mitchell Beazley Pocket Guide to Mushrooms and Toadstools, David N. Pegler (22/vii/2005)
• On Growth and Form, D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson
• Orchids: A Guide to Cultivation, Dr Phillip Cribb and Christopher Bailes (10/iii/2006)
• The Oxford Companion to the Mind, Richard L. Gregory (ed.)
• Pythagoras’ Trousers: God, Physics, and the Gender Wars, Margaret Wertheim
• The Skeptical Enquirer, Various
• Why Men Don’t Listen And Women Can’t Read Maps: How We’re Different and What to Do About It, Allan and Barbara Pease
• Wild Flowers of Britain and Europe, W. Lippert and D. Podlech, translated and adapted by Martin Walters; A Handguide to the Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe, illustrations by Marjorie Blamey, text by Richard Fitter; Wild Flowers of Britain and Europe, Andrew Branson; The Wild Flowers Book, illustrations by Eduard Desmartini and Vera Nicova, text by Eliska Tomanová, translated by Olga Kuthanova; The Concise British Flora in Colour, W. Keble Martin
• Maths


• An Adventure in Multidimensional Space: The Art and Geometry of Polygons, Polyhedra, and Polytopes, Koji Miyazaki (22/vii/2005)
• e: The Story of a Number, Eli Maor (18/v/2005)
• The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the Extraordinary Number of Nature, Art and Beauty, Mario Livio (10/i/ 2005)
• The Joy of π, David Blatner (18/v/2005)
• A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, John Allen Paulos
• The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan, Robert Kanigel
• Paradoxes in Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics, Gábor J. Székely (23/xi/2005)
• The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Mathematics, David Wells
• Platonic and Archimedean Solids: The Geometry of Space, Daud Sutton (10/iii/2006)
• What Shape Is A Snowflake? Magical Numbers in Nature, Ian Stewart (6/iii/2005)
• Literature


• Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
• A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
• Collected Short Stories, Somerset Maugham
• The Dead Zone, Stephen King
• Decline & Fall, Evelyn Waugh
• Dirty Weekend, Helen Zahavi
• Enemies of Promise, Cyril Connolly
• The Football Factory Trilogy, John King
• The Hammer of God, Arthur C. Clarke
• Hannibal, Thomas Harris
• Haunter of the Dark, John Coulthart
• Headlong Hall / Nightmare Abbey, Thomas Love Peacock
• I Was Dora Suarez, Derek Raymond
• King of the Thrill: Alistair MacLean
• Literary Theory: An Introduction, Terry Eagleton (22/vii/2005)
• The Missing Will / A Dubious Codicil, Michael Wharton (Peter Simple) (23/ii/2005)
• The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
• Selected Poems, A.C. Swinburne
• A Serious Life, D.M. Mitchell
• The Amazon Online Bookstore (UK only) (26/iii/2005)
• Trowbridge Public Library (26/iii/2005)
• The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
• Will This Do? The First Fifty Years of Auberon Waugh (21/i/2006)
• Politics


• Index on Censorship, Various
• Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
• Mo Mowlam: The Biography, Julia Langdon (1/xii/2005)
• Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America, Edward Behr
• Servants of the People: The Inside Story of New Labour, Andrew Rawnsley
• Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid
• Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
• White Riot: The Violent Story of Combat 18, Nick Lowles
• Culture & History


• Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinoüs, Royston Lambert
• The Cult at the End of the World: The Terrifying Story of the Aum Doomsday Cult, David E. Kaplan (26/vi/2005)
• Crash: The Limits of Car Safety, Nicholas Faith
• The Dark Side of the Game: My Life in the NFL, Tim Green
• Dougal Haston: The Philosophy of Risk, Jeff Connors (27/ii/2006)
• Etruscan: Reading the Past, Larissa Bonfante
• The Film Studies Reader, Joanne Hollows (ed.) et al.
• Football Against the Enemy, Simon Kuper
• Futurism, Richard Humphreys
• A History of the Breast, Marilyn Yalom
• History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell
• Lesbian and Gay Studies: A Critical Introduction, Andy Medhurst and Sally R. Munt
• Lone Wolf: True Stories of Spree Killers, Pan Pantziarka
• Lord Gnome of the Rings: The Best of Private Eye 1976, Various (6/iii/2005)
• The Magic of Uri Geller, as revealed by the Amazing Randi (12/ii/2005)
• Ruthless: The Global Rise of the Yardies, Geoff Small
• When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away with Murder, Patricia Pearson
• Religion


• The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong
• Flesh Inferno: Atrocities of Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition, by Simon Whitechapel
• The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God?, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy
• Saint Edmund Campion: Priest and Martyr, Evelyn Waugh
• The Tablet, Various
• Music


