Reading matters

'Digging Up the Dead: Uncovering the Life and Times of an Extraordinary Surgeon' by Druin Burch

Non-fiction - paperback; Vintage; 276 pages; 2008. Review copy.

I have read some interesting and unusual books in my time, but Druin Burch's Digging Up the Dead must be the most interesting and unusual book I have ever read. Indeed, when I was offered it for review, I had initially been drawn to the dark, Gothic nature of the subject, but hadn't quite clocked the fact it was a non-fiction title. So when it popped through my door I was slightly taken aback to discover that it was actually a biography. But what a biography it turned out to be!

Digging Up the Dead looks at the life and times of arguably the world's first famous surgeon, Astley Cooper (1768-1841), whom Burch -- himself a medical doctor -- describes as vain, egotistical, nepotistic and "rather wonderful".

Astley was born into a highly educated family -- his father was an Oxford-educated vicar, his uncle was senior surgeon at Guy's Hospital in London -- but he showed little interest in books or study but specialised in pranks and adventures. When the family moved to Yarmouth he began training under a local apothecary, who also doubled as a surgeon, in the hope that he might learn enough to follow his older brothers into university and perhaps a physicianship, or his uncle to a hospital and career as a surgeon. He did well and moved on to become an apprentice to a surgeon at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.

When he was fourteen-and-a-half he witnessed a problematic, but successful, operation to remove a stone from a man's bladder. This was to have a profound influence on him, because it was not long after that he decided to embark on surgical training in London, much to the delight of his family.

'Eden' by Tim Smit

Non-fiction - paperback; Corgi; 286 pages; 2002.

The Eden Project is a series of man-made biomes built in a disused clay pit in Cornwall, England. One of the British Government's much-lauded Millennium Projects, it opened to critical acclaim in 2001 and has been on my list of places to visit for many years.

Designed to educate the public about plants and our dependence on them, it features the world's biggest conservatories, the first of which emulates a tropical environment, the second a warm temperate Mediterranean environment. Both biomes are made out of "bubbles" -- sturdy plastic, air-filled hexagons -- which interlock to form a series of gigantic greenhouses that are home to thousands of plants from across the world.

I visited the complex last month and was so in awe of its scale and beauty that I purchased this book, by the project's founder, in the souvenir shop because I was keen to learn more about the project's inception and difficult birth.

'Things the Grandchildren Should Know' by Mark Oliver Everett

Non-fiction - hardcover; Little Brown; 256 pages; 2008.

To survive the tragic deaths of your entire family is one thing, to become a critically acclaimed musician is another, and yet  44-year-old Mark Oliver Everett has done both. Now, with the release of this memoir, he can also added talented author to the list.

Everett, better known as 'E' from the Eels, an alternative rock band which is essentially Everett and an ever-changing cast of musicians, seems to be the current flavour of the month here in the UK. He recently starred in a BBC 4 documentary called Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives about his father, the late quantum physicist Hugh Everett III, who was the originator of the many-worlds theory. Then his book was published and just last week he played a special gig at St James's Church in Piccadilly to promote it.

'The Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl' by Shauna Reid

  Non-fiction - paperback; Corgi; 400 pages; 2008.

"I've got the biggest knickers in Australia."

So begins Shauna Reid's refreshingly candid, often humorous and hugely inspirational The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl, which charts her seven-year battle with the bulge.

Shauna's story, which first appeared in blog form, is an entertaining read reminiscent of Bridget Jones Diary. It is not a typical diet book. There are no recipes, no quick-and-easy solutions to fighting the flab. Instead it's an enthralling novel-like narrative that follows Shauna's ups and downs as she struggles to lose 12-and-a-half stone.

She battles depression, curbs her secret food binges and learns to love the gym. Along the way she finds the courage to backpack to the other side of the world and nabs herself a Scottish husband in the process.

I loved this book and kept turning the pages well into the early hours of the morning. It's enormously moving in places, but any sense of self-pity is tempered by a self-deprecating sense of humour which had me laughing out loud more than once.

The beauty of this book is that it shows how it is possible to achieve anything if you set your mind to it.  Shauna's steely determination to succeed and years of hard work paid off handsomely in the end. For that reason alone The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl should be required reading for anyone wanting to change any aspect of their life who lacks the courage to do so. It's already made me want to cut my caffeine intake and ride my bicycle more often!

'Long Way Down' by Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman

Non-fiction - hardcover; Sphere; 352 pages; 2007.

Three years ago fellow actors and biking buddies Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman set off on a voyage from London to New York the long way round. The resultant 10-part TV series following their 20,000 mile road trip across Europe and Asia proved a huge hit, as did the book that accompanied it. I came to the whole Long Way Round phenomenon quite late, having stumbled upon a repeat screening of the series on Sky TV about 18 months after it had been made. But I was immediately enraptured and thought it was one of the most entertaining travel documentaries I'd ever seen. I promptly went out and bought the DVD and the book.

Fast forward a year and the double-act were back on board their motorbikes, this time traversing the globe from top to bottom -- from John O'Groats at the northernmost tip of Scotland to Cape Agulhas on the southernmost tip of South Africa -- in a new 15,000-mile adventure being billed as the Long Way Down. The popularity of the first series had obviously paid off for them: this time the trip was being documented on a live website and the resultant TV series was being screened on BBC 2 during prime time Sunday night viewing.

