Tag Archive: book review

1. My books of the year: 2022

   28th November 2022 11:22 am 2 Comments

   Tough to choose just one book

   

   It’s that time of year (or slightly early as I am trying to help those looking to buy books before Christmas) to review and recommend what I have read. I started listing back in 2013 so that I didn’t read the same books by mistake.

   I have split the top 5 into fiction and non-fiction and they are listed as I remember them, rather than as winners. If you are wondering if my choices are worth reading (they are just my recommendations) then consider that I have read 80 books this year: you are not hearing from someone who has read one book and tells everyone to buy it!

   Remember: you can use the library to borrow books or, if you have the cash, buy from an independent bookseller. Both help authors more than clicking on Amazon.

   

   Here we go:

   Top 5 Non-Fiction Books

   1. Atomic Habits: James Clear. A well-structured, well-written summary of a lot of different works that I have read and habits that I have adopted. Clear has put them all together in a very good book whose ideas last beyond the time it takes to read it (Recommended by Sophie Jefferson, then Steve Baylis).
   2. How the World Really Works: Vaclav Smil. An outstanding overview of what is important for humanity: food, energy, air, transportation of materials and goods. Myth-busts useless forecasting and ideologies. He doesn’t come up with solutions but states facts that are essential to make informed decisions.
   3. A Writer’s Journal: Lucy Van Smit. A useful and inspiring practical workbook. I took a lot from this, not just about writing. One of the best books I have read about discovering purpose and a welcome antidote to all the macho-posturing, black polo-neck-wearing ‘gurus’ spouting from across the pond.
   4. Terry Pratchett: Rob Wilkins. An excellent biography that encapsulates the life and style of Terry Pratchett. Humorous, with excellent footnotes, and an insight into the writing process of this great author (gift from Pete Bunning).
   5. There Is Nothing For You Here: Fiona Hill. Superb autobiography/ thought piece of this coal miner and nurse’s daughter who ends up sitting around the White House. A grim series of class snobbery and misogyny events might have slowed Hill down but they didn’t stop her. Ends with a couple of optimistic chapters that entreat us not to leave any person or any place behind.

   

   Top 5 Fiction

   1. Bleak House: Charles Dickens. A huge, entertaining novel set amongst a wide variety of people, situations and professions. Very rewarding.
   2. The Things They Carried: Tim O’Brien. A sublime collection of semi-autobiographical short stories set in the Vietnam War.
   3. A Manual for Cleaning Women: Lucia Berlin. A superb collection of mainly autobiographical stories. An eye for detail, black humour, and stunning turns of phrase. Wonderful.
   4. Station Eleven: Hilary St John Mandel. Excellent, non-linear, novel about the aftermath of a global pandemic. Clever use of the shifts between times and the well-drawn characters.
   5. Treacle Walker: Alan Garner. A sublime piece of fiction that is hard to describe. A magical, fabulous tale that I read in two sittings. So rich.

   The Full List.

   