• Aavaante Gaarde, The Next Best of Post-Elektronika Vol 23 (1/v/2004)
• AC/DC, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
• Avril Lavigne, Let Go (11/ix/2008)
• The Darling Buds, Pop Said (12/vi/2006)
• Depeche Mode, Playing the Angel (11/ix/2008)
• Electric Wizard, Dopethrone (23/xi/2005)
• Feline, Feline (1/vii/2006)
• Funeral, Tristesse demo (16/x/2005)
• Grand Magus, Monument (11/ix/2008)
• Julian and Sandy: Fab Sketches from Round the Horne / The Bona World of Julian and Sandy: More Sketches from Round the Horne (22/iii/2005)
• L7, Hungry for Stink (8/vii/2006)
• Led Zeppelin: Plumbing the Zeps
• Louis Jordan, How ’Bout That (6/viii/2005)
• Manic Street Preachers, The Holy Bible
• Steven Patrick Morrissey (16/x/2005)
• Obiat, Accidentally Making Enemies / Emotionally Driven Disturbulence
• Pitchshifter, Industrial
• The Primitives, Bombshell: The Hits and More (10/xii/2005)
• Rose of Avalanche, Never Another Sunset (25/x/2005)
• Runemagick, Envenom (15/ii/2006)
• Skink, Deaf to Suggestion (20/xii/2005)
• Slayer: Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot
• The Sundays, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (16/x/2005)
• The Sundays, Static and Silence (16/iii/2006)
• Various, Music from the Crusades (6/viii/2005)
• Winter, Into Darkness / Eternal Frost
• Murder & Mayhem


• Blood Circus: True Tales of Men and Women Who Killed for Kicks, Margaret L. Woodham
• Evading the Blade: French Killers Who Cheated the Guillotine, William Fry
• Food for the Worm: The True Story of Latin America’s Serial-Killing Frenzy, Barry M. Lister
• Red Moon Risin’: The True Story of Appalachia’s Cannibal Killer, Larry H. Gernsberg
• Slaughter of the Innocent: An Odyssey to the Russian Heart of Darkness, Kenneth Charles
• Sex’n’Sleaze


• After the Wall Went Down: Prostitution and Pornography in Post-Soviet Europe, Patricia C. Baumgarten
• Arrows of Artemis: A Lesbian Guide to S&M Sex, Anthea Royale and Jennifer Young
• California Sunshine, Minnesota Rain: True Tales from the American Sleaze Trade, Katherine G. Fraser
• Open All Hours: The Life of a ’Seventies Eastend Stripper, Jayne Greenwood (with Hilary Tamworth)
• Perfect Tens: An Illustrated History of FootFet, Tony MacArthur

