Four Stars

Best for:
Those who have a feeling that there’s something wrong with current systems of immigration and borders but wants to put some facts behind that.

In a nutshell:
Authors Bradley and de Noronha look at all the ways that borders — and the enforcement of immigration associated with them — are a negative for society, and offer some ideas for ways to abolish them.

Worth quoting:
“Borders do not materialize only at the edges of national territory, in airports, or at border walls. In fact, borders are everyday and everywhere, determining how people relate to partners, employers and the police where they live and work, and their access to health care and welfare support.”

“Campaigns for citizenship for particular groups of migrants function to reinforce the notion that you have to be a particular kind of person — a citizen, an insider, someone who belongs — in order to access fundamental rights.”

(I ended up underlining passages on nearly every page of the book.)

Why I chose it:
My partner read it and recommended it to me, as he knows I am highly skeptical of borders.

Review:
I am someone who, as of about six months ago, has held dual citizenship: US and UK. I moved to the UK in 2018 with my partner, who was able to secure a work visa for himself and a dependent visa for me. Because of immigration rules he was limited in the type of work he could do, and when he lost his job nearly two years after we moved here, we were trapped until he could find other work; if we let the country, we’d have to wait a year to reapply. By that point I had a job, but not visa sponsorship, so it didn’t really matter. We spent thousands of pounds on fees and solicitors to get the right to remain and then our citizenship, because we didn’t want to risk having to leave the country we now consider home. But we were super lucky because we had the resources to do all of this, and if it hadn’t worked out, we could have gone back to the US, found jobs, and built a different life there.

But for many people, migration is born out of necessity; they’re leaving challenging social or economic situations in their country of birth, or perhaps they’ve been trafficked, or their parents brought them when they were small children and they don’t have any connection to their ‘home’ country. I find it bizarre and frankly unreasonable to suggest that where people are born should be where they have to remain. I think the authors of this book would agree.

This book spans just eight chapters and looks at the impact of immigration controls as they relate to areas such as race and gender. It explores how capitalism plays into it, and how abolition of borders can learn from police abolition movements. This book was released in 2022, and so the sections on counter-terror, databases, and algorithms are already a bit out of date given the further surge in the horror that is AI (though they do talk about it a bit).

The authors aren’t naive – they don’t suggest we can just stop having border controls tomorrow, because that’s just not going to happen. They talk about non-reform reforms, which as I understand it are the sort of very minor, incremental things one can push for that don’t really help the longer term goal but might help a few people for now, but focus on alternatives that are abolitionist in nature. Things like not requiring the ability to work or to receive health care to be tied to immigration status. But what they think we should all be pushing for is abolition, and they give plenty of concrete examples of what that could look like, and why it’s not enough to just try to expand who counts in the citizenship bucket.

My review is inelegant because I’m still thinking through all of the information. I agree that immigration controls and enforcement should be abolished; the area I’m always a bit fuzzy on is about how one then would have ability to support and keep cultural differences alive in the current era. Nations are not monolith, so maybe that’s my answer, but in a very tiny example: if people in place A want to prioritize funding, say, bike paths, and people in place B want to prioritize funding bus lanes, what form of government would allow for those decisions to be made without any sort of delineation of area? Do all eight billion people vote on everything? Is there a president of the world? How does law governing other things work in this scenario?

I don’t think my questions above negate the benefits of border abolition. I’m just once again finding myself agreeing with the premise of a book, and understanding the evidence, and being on board, but being stuck without answers to some of my basic questions. And that’s what keeps this from being a five-star book for me.

4 Stars

Best for:
Those interested in forensic anthropology. Not for those who find the discussion of death (and specifics surrounding the investigation of it) to be traumatizing.

In a nutshell:
Forensic Anthropologist Black shares her experience with the dead and the living.

Worth quoting:
“If we cannot influence it, perhaps we shouldn’t waste precious time worrying about it.”

Why I chose it:
I’ve been interested in the field of forensic anthropology for awhile.

Review:
If you’ve read my reviews a bunch of the years (or if you know me in real life), you’ll know that for a time, a major part of my job was planning for the response to mass fatality incidents in King County, where Seattle is. Part of that involved working closely with two colleagues, one of whom was an amazing forensic anthropologist called Dr. Kathy Taylor. She died a few years ago, and I miss her. She was amazing to work with, and shared with the author of this book something other than a career field: she cared deeply about those she encountered through her work, and wanted to do her best to ensure families were reunited and the unidentified were known.

