Week Twenty: Wolfram by Giles Milton

Wolfram: The Boy Who Went To War by Giles Milton. I had read a review of this recently published book by the author in the Guardian Books section (I get a load of recommendations from there and from the Daily Show).

Wolfram Aichele is Giles' grandfather-in-law, the grandfather of this wife. And in writing this biography of his in-law Germanic roots, he brings a humanity and perspective to the "other side" of the war. It's not a book of excuses or mistakes. It is in the authors words the story of many people like Wolfram who got caught in a nightmare not of their own making.

There's no major fighting or heroics, just people who see their country and their friends being pulled apart by one of the worst regimes in our world history, and then like a maze in the darkness, trying to find a way out.

I really enjoyed the narrative, and the characters, all real and sourced from letters and biographies of others as well as the over 60 hours of interview with Wolfram himself.

War is hell no matter which side you are on. But this is how people feel when they discover they are on the wrong side. History might be largely written by the winners and up to much interpretation, but there is not a doubt that we all know it and the Germans did too.

Next Week: No plans, will see what catches my eye. I have started a couple of books that I may just pick a couple of those and finish one.

Week Nineteen: The Madness of Adam and Eve

The Madness of Adam and Eve by David Horrobin (How Schizophrenia Shaped Humanity).

What a fascinating read this was, the first half a treatise on evolution and the building blocks of how the brain works on a physical level. The presence of fats in many shapes and types in various functions where you would not normally associate fat. Specifically phospholipids and how they work.

From there an examination of Schizophrenia, Schizotypy, Manic Depression, Psychopathy and of course the flip sides of genius and creativity.

Not for everyone but a very viable theory with sound evidence and supporting anecdotes that bear further examination. Drugs for schizophrenia are marginally effective and have massive side effects, and I have no problem with pharmaceuticals, just the companies that sell them. So to see a fat/diet based theory deliver twice the effective rate in trials is encouraging, not because it's natural or better so much as it could be driven without profit or side effect. Unless you count deliciousness as a side effect.

The last chapter summarising all the evolutionary steps seemed necessary to go through again. Maybe it's because I read this in less than a week, it felt like we'd been over this already, I guess not everyone will read it that way.

Having finished the book I did look up a bit further into the author and his claims, he died in 2003 and various sources accused him of quackery, but as this book is a hypothesis and quite often claims that further research is required then it seems a bit sour grapes. However the line of inquiry did not die with him as other writers bicker over who's idea it was first. Still a good read and an interesting theory.

Next Week: I have my eye on Giles Milton's, Wolfram an account of his grandfather as a soldier in the German army in WW2.

Week Eighteen: What Every Body is Saying by Joe Navarro

What Every BODY is Saying (An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed Reading People). As opposed to everybody that is.

I was struggling with a series of essays in collected form for alternate military histories this week, and did not think that I would finish it before Monday came, but was persevering. Then at midday-ish today this book arrived in the post from Book Depository in the UK (ordered a week ago, free worldwide delivery - a reader's best friend) and I glanced through it quickly to see what I thought of it. I had been attracted by the cover initially when I was browsing books on Neuroscience and came across this by accident.

Then by 9 pm the same night I had finished the whole thing.

Not because it's short at 234 pages it's a decent length, and not because it's simple or filled with illustrations. It was just that interesting.

I had read books on behaviours before, and on body language, Allan Pease was the go to back in the 80's and 90's - now it seems to be this guy. And I can understand why. Full of real life examples (though that may simply be confirmation bias, it's still got the ring of actual truth, not like religious testimony or Fox News outrage) and good metaphors, it's easy to understand and well written.

It also does not overreach, it's realistic in it's intention to teach good observation, not black and white lie detection. It also refers to plenty of other sources and experts, not it's own self-inflated body of proprietary evidence. One often quoted is Paul Ekman - he whom "Lie to Me" is vaguely based on.

Excellent read, back to military essays or perhaps a new Book Depository deposit will itervene this week.

Week Seventeen: The Mating Game by John Gribbin and Jeremy Cherfas

The Mating Game (In Search of the Meaning of Sex). A book about the biological and evolutionary pathways of sex, gender and reproduction. I picked this book up years ago because I liked the physics book of the co-author John Gribbin, so I figured a book of his on biology and in particular sex, would be a good read. I know I had this for a while, but when I picked it up to read the receipt was still inside. I bought this book in 2001. It's taken me ten years to get around to reading it in a week. Or more rightly 3 days as I started this seriously on Friday.

The book is fascinating, but at times my lack of knowledge in the biological realm made it hard work. Fortunately I was right in my assessment of the author and more often than not he made the distinctions and explanations clearer through metaphor and repetition/reference so that I could catch up.

Interesting facts, women could easily reproduce without men, but would be at serious biological disadvantage in defence against disease and environment. Not that men are the answer, but certainly 'alien' DNA and male sperm and the work of recombinant DNA scours out the faults and mutations that are deleterious to breeding and evolving the best etc...

One of the best chapters was on Sex and Society, and how both incest and homosexuality are explained in evolutionary terms. It seems that regardless of your leanings and meanings, incest avoidance is a built in measure to our biology for sound reasons, bugger all to do with our culture. It seems that biology drove that moral ground forward, not that we learned that it's bad. Same with homosexuality, it's in nature and it's rife in history, but why hasn't it bred out? A long and complicated answer more to do with the state of when and how homosexuality is expressed as well as the "you are or you aren't" fallacy where everything is black and white (but really isn't) comes into play.

Not for everyone, but interesting to dip into a field I usually don't get that involved in. This book is not about behaviour, but about biological factors.

Fascinating.

Next Week: A book on schizophrenia, on alternate theories of history (what if scenarios), possibly some fiction or maybe something random. Who knows?