Three Stars

Best for:
People who enjoy a mixture of history, true crime, and ethical discussions.

In a nutshell:
Author Katwala explores the creation and first two decades of the ‘lie detector’ (polygraph).

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
I like books like this usually – it feels like a subject Patrick Radden Keefe might have taken on.

What it left me feeling:
Educated.

Review:
In this book, author Katwala looks at the creator of the Polygraph, John Larson, who was a medical student interested in how one’s breath and blood pressure were impacted when someone knowingly told a lie. He eventually developed a machine that could allegedly detect these changes and tell when someone was telling a falsehood.

(He also used it as a very effective dating tool. The very first person Larson used it on in an official capacity was a sorority woman nine years his younger who he ended up marrying. I know people meet at work, but that seems to be a bit out of order.)

The book is told mainly through a couple of different cases from the 1920s and 1930s where it seems like the person is guilty, but the results of their polygraph tests are not conclusive. One is a man who might have paid people to kill his wife; another is a man who might have killed someone who was informing on him to the police. The stories themselves are interesting enough; bringing the polygraph into it makes them more complex.

In the US, polygraph results are not admissible at the federal level. But we have all seen Law & Order, right? People offering themselves up to take a lie detector test so that the police will stop investigating them. Or, conversely, we’ll see suspects refuse to take one, and people start to wonder why, and question their innocence.

The story follows as the polygraph gains popularity even though it cannot be used in federal cases. At one point Larson brings in someone named Keeler who takes over the work and sells it as much more infallible than it is, and seeks to make money off it, selling it to shopkeepers to test their employees to see if they’re stealing.

Here’s the thing though – the polygraph doesn’t really work. It definitely cannot definitively detect lies. And its use is ethically questionable at best. Larson sees this and speaks up; Keeler does not, though we get a sense with one of the later cases he’s involved in (one that ultimately results in someone being put to death) that he has his own doubts.

Overall this book was interesting and well-researched, but didn’t spend as much time as I would have liked on the ethics of the polygraph. The final coda was also deeply disturbing; it discusses how countries are making use of AI to detect lies. One claimed an 88% accuracy rate. Super! Unless you’re in the 12% and are telling the truth but the machine says you are lying.

As an aside: I listened to the audio version and I found the narrator’s pronunciation choices frustrating. I think part of it is the author is British so the narrator used some British pronunciations despite the narrator having a US or Canadian accent, which doesn’t quite work but I kind of get it. However, much of this book takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I grew up, and the narrator consistently mispronounces the names of cities. That’s not hard to look up, so I’m confused as to how that got by the producers.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it

Four Stars

Best for:
Those looking for ways to process and manage fear.

In a nutshell:
Zen master Nhat Hanh shares thoughts related to processing, confronting and addressing fear.

Worth quoting:
I took so much away from this book, but some highlights:

“When we climb the hill together, we don’t need to make an effort; we enjoy every step.”

“Each of us is life without limit.”

“We cannot remove violence with hatred and anger. We can only remove violence and fear with compassion and love.

Why I chose it:
I really enjoy Nhat Hanh’s writing. Also, I can always use some help in the fear department.

What it left me feeling:
Calm.

Review:
I find reviewing books on spirituality and mindfulness a bit challenging because I think they are such personal experiences. Like most books, people will take away different things based on what they need and what they are feeling at the moment.

What I can say about this book is that I found Nhat Hanh’s stories and way of writing about fear to be beautiful and meaningful to me, and I know that the many different exercises included will be helpful on my journey.

I think his writing is accessible and easy to understand but still gets me thinking, and that’s just what I need.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Keep

Three Stars

Best for:
Maybe people who liked the DaVinci Code?

In a nutshell:
Clay gets a job in a bookshop in San Francisco, which turns out to be the front for something else entirely.

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
I love a bookstore, and I love a good mystery.

What it left me feeling:
Ambivalent.

Review:
This book was absolutely fine. I think it might be one that was better suited for the page than audio book, so if this is on your list I’m going to recommend that you pick up a hard copy (or at least an e-book version).

The premise is that Clay lives in San Francisco and has recently lost his job. He gets a job working the night shift at a 24-hour bookstore that doesn’t sell many books. The only other employees are Mr Penumbra and Oliver, each working one eight-hour shift. Right off the back the logistics confuse me – does everyone work seven days a week? Or is it closed two days a week? If so, why is it such a huge deal at one point in the book when the shop is closed? It doesn’t make sense to me.