The author of this book, Sue Black, works out of Dundee, in Scotland, and has had a fascinating career. The book covers her life and her work, interweaving personal stories with some well-known ones. She talks about training in anatomy, and her own early experience with death in her family. She also shares how she handled the deaths of her parents.

One chapter deals with how identification is made, using age, sex, ancestry and stature. She handles the topic of sex v gender extremely well in my opinion, and talks through why, for example, it’s much easier to determine the age of a child through bones than it is to determine the age of an adult.

She has had a storied career and helped many people, including traveling repeatedly to Kosovo to help identify victims in that conflict, as well as pushing the UK to develop a world-leading capability in disaster victim identification. The chapter on that was one I found most interesting, given my background.

The book has some gentle humor but is always respectful of the living and the dead. She talks a great deal about reverence and respect for those who donate their bodies after death so others can learn (that’s on my list, though the university I currently have listed is about 6,000 miles away, so I should probably update that), and also shares interesting nuggets of wisdom. For example, I learned than anyone with a tattoo (I’m included there) may have ink in their lymph nodes? Fascinating.

3 Stars

Best for:
Fans of nature writing that also has a background story.

In a nutshell:
Author Boothby became fascinated by author Gavin Maxwell and the life he lived in Scotland, and spent time living where he did.

Worth quoting:
“…a genius doesn’t necessarily make for an easy person to live with or to know.”

“For once in my life I knew what it was to have purpose. Up until then, my life had been goal-orientated, which is all very well, but once you achieve a goal, or fail, what then? Set yourself up with another? Set yourself up to win, or lose? Over and over?”

Why I chose it:
I love Skye and the Highlands and pretty much all of Scotland (it’s why I live here now), and I also enjoy quality nature writing. Plus, otters!

Review:
There are two different books in here. Not literally, but there are stories that are related, and some parts are fantastic and other parts are more challenging.

Boothby read one of Gavin Maxwell’s books at a young age, and became enthralled with the life Maxwell led. I’d never heard of Maxwell before reading this book, but he’s apparently a well-known author who was also an unpleasant man who took in wild animals and kept them as pets. He was a complicated man by all accounts – the kind that people write books and stories about, even though as individuals they were probably deeply unpleasant to spend time with.

Maxwell lived in the West Highlands, and author Boothby decided to make a pilgrimage there many times, finally settling down there temporarily to serve as caretaker to the lighthouse and former home of Maxwell. He lived in a studio attached to what was turned into a holiday cottage that is rented by tourists, and gave tours while also keeping up the land. He looked for otters, and tried to commune with the spirit of Maxwell in that space.

The Maxwell storyline led to the book being written, and provides a bit of a connective tissue throughout, but the parts of most interest to me are the descriptions of the area and the people beyond Maxwell. Boothby discusses the old lighthouses and how they were staffed and maintained, about the challenges of living in harsh conditions. He describes the land and the weather and the plants and animals in ways that one could picture. That part of the book is intriguing and what kept me reading; the Maxwell bit much less so.

I might have given this book four stars, but at one point Boothby describes two women on a yacht as ‘blubbery.’ Come on dude. Unnecessary and also just bizarre choice. Which then makes me wonder about the author even more than I already had.

3 Stars

Best for:
Fans of the genre.

In a nutshell:
Jane Finn has some important war-related documents. Unfortunately, she has been missing for years, and even though The Great War is over, those documents are important. However, through a few seemingly random interactions, friends Tommy and Tuppence end up trying to track Jane down.

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
I’ve been enjoying her books and plays, and so placed holds on whatever the library had, and this was the first to become available.

Review:
I didn’t enjoy this as much as the The Unexpected Guest, but it was still an interesting read. I think one of the challenges for me was that there were quite a few characters that I had some trouble recalling exactly who was who, and how they were related to each other. I also knew I had to accept the premise of these important documents about the war, but it was hard to understand exactly why they mattered so much since the war was over, so the sort of … desperation everyone had to get a hold of them didn’t make tons of sense to me, but I have a feeling I just misunderstood or didn’t catch the part where it was explained.

As usual, there were a few twists in the book, but unfortunately one of the main one’s I had figured out very early on in the book. Probably just a lucky guess, but when it was eventually revealed, instead of feeling like ‘oooh, go me, I figured it out,’ I felt a bit disappointed. Not what one hopes for in a book. I did, however, enjoy the language. Most of the books I read are at most 20 years old, but this book was written over a century ago, so it’s interesting to hear the word choice and the style of speaking.