By Title

• Accidentally Making Enemies / Emotionally Driven Disturbulence, Obiat (23/ii/2005)
• An Adventure in Multidimensional Space: The Art and Geometry of Polygons, Polyhedra, and Polytopes, Koji Miyazaki (22/vii/2005)
• Artforms of Nature (Kunstformen der Natur), Ernst Haeckel (10/i/2005)
• The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong
• Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinoüs, Royston Lambert
• Bombshell: The Hits and More, The Primitives (10/xii/2005)
• Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
• Cats’ Paws & Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature & People, Steven Vogel
• A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
• Collected Short Stories, Somerset Maugham
• The Country Flowers of a Victorian Lady, Fanny Robinson; Flowers in Colour, A.C. Hellyer, watercolors by Cynthia Newsome-Taylor, woodcuts by J.D.C. Sowerby; The Pocket Encyclopedia of Indoor Plants, Age Nicolaisen, illustrated by Palle Brennhoi and Otto Frello; An Illustrated Guide to Flowering Houseplants, Jack Kramer; A Guide to Fuchsias, Leo Boullemier (14/xi/2006)
• Crash: The Limits of Car Safety, Nicholas Faith
• The Cult at the End of the World: The Terrifying Story of the Aum Doomsday Cult, David E. Kaplan (26/vi/2005)
• The Dark Side of the Game: My Life in the NFL, Tim Green
• The Dead Zone, Stephen King
• Deaf to Suggestion, Skink (20/xii/2005)
• Decline & Fall, Evelyn Waugh
• Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, AC/DC
• Dirty Weekend, Helen Zahavi
• Dopethrone, Electric Wizard (23/xi/2005)
• Dougal Haston: The Philosophy of Risk, Jeff Connors (27/ii/2006)
• Enemies of Promise, Cyril Connolly
• e: The Story of a Number, Eli Maor (18/v/2005)
• Etruscan: Reading the Past, Larissa Bonfante
• Envenom, Runemagick (15/ii/2006)
• Exotic Orchids, ed. Wilma Rittershausen (10/iii/2006)
• Feline, Feline (1/vii/2006)
• The Film Studies Reader, Joanne Hollows (ed.) et al.
• Fire on Earth: Doomsday, Dinosaurs & Humankind, John and Mary Gribbin
• Flesh Inferno: Atrocities of Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition, by Simon Whitechapel
• Football Against the Enemy, Simon Kuper
• The Football Factory Trilogy, John King
• Futurism, Richard Humphreys
• Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Matt Ridley
• Germany’s Secret Weapons in World War II, Roger Ford
• The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the Extraordinary Number of Nature, Art and Beauty, Mario Livio (10/i/2005)
• The Hammer of God, Arthur C. Clarke
• Hannibal, Thomas Harris
• Haunter of the Dark, John Coulthart
• Headlong Hall / Nightmare Abbey, Thomas Love Peacock
• A History of the Breast, Marilyn Yalom
• History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell
• The Holy Bible, Manic Street Preachers
• How ’Bout That, Louis Jordan (6/viii/2005)
• Hungry for Stink, L7 (8/vii/2006)
• An Illustrated Guide to Pollen Analysis, P.D. Moore and J.A. Webb (6/iii/2005)
• Impact Earth: Asteroids, Comets and Meteors: The Growing Threat, Austen Atkinson
• Index on Censorship, Various
• Industrial, Pitchshifter
• Influence: Science and Practice, Robert B. Cialdini
• Into Darkness / Eternal Frost, Winter
• I Was Dora Suarez, Derek Raymond
• The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God?, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy
• Jet, Helen Muller
• The Joy of π, David Blatner (18/v/2005)
• Julian and Sandy: Fab Sketches from Round the Horne / The Bona World of Julian and Sandy: More Sketches from Round the Horne (22/iii/2005)
• King of the Thrill: Alistair MacLean
• The Left-Hander Syndrome: The Causes and Consequences of Left-Handedness, Stanley Coren
• Lesbian and Gay Studies: A Critical Introduction, Andy Medhurst and Sally R. Munt
• Let Go, Avril Lavigne (11/ix/2008)
• Literary Theory: An Introduction, Terry Eagleton (22/vii/2005)
• Living Jewels: The Natural Design of Beetles, Poul Beckmann (29/vi/2005)
• Lone Wolf: True Stories of Spree Killers, Pan Pantziarka
• Lord Gnome of the Rings: The Best of Private Eye 1976, Various (6/iii/2005)
• The Magic of Uri Geller, as revealed by the Amazing Randi (12/ii/2005)
• Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
• The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan, Robert Kanigel
• Mapping the Mind, Rita Carter
• A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, John Allen Paulos
• A Mind to Crime: The Controversial Link Between the Mind and Criminal Behaviour, Ann Moir and David Jessel
• The Missing Will / A Dubious Codicil, Michael Wharton (Peter Simple) (23/ii/2005)
• The Mitchell Beazley Pocket Guide to Mushrooms and Toadstools, David N. Pegler (22/vii/2005)
• Monument, Grand Magus (11/ix/2008)
• Mo Mowlam: The Biography, Julia Langdon (1/xii/2005)
• Steven Patrick Morrissey (16/x/2005)
• Music from the Crusades, Various (6/viii/2005)
• Never Another Sunset, Rose of Avalanche (25/x/2005)
• The Next Best of Post-Elektronika Vol 23, Aavaante Gaarde (1/v/2004)
• On Growth and Form, D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson
• Orchids: A Guide to Cultivation, Dr Phillip Cribb and Christopher Bailes (10/iii/2006)
• The Oxford Companion to the Mind, Richard L. Gregory (ed.)
• Paradoxes in Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics, Gábor J. Székely (23/xi/2005)
• The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Mathematics, David Wells
• The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
• Platonic and Archimedean Solids: The Geometry of Space, Daud Sutton (10/iii/2006)
• Playing the Angel, Depeche Mode (11/ix/2008)
• Plumbing the Zeps: Led Zeppelin
• Pop Said, The Darling Buds (12/vi/2006)
• Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America, Edward Behr
• Pythagoras’ Trousers: God, Physics, and the Gender Wars, Margaret Wertheim
• Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, The Sundays (16/x/2005)
• Ruthless: The Global Rise of the Yardies, Geoff Small
• Saint Edmund Campion: Priest and Martyr, Evelyn Waugh
• Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot: Slayer
• Selected Poems, A.C. Swinburne
• A Serious Life, D.M. Mitchell
• Servants of the People: The Inside Story of New Labour, Andrew Rawnsley
• The Skeptical Enquirer, Various
• Static and Silence, The Sundays (16/iii/2006)
• The Amazon Online Bookstore (UK only) (26/iii/2005)
• The Tablet, Various
• Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid
• Tristesse demo, Funeral (16/x/2005)
• Trowbridge Public Library (26/iii/2005)
• The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
• What Shape Is A Snowflake? Magical Numbers in Nature, Ian Stewart (6/iii/2005)
• When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away with Murder, Patricia Pearson
• Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
• White Riot: The Violent Story of Combat 18, Nick Lowles
• Why Men Don’t Listen And Women Can’t Read Maps: How We’re Different and What to Do About It, Allan and Barbara Pease
• Wild Flowers of Britain and Europe, W. Lippert and D. Podlech, translated and adapted by Martin Walters; A Handguide to the Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe, illustrations by Marjorie Blamey, text by Richard Fitter; Wild Flowers of Britain and Europe, Andrew Branson; The Wild Flowers Book, illustrations by Eduard Desmartini and Vera Nicova, text by Eliska Tomanová, translated by Olga Kuthanova; The Concise British Flora in Colour, W. Keble Martin (19/viii/2006)
• Will This Do? The First Fifty Years of Auberon Waugh (21/i/2006)

© 1990s-2006 Simon Whitechapel