Anyway, moving past that, Clay is a bit of a caricature of a tech bro. He lives with roommates, one of home works in practical effects. He meets a woman who works at Google. Everyone feels very SILICON VALLEY, and tech ends up playing a huge role in the book. I think I get what the author was going for, but it read almost like a TV show as opposed to a book, and I wasn’t a big fan of that.

The plot is that no one really shops at this store. Sure, people do sort of come off the street occasionally and buy some of the popular titles up front, but really the store exists to serve members who come in and demand specific titles from the back of the store. Clay wants to know – who are these people? What are they doing?

The plot develops from there, and there are some genuinely intriguing moments where I didn’t want to put the book down, but I found the last 20% of the book to be a bit of a let down. Now, without spoiling things, if you’ve read this book and are reading my review, I’m not let down in the same way that the people in the end are let down (too cryptic?) – I just didn’t enjoy how things played out. I don’t think it was bad or anything like that, I just wasn’t as taken in as I thought I might be given the topic and my interests.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it

Four Stars

Best for:
Fans of the comedian; those who enjoy witty but not overly snarky humour.

In a nutshell:
Comedian Millican shares her life experiences and what she’s learned from them in a fairly light-hearted but sincere and funny book.

Worth quoting:
I listened to this while running so while there were definitely times when I laughed out loud, I didn’t stop to write them down.

Why I chose it:
I’ve now lived in the UK for over five years, and am exposed to many more UK comedians and comics. Millican popped up in suggested books, and I figured I’d enjoy her work. I was right.

What it left me feeling:
Content

Review:
This is a fairly short book, but worth the purchase. It isn’t totally clean – there is swearing – but it was nice to listen to a memoir where I didn’t find myself blushing.

Millican is a middle-aged woman who isn’t skinny, which means she’s a demographic that isn’t often given a lot of credit or attention in the entertainment industry. She talks about this – one very memorable chapter she compares the review of her episode of ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ (a popular UK show where they look into the genealogy of celebrities) with the review of the Paul Hollywood (of Great British Bake-Off fame) episode. Spoiler: they talk about her appearance but not his.

Millican is delightful – she’s sharp, witty, funny, but not unkind. I find her stories relateable (probably because I too am a middle-aged woman without kids who isn’t a size 6) but I don’t think one has to relate to her directly find her stories funny, insightful, and interesting.

This is not a name-dropping memoir, or a shocking one. There aren’t any hugely major twists or turns (you find out she has been through a divorce very early on); it’s just the story and humour of a woman I’d want to hang out with.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a Friend

Three Stars

Best for:
People interested in a very comprehensive life history of a well-known character actress.

In a nutshell:
Author Margolyes shares stories of her 80 years, starting before the beginning up through the pandemic to today.

Worth quoting:
While this was an audio book, this one caught me so I had to write it down:

“When people say to me ‘oh I never talk about money, religion or politics’ I say ‘what the fuck do you talk about then? Those are the things that matte!”

Why I chose it:
It kept popping up in my audio book app. I’m familiar with Margolyes’s work in Harry Potter as well as Call the Midwife, so thought I’d have a listen.

What it left me feeling:
Surprised.

Review:
What a ride.

I can’t help but compare it to my most recent memoir read, Pageboy. Both are written by out queer actors, and both share much more about their sex lives than I’d like to know. The obvious difference is that Margolyes is more than twice as old as Page and so had many more years of stories to draw upon. Margolyes is also settled into a very long relationship with her now-wife, though that too is a bit unconventional, which is always refreshing to see.

Margolyes has a very matter-of-fact attitude, and I can’t say that she is someone who I’d enjoy being friends with as she certainly has a ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ approach to many things, but I did enjoy much of her memoir. I think she owns her own contradictions, which is refreshing to see – for example, she identifies as quite left and socialist, but also accepted the OBE from the British royal family and shares that she quite likes Prince (now King) Charles, and states clearly she knows these two things don’t align. At the same time, I’m also not entirely clear that she understands how problematic some of her past roles were – she performed in black face, and in yellow face – as while she will throw in a ‘not politically correct these days’ comment when referring to them, the reality is those roles weren’t appropriate when she performed them, either.

Margolyes starts her memoir discussing the births and childhoods of her parents, and follows a linear time line from there. As someone who is not super familiar with her work, I greatly appreciated that. She jumps around a little bit, and references stories she will cover in future chapters, but overall she starts and the beginning and brings us up to present day.

There are so many stories in here that name-check actors, and I cannot imagine what the legal review looked like. So much of it feels like the British actor version of TMZ, but perhaps it’s the accent and the fact that she’s had such a long career that I kind of didn’t mind? Like when she shared that she worked with many of the Monte Python men when she was younger and that they were basically all assholes to her.