This was Christie’s second ever book, so I can see why it might not be one I enjoyed as much as others, but it was still worth the read.

4 Stars

Best for:
Cat lovers. Those who enjoy a slightly melancholy, but also hopeful, look at everyday life.

In a nutshell:
Five individuals seek assistance from a mysterious clinic.

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
My sister gave it to me for Christmas. She knows me well.

Review:
I read most of this book in one sitting – where I am, 2 January is also a holiday, and I enjoyed the return of sunny weather by sitting indoors devouring this sweet book.

The book is broken down into five stories, featuring six cats and five humans who are in need of some help in their lives. One hates his job and says he wants to know how he can just get on with it as he needs the work. Another is a sexist man who feels diminished at work and in his home. The third is a woman who is dismissive of her young child’s concerns. The fourth is a woman who runs her own company and is tired of being the only one who does everything the ‘right’ way. Finally, the last is a woman who has lost her own cat.

Each person finds their way to the clinic via recommendation, but not directly – it’s always a friend of a friend’s cousin or someone they run into at work who recommends the clinic. And the prescription is always the same – a cat, for a week or two. And the cats do help – but perhaps not in the expected ways.

Two days ago I celebrated the 13th anniversary of ‘gotcha’ day of our two rescue kittens. We moved them across the world with us, and they are the center of so much joy (the cuddles! The playfulness despite their age!) and frustration (the puke! The multiple visits to the vet each year!). They’ve been in my life for nearly a third of it, and it’s wild to even imagine them not being here. I love when a book like this can capture how important cats can be in the lives of their caretakers.

2 Stars

Best for:
I cannot imagine anyone other than a new Lewis Hamilton fan finding this book interesting.

In a nutshell:
Lewis Hamilton shares his journey to Formula One, ending at the end of his very first season as a Formula 1 driver (so 1985-2007, essentially).

Worth quoting:
“But I do not want to be the Tiger Woods of motor racing – just being the Lewis Hamilton of motor racing will be cool enough for me.”

“It is mostly mental energy that you are losing; you must try not to empty ‘the bottle’ of your own energy to keep everyone else happy.”

Why I chose it:
This was my partner’s Christmas gift to me this year (we always just do a gift for the home, and then exchange one book on Christmas Eve) because I have somewhat recently gotten into F1, and my favorite driver is Hamilton.

Review:
It is unfortunate to start out with such a critical review for 2025, but I am still happy I read this book because I did learn some things about Hamilton. For those of you who aren’t aware, Lewis Hamilton is the 7-time World Driver Champion of Formula 1 (and should have been an 8-time champion, but that’s a whole other story). He’s also the only Black driver out of 20 on the grid, and the only Black driver in the history of the sport (out of 805 drivers). He’s outspoken about a lot of issues such as racism and LGBTQ+ rights. Of course, he’s also (now) a multi-millionaire.

Like a lot of folks, I came to know F1 via Drive to Survive, a documentary on Netflix. But I didn’t learn about the series until maybe its third or fourth season, and I didn’t start actually watching F1 in real earnest and following it until I think 2023, when we realized our Now TV subscription included live coverage of all the race weekends. Now, my partner and I are all in. As an early birthday present my partner gave me the giant LEGO Mercedes F1 car, which took awhile to build and is, frankly, so cool. We spend race weekends watching practice, qualifying, and of course the race. When my sister and her partner were visiting over the summer, we basically forced them to watch the British Grand Prix, which was especially amazing as Hamilton won it. I play football (soccer) on Sundays, so often I’ll miss the race and will come back to the changing rooms to see a play by play series of text messages so I still can experience it. And yes, I’m aware of the negatives of F1 – the sportswashing, the politics, the money.

With all that as preamble, this was the perfect book to get for me in theory, but unfortunately it is not a well-written book. I think the responsibility for this lies with the editors and the ghostwriter employed to tell Hamilton’s story, because it reads basically like a bunch of interviews strung together and edited only to remove any sense of drama from it. Hamilton was 22 at the time it was written, and he is not a writer. I’ve mostly only read sport autobiographies written by women (Megan Rapinoe, Hope Solo, Abbie Wambach, Caster Semenya) – but whether those were ghost-written or not, they were definitely better than this one. I even wondered if it was perhaps a young adult or even child’s edition but no, it seems to be just the standard copy that was printed.

