Best books… Alison Richard
The renowned scientist and former vice-chancellor of Cambridge University picks her best books. The Sloth Lemur’s Song (William Collins £25), her moving account of Madagascar’s past and present, is published next week
Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest
States by James C. Scott, 2017 (Yale University Press £12.99). In an authoritative and gripping re-imagining of human history, Scott dives deep into the initial development of farming several thousand years ago. This book led me to revisit my ideas about the past and to ponder anew about life in the present.
Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson, 2012 (Penguin £10.99). Wilson’s historical exploration of the tools we use to cook and eat is fascinating. If you are a foodie, or have the remotest interest in egg whisks or why on earth Americans measure ingredients in cups instead of weighing them, this book is for you too.
Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah, 1994 (Bloomsbury £9.99). A coming-of-age story set in early 20th century eastern Africa, where a boy is caught up in brutal conflicts among African merchants and European colonists. Despite its dark theme, Gurnah creates an endearing, sometimes happy picture of a child’s encounters and experiences.
The Sailor from Gibraltar by Marguerite Duras, 1952 (Open Letter £11.99). This novel is a strange and wondrous love story – or maybe not. (To say more would be to give away too much of the plot.) Duras writes in lyrical prose about disappointment, love and longing, and she had me enchanted from start to finish.
The Rag and Bone Shop by Veronica O’Keane, 2021 (Penguin, £9.99). O’Keane combines science with compassionate case studies to show the inextricability of body and brain, trace how memories are formed, stored or replaced, and investigate what happens when things go wrong. A wonderfully comprehensible introduction for a non-neuroscientist like me to the interweaving of sensory experiences and the brain’s internal workings. It also left me pondering what it means to “be” human.