'The Vienna Woods Killer: A Writer's Double Life' by John Leake

Non-fiction - hardcover; Granta Books; 347 pages; 2007.

Truth is stranger than fiction, and no more so than in the case of Jack Unterweger, a convicted murderer hailed as Austria's greatest example of criminal rehabilitation. While serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of 18-year-old Margaret Schäfer in 1976, Jack developed a flair for writing poetry, fiction and non-fiction. His work was so well received he became the darling of the literary elite who campaigned, successfully, for his early release in 1990.

But despite his apparent reform, everything was not quite as it seemed. When four prostitutes disappeared from Vienna's red light district in the first year of Jack's release he was one of the first to write about the crimes. He ingratiated himself with the local police chief and interviewed many of the city's street workers for articles that were published in the press.

'Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life)' by Cathie Black

Non-fiction - hardcover; Crown Business; 304 pages; 2007. REVIEW COPY.

Books about management are not normally my cup of tea. But when this one by Cathie Black, president of New York-based Hearst Magazines, was offered to me for review I couldn't resist. In my day job I'm a magazine editor, so I thought it would be interesting to find out about the business from another perspective and to see whether I could learn anything from Black's rise to the top.

Billed as "a memoir masquerading as a guide to career and life", Basic Black isn't a chronological account of Cathie's career. Although she provides plenty of anecdotes about the various roles she's had in the past -- from ad sales on Holiday to president of a fledgling USA Today -- this book is more about dispelling words of wisdom on how to successfully live a "360 Life", one that that balances work and play, rather than an autobiography.

Packed with great practical advice and written in a friendly, accessible and chatty style, Basic Black is an entertaining, effortless read.  But I'm not sure it was pitched at someone of my age and experience, as I found most of the tips too obvious. Doesn't everyone know that being passionate about what you do, going the extra mile and being prepared for all outcomes will serve you well in your career?

That said, I'm sure this book would be perfect for that 20-something female just starting out in the workforce, maybe even an undergraduate preparing for their first job interview. It certainly would have been of interest when I was first starting out, even if it was simply to reinforce my own ideas about how to get ahead in business.

But even if you don't work in the media or couldn't care less about moving up the career ladder, there's plenty of enjoyable anecdotes within the pages of this well-laid out book to keep you reading on. I found a lot of Cathie's stories completely fascinating, but then I'm always interested in the things that people do and say in this game called magazine publishing that I love so much...

'The Litvinenko File: The True Story of a Death Foretold' by Martin Sixsmith

Non-fiction - hardcover; MacMillan; 320 pages; 2007.

Anyone who was living in London in November 2006 will know that the hot topic of conversation -- in the pubs, at work, on the news and in the papers -- was the poisoning of Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko.

Mr Litvinenko, a former member of the KGB and its successor the FSB, was granted political asylum (with his wife and child) in the UK in 2000. An outspoken critic of the Russian Government, he fell ill on November 1, 2006 and died three weeks later. Doctors could not say what caused his death, but it later emerged he had been poisoned by radioactive material known as polonium-210.

This book by the BBC's former Moscow correspondent, Martin Sixsmith, explores Litvinenko's murder and looks at who might gain the most from his death. During the course of his research Sixsmith discovered that Litvinenko had made many enemies. "What I found out about Litvinenko's past," he writes, "both astounded me and threw up so many potential reasons for his murder that I ended my research more surprised he survived as long as he did than that he eventually fell victim to the assassins who sought him out in London."

'Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City' by Anna Quindlen

Non-fiction - paperback; National Geographic Books; 176 pages; 2006.

Anna Quindlen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling novelist from America. She grew up reading books set in London but did not get to travel to the 'city of her childhood imaginings' until she was in her forties. This book tells of her visit and her impressions as she trod the very same streets in which many of her literary heroes -- both fictional and real -- had also trod. What results is a touching love letter to literary London.

I have to admit that most of the books that Quindlen namechecks throughout this delightful essay -- for that is what it is, rather than a book -- were unfamilar to me. Sure, I knew their names and the authors -- how could anyone not know Charles Dickens or Elizabeth Bowen or the Forsyte Saga? -- but my tastes tend towards the more modern, namely late 20th century and early 21st century, as opposed to the classics, but this did not diminish my enjoyment of Imagined London.

Of course, I am a resident of this amazing city, and when I first arrived here back in the summer of 1998 I was more intent in seeking out famous buildings (The Palace of Westminster, St Paul's Cathedral) or musical landmarks (Brixton Academy, the Camden pub where Blur used to hang out, the zebra crossing that features on the Beatles Abbey Road album cover) rather than places where novels were set.

'Venice: Tales of the City' edited by Michelle Lovric

Fiction & non-fiction - hardcover; Little, Brown; 448 pages; 2003.

Venice is one of those wonderfully intriguing cities that has inspired artists and writers alike for centuries. London-based author Michelle Lovric is no exception. She has penned several novels set in the watery Italian city, including Carnevale and The Floating Book, but this time around she leaves the writing to others and selects some of her favourite poetry, fiction pieces and non-fiction extracts and brings them together in this varied collection.

"In this anthology," she writes, "the voices of today's Venetians mingle with those of their ancestors, just as they still do on the streets of the city". And she is right: some of the writings included here date back centuries (several have been translated in English here for the first time) and others were written as recently as the late Twentieth Century.