The book follows a linear time line after the introductory chapter, and gets into Hamilton’s young life and how he got into karting and then professional driving. There are interesting parts about his young life, his education, and his relationship with his family, given his parents divorced when he was so young. He credits his father with so much of his own success, but there are a lot of allusions to how hard his father was on him.

Because I wasn’t watching F1 during Hamilton’s start, I didn’t know much of anything that happened during his rookie year (like, th fact that he nearly won the World Driver Championship that year!), and that section of the book flowed a bit better. He covers most of the races, and addresses the ‘Ferrari issue’, which I didn’t know about and had to look up online before it was explained. I also wonder how Hamilton feels about some of the things he shares now that many more years have passed – talking about how cool it was to meet P Diddy (yikes), and giving over a paragraph to how much he enjoyed being on a talk show with David Cameron and how he wasn’t really into politics (double yikes). But also, like, what 39 year old would look back at every decision he made at 22 and think ‘yep, totally nailed it’? Certainly not me…

So far I’ve read two F1 books, and neither has really been great. I’m not sure if its the quality of the (ghost) writers, or if folks just haven’t figured out how to write a compelling motor sport book, but I think a biography would probably be more interesting to read than this memoir, at least while Hamilton is still a driver. If he decides to write a complete memoir after he retires, I will certainly read that, though hopefully he’ll work with a better ghostwriter and team.

4 Stars

Best for:
Those looking for a quick, satisfying read.

In a nutshell:
Leonard is accused of killing an elderly woman, Emily. He believes his wife will serve as his alibi. Will she?

Worth quoting:
“Everything has something to hide, something they would do anything to protect.”

Why I chose it:
I enjoyed “The Unexpected Guest,” and have been checking out what is available of Christie’s at my local library.

Review:
I listened to this, and it was read by Christie’s grandson. Cool idea, but his delivery left something to be desired.

This short story quickly explores the ideas of who we believe and why, and as it has a fantastic final line that sums things and leaves the reader saying, essentially, ‘oh shit.’

Leonard Vole has befriended an older woman, Emily. We don’t quite understand why – but we do learn she is wealthy. However, Leonard is married. When he is charged with murdering Emily, his attorney Mayhew is interested in the truth, and determines that he needs to help Leonard because Leonard is not guilty. Leonard’s wife is his alibi, but when Mayhew goes to interview her, things take a turn.

This was a short, simple, and surprising story. I’d heard about it and was expecting more, but at the same time it was an interesting way to tell such a short story. It’s only in a couple of locations, there are not that many characters, and when it was over, I thought ‘oh! Well done!’

What’s next for this book:
I’d love to see the play.

Four Stars

Best for:
Anyone who has the ability to clean things.

In a nutshell:
Ann Russell, professional cleaner (and TikTok cleaning question answerer) shares a collection of her tips for keeping a clean home.

Worth quoting:
“10-20 minutes every night and 10 minutes before you leave in the morning should keep your space under control.”

“Try to pull furniture out to go under and behind, but don’t beat yourself up if you can’t – decent people don’t check for dust behind your sofa; ask any that do to leave in a hurry.”

Why I chose it:
I thoroughly enjoy Russell’s TikTok contributions, and her tips seem so sensible. Plus she’s do very dry.

Review:
Now, I am a tidy person but I am not always the cleanest person. There is very little ‘mess’ out in our flat, but until fairly recently, if you ran a finger over anything higher than eye level or lower than knee level you’d probably recoil. But in August we found our cats had acquired fleas (they are indoor cats, so we suspect a hitchhiker from our lovely cat sitter), which meant we had to vacuum every bit of floor, carpet, and soft furnishing every day for a week. That eventually switched to every other day, and now twice a week, but I’ve gotten used to a clean home but want to do better. Our flat is very old, and while it was redone probably 20 years ago, there are crevices, cracks, and neglected areas that the previous owners possibly never considered cleaning.

I picked up this book hoping for some quick, reasonable guidance, and that’s exactly what it offers. It is a very quick read, and I found myself underlining quite a lot, making notes of things to try. During my weekly house clean yesterday I tried out her method for dusting (using a fully squeezed out damp cloth) to see if that might pick up and keep more of the cat fur and dander that accumulates throughout the week. Because I do a deep clean of each room on a rotating weekly cycle in addition to the standard dusting and vacuuming (e.g., primary bedroom this week, kitchen next week), I’ll be able to try out some of her suggestions room by room, which is how the book is divided.

