Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

 

I really enjoyed this - showed me lots of human history I didn't know.
It was an easy romp through time.

However - 

I thought it was going to be more about why Homo sapiens survived when other homo species  failed.

I thought there was a lot of exaggeration and sensationalism - to quote the Guardian's review "his account of the battle of Navarino. Starting from the fact that British investors stood to lose money if the Greeks lost their war of independence, Harari moves fast: "the bond holders' interest was the national interest, so the British organised an international fleet that, in 1827, sank the main Ottoman flotilla in the battle of Navarino. After centuries of subjugation, Greece was finally free." This is wildly distorted – and Greece was not then free. To see how bad it is, it's enough to look at the wikipedia entry on Navarino"

Fair Girls and Grey Horses by the Pullein-Thompsons

 

A pleasant autobiography written by three sisters. I used to read a lot of their pony stories when I was younger.  They had the kind of childhood I longed for and it showed failings in the education system then for not recognising differences.  It was an easy enough read - but probably not one I would go back to.

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

 

 A great adventure story where an ordinary person becomes a hero.

Great pace and action.

But (as it is a novel) the coincidences are a bit unbelievable. 

The Listener by Tove Jansson

 

I love Tove Jansson - a collection of odd short stories where not much happens but that contain beautiful descriptions that make me want to move to Scandinavia. 

The Windermere Witness: 1 (The Lake District Mysteries) by Rebecca Tope

  

A disappointing easy read which didn't seem to quite fit together and have too many main characters which were unnecessary.

Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read by Stanislas Dehaene

         

 This is a exhaustive exploration of how the human brain reads.
Stanislas Dehaene takes his specialized subject (cognitive neuroscience)  and is able to render accessible what might otherwise be difficult. 

J: A Novel Howard Jacobson