I like quite a lot of this book, but I did need to address a couple of things that I found frustrating. She is clear about how she feels about her fat body, and for most of the book she’s very matter of fact about it, but she does have a chapter that specifically focuses on her weight and I found it fairly anti-fat. Obviously she’s allowed to feel about her body however she wants to feel, but her comments also apply to other fat people, and they are so negative that I just find it disappointing. She also very graphically discusses her willingess to engage men in oral sex. I think she has a quite healthy perspective on sex, but as I’ve said before, I’m just not interested in the graphic details. Frankly, if I never hear the phrase ‘suck him off’ again, it’ll be too soon.

Throughout the book one common thread is her deep pride in being a Jewish woman. She is clear that she does not believe in the religious aspects of Judaism, but belongs to a synagogue and partakes in the cultural aspects of the religion. She is active in the fight against antisemitism, and is also a vocal supporter of Palestine. The latter has caused some issues for her within her community, and she has a very thoughtful chapter in her book about this. Interestingly, she repeatedly talks throughout the book about how she wants to fight injustice and will speak out whenever she sees it, but in her Harry Potter chapter she didn’t mention the anti-trans activism promoted by the author of those books, and some further googling on my own has shown that she has made some disappointing comments on the topic.

If you do choose to read this one, I recommend the audio book as she does accents for everyone when quoting them, and they are delightful and unexpected.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it

Three Stars

Best for:
Women interested in distance running.

In a nutshell:
Author Heminsley shares her journey to becoming a long distance runner, and what she’s learned along the way.

Worth quoting:
“After a while though I began to realise that no one was really watching.”

Why I chose it:
I’ve been running half marathons for about 14 years now, but this year I decided to get a running coach to see if I can improve my time. Then I saw this book and decided why not pile on.

What it left me feeling:
Inspired but also a bit annoyed.

Review:
There’s so much in this book that I like and relate to, but also a fair bit that I found frustrating.

Let’s start with what I liked about this. The first chapter is all about Heminsley running the Royal Parks Half marathon in London. I’ve run that one three times and am currently training for it now. So right away I was captured. She then jumps back in time and talks about how she got into running – by choosing to run the London marathon (a thing I will never do – marathons are too much training for me). She talks about the challenges she’s had getting motivated, but also the great moments she’s had in training and races.

There are a lot of great tips in this book for new runners – tips about shoes, and training, and sports bras (I actually bought a bra she recommended – I’m testing it out next week). She talks about the elitism in some aspects of the community, but the welcoming nature of other aspects. She shares her experiences of hitting the wall, of being bored, of not wanting to get out for that next training run.

She also talks about the emotion of finishing a race. I’m a solidly middle runner – usually finishing half marathons with the rush of people doing 1 h 50 – 2 h 10 minute times. But I don’t run to compete against anyone – I run for myself. And in every race there’s usually a moment where I think ‘this is absurd, why am I doing this, I want to go home.’ And then I hit the end of mile 13 and there’s only about a tenth of a mile to go and the emotions just hit. It’s an amazing feeling, whether I’ve gotten my best time ever or whether it’s my worst. Just finishing is fucking cool. As is the work I put in to get there.

She’s also right that there’s a really running community, and it can be wonderful. Last weekend I ran my first park run – free events every Saturday morning in parks all over the UK. They are clearly runs, not races. They do a welcome to first timers, ask if there are any tourists in. There are marshalls volunteering to keep us on the route. At the end, we do find out our place and we get a banana, and some people go off to get coffees together. It’s just so lovely – what for so many of us is indeed a solo activity becomes communal.

But there are aspects I really don’t like about this book. Heminsley seems to have some opinions about gender that I found frustrating – like this line “As my body changed and my sense of what it was capable of started to shift I developed a more masculine side to my personality and, dare I say it, a competitive streak.” Huh? Is this meant to suggest that being competitive or capable is a ‘masculine’ trait all of a sudden? Like, what does that even mean? She also talks about ‘embracing her masculine side’ helping her become better woman. How is running or racing masculine? Literally, I don’t get it. Things like this come up a couple of times, and what knock this book from four stars to three for me.

Also a minor CN for weight loss / body shaming. I understand that weight loss and appearance are obviously a motivator for some people, I wish there’d been a little more thought put into throwing out those ideas (she also has a kind of bizarre offhand observation about a man’s body that gave me pause and bummed me out). I’d love for books like this to not talk about weight or appearance, but I know that asking a lot.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Keep for the tips.