She starts off with chapters on products and equipment, which was handy for me, as Russell is from the UK, and some of the words used for things here differ from what I’m used to, so good to get a sense of what things actually are before I try to use them. She then talks about setting up a cleaning routine, before diving into room-by-room suggestions. She also includes a chapter full of tips for those who are renting, which I think is a really nice thing to include, because sometimes (let’s be real – usually) landlords don’t do the upkeep needed, which can result in things like mold and damp that tenants are left to clean up.

The book also includes a surprising amount of fairly dry humor, which one doesn’t necessarily expect from a cleaning book. And Russell is very clearly not judging anyone’s level of cleanliness, or the time they have to devote to cleaning. Overall, a very good purchase.

What’s next for this book:
Keep and refer back to regularly. Maybe only recommend if someone asks; otherwise it might sounds like I think they need to improve their cleaning skills.

Five Stars

Best for:
Those who want a page turner that has an underlying message about society.

In a nutshell:
Our protagonist isn’t given a name – in fact, no one, I realised only as I started writing this review, has a proper name. Everyone is identified by their relation or role – mother, father, daughter, son. She wakes up in the night to see a man standing in her hallway, and has to make a decision about how to keep her children safe.

Worth quoting:
“Men and their eyes, always thinking they were so subtle.”

“The star on the cover posed with hands on hips and a forward slouch, quote superimposed over the photo reading, ‘I always want things dangerous.’ How safe the world had to have felt to say such a thing. She couldn’t remember it ever feeling that way.”

“Easier to believe a woman’s lying than that bad things happened on your watch. Easier to believe the simplest thing is always correct. And it’s simple to say a woman is crazy.”

Why I chose it:
It was part of a book subscription from Rare Birds – a bookstore in Edinburgh that only stocks books written by women.

Review:
Ah, what a book. I read nearly half on the first night, stayed up too late on the second night, and had to finish it during my lunch hour today.

It’s so hard to write a quality review of this without spoilers, but I will try.

The book takes place mostly over the night in question. The protagonist wakes up to see a man in her house. Her husband isn’t there – we eventually find out why – and she has to think through what to do to keep her children safe. The home is huge, and very old, and labyrinthine, which is an asset to those who know its layout.

She eventually finds a place to hide, but that’s only part of the problem. What if he finds her and the children?

While most of the book focuses on the current predicament, we are taken to different points in the protagonist’s life where men have harmed her or let her down. Her father-in-law, her own father, her husband, strangers. It’s not just the intruder who has frightened her and made her feel powerless; it is many men she has encountered.

Again, avoiding spoilers, but I will say that the emotions I felt while reading this were all over the place, but ultimately I was so glad I read it.

What’s next for this book:
Keep, maybe lend to others.

4 Stars

Best for:
Folks who are interested in how man-made disasters come about, and how governments and individual people respond to them.

In a nutshell:
During a test of the cooling system, one of the reactors at the Chernobyl plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, USSR, explodes, leading to some immediate deaths, some short-term deaths, many longer-term deaths, and the complete abandonment of an entire city.

Worth quoting:
“We have to be seen to be doing something.”

Why I chose it:
I watched the recent miniseries and given my previous work in emergency management found it an interesting topic.

Review:
This book was fascinating. Because I’d watched the miniseries, I did have a sense of the broad outlines and beats of the event, but for crying out loud. It’s amazing how mistakes multiply, and how unwilling some people are to admit that something serious is happening.

I have very vague memories of this happening. I was six, and I recall my mother talking about fears about purchasing milk, because of radiation from the particles that were caught in the wind and distributed over the earth.

As I mentioned above, I chose this and listened to it partially from the perspective of a human who just cannot imagine who scary that must have been for everyone, and partially from the perspective of someone who used to think about how to respond to public health emergencies.

So much went wrong, partially because of just people not believing how bad it could be, and partially due to lack of preparation.

The book does a great job of keeping the topic engaging, telling the story from multiple perspectives. Higginbotham shares stories about the people in the reactor, the first responders, the people in the town, the government, from before the reactor was even built, until after trials seeking to determine and apportion blame for the disaster.

The only big quibble I have is that Higginbotham takes a few opportunities to hit out at communism, suggesting pretty heavily that this is why the disaster happened. I’ve got to say, a whole lot of horrible disasters happen regularly in capitalist nations, and I don’t think a capitalist nation would have handled this any better just by virtue of its economic system.

What’s next for this book:
I’d recommend it to anyone with similar interests.