   1. Bleak House: Charles Dickens. Huge, entertaining novel set amongst a wide variety of people, situations and professions. Very rewarding.
   2. Fires: Raymond Carver. A collection of essays, poems and sublime short stories. Here’s a writer that has lived a tough, short life.
   3. Atomic Habits: James Clear. This is a well-structured, well-written summary of a lot of different works that I have read and habits that I have adopted. Clear has put them all together in a very good book.
   4. The End of the World and Other Catastrophes: Ed. Mike Ashley.  Classic collection of SF short stories from familiar and unfamiliar authors. The Ray Bradbury one is frighteningly accurate.
   5. The Chequer Board: Nevil Shute. A novel set and written, in post-war Britain and Burma highlighting the lives of some ordinary people. More a series of scenes than an overarching novel but tackles racism, religious bigotry and infidelity well.
   6. Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom: John Boyne. A clever premise for a novel set over centuries of world history.  I devoured this book and its writing. Truly original.
   7. Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: Kenny Moore. In-depth book that charts the rise of Oregon track and field and Nike. Starts with tales of Bowerman’s ancestors pioneering across the West, covers several Olympics and includes many anecdotes of runners and their training. Bowerman seems to be a Chuck Yeager-type character that forms part of the American myth.
   8. The Wave of my Mind: Ursula Le Guin. A collection of essays and speeches from this masterful writer.
   9. Consider Her Ways and Others: John Wyndham. Slipstream themed short-stories for the most part. A couple are satires about the objectification of women. Wyndham the feminist?
   10. The Killing Hills: Chris Offnut. A crime novel set in rural Kentucky with a Military Policeman protagonist. Good but the location is the best character.
   11. Station Eleven: Hilary St John Mandel. Excellent, non-linear, novel about the aftermath of a global pandemic. Clever use of the shifts between times and the well-drawn characters.
   12. Livewired: David Eagleman. Interesting research on neuroscience and how the brain adapts to its surrounds and stimuli.
   13. One Thing Leading to Another: Sylvia Warner Townsend. A collection of witty, sometimes fantastical, short stories. Old-fashioned writing that is worth picking through to find some killer sentences.
   14. Beowulf and Sellic Spell: J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Christopher Tolkien. The epic tale translated and annotated. The tale is great, the annotations and lecture notes are dense and hard-graft but interesting. The supplemental tale and poems are good. Impressive.
   15. The Art of Impossible: Steven Kotler. A mish-mash of ideas gained from Ferris, Dweck, Duckworth and others. Some good points but not worth buying.
   16. A Manual for Cleaning Women: Lucia Berlin. A superb collection of mainly autobiographical stories. An eye for detail, black humour, stunning turns of phrase. Wonderful.
   17. Treeline: Ben Rawlence. Great tour around the arctic circle chronicling and detailing the different trees and the people around them.
   18. The High House: Jessie Greengrass. Well written account of a small family surviving and preparing for a climate event that could happen to us all.
   19. How the World Really Works: Vaclav Smil. Outstanding overview of what is important for humanity: food, energy, air, transportation of materials and goods. Myth busts useless forecasting and ideologies. He doesn’t come up with solutions, but states facts that are essential to make informed decisions.
   20. Follow the River: James Alexander Thorn. Fascinating and inspiring story about Mary Ingles escape from the Shawnee. Average novel though.
   21. How to Cook a Wolf: M.F.K. Fisher. Funny, dry and witty account of how to eat on a budget. Written in 1942 and revised 10 years later, it has useful tips for today.
   22. The Silver Branch: Rosemary Sutcliff. Children’s novel set in Roman Britain. Entertaining.
   23. Consider the Lobster: David Foster Wallace. Mind-bending, thought-provoking essays about a range of subjects. Dense footnotes require a magnifying glass! Interesting accounts on the McCain campaign trail, American English usage and talk show radio. Excellent.
   24. A Writer’s Journal: Lucy Van Smit. Outstanding, useful and inspiring practical workbook. I took a lot from this, not just about writing.
   25. The Heisenberg Principle: Frank Herbert. Short SF novel about genetic engineering and immortality.
   26. 52 Ways to Walk: Annabel Streets. Well-researched series of short articles that is a welcome break from ‘step-counting.’ Some good ideas for those that like to get out.
   27. On Purpose Leadership: Dominick Quartuccio. Poor mish-mash of soundbites and anecdotes. There are three or four good ideas but not worth a whole book.
   28. Ship of Strangers: Bob Shaw. Episodic SF novel. Easy to read and entertaining.
   29. Play Their Hearts Out: George Dohrmann. Sad, tragic and detailed account of a group of young basketball players who are exploited, sold false dreams whilst their coach becomes a millionaire.
   30. On the Beach: Nevil Shute. Classic dystopian novel. The plot is excellent but the writing is a bit stilted.
   31. The British and Irish Short Story Handbook: David Malcolm. Published in 2010, this gives an overview of the development of the short story, its genres, major contributors and analysis of key works. Very useful to help find great authors and their works.
   32. The Constant Gardener: John Le Carre. Excellent thriller about Big Pharma in Africa and corruption within the British Government.
   33. Imagine If…: Ken Robinson and Kate Robinson. Enlightening and inspirational précis of Robinson’s work on creativity and education.
   34. The Thinking Body: Mabel Ellsworth Todd. A classic physiotherapist text from the 1930s. Lots of good analogies and ideas but little practical advice.
   35. Endless Shadow: John Brunner. Short, confusing, SF novel from 1964.
   36. The Arsenal of Miracles: Gardner F. Fox. Mish-mash SF novel from 1964, sexist by today’s standards and a far too convenient ending.
   37. How we learn to move: Rob Gray. Very good account of how athletes learn skills. Great case studies and research used.
   38. American Rust: Philipp Meyer. Family drama novel set in post-industrial Pennsylvania. Excellent exploration of the relationship between two friends who have to deal with the consequences of one mistake.
   39. Another Now: Yanis Varoufakis. A thinly disguised fiction piece about an alternative to our money-grubbing capitalist society. Thought-provoking.
   40. Write it all down: Cathy Rentzenbrink. Disappointing fluff about writing a memoir.
   41. How to be Animal: Melanie Challenger. A look at how humans are animals. Instead of exceptional beings with ‘souls’ and therefore no more important than any other being. Except to ourselves.
   42. Italian Folktales: Italo Calvino. Huge tome of traditional tales compiled and retold by Calvino. The footnotes are excellent. One to be read in chunks.
   43. Disorder: Helen Thompson. Outstanding overview of how our modern geopolitical mess had evolved. Thompson covers three areas: Fossil fuel dependency and the wars around it; financial and monetary policy of the Western democracies (above my brain capacity); and the failure of democracies and how they lead to an autocratic elite. Puts context into our everyday lives.
   44. Maid: Stephanie Land. An autobiographical account of a single mother trying to break out of the poverty trap. Superbly written, heart-warming, despairing and inspiring.
   45. Do Hard Things: Steve Magness.  A good review of how toughness develops from within rather than being imposed by a macho-type authority figure. Well-researched, well-written, useful examples.
   46. The Parable of the Sower: Octavia E. Butler. Amazingly prescient dystopian novel about a young woman surviving a breakdown in society. Great protagonist.
   47. The House of the Dawn: N. Scott Momaday. Novel about a Native American struggling to fit into society after returning from WWII. Flowing, descriptive prose interrupts the narrative, but a compelling backstory.
   48. Cider With Rosie: Laurie Lee. Wonderful autobiographical tale of a young boy growing up in a Gloucestershire village a century ago. Beautiful, funny prose that creates a vivid picture of rural life.
   49. The Ice at the Bottom of the World: Mark Richard.  Rich, raw, funny and tragic short story collection of life in the American underbelly.  I could taste the despair.
   50. Functional Exercise Prescription: Eyal Lederman.  Detailed look at  pain, injuries and how patients recover. Very good models on management and treating the person not just the injury.
   51. The Way West: A.B. Guthrie. A good novel about a wagon train heading to Oregon.
   52. How Minds Change: David McRaney. A very interesting account of how Street Epistemology  and deep canvassing work in the populations entrenched in belief systems: climate change deniers, flat-earthers, and religion.
   53. Rogues: Ed. George R.R, Martin. Collection of short stories. Some are excellent, and a few fillers. Worth reading to discover different authors.
   54. The Brothers Karamaov. F. Dostoevsky. Epic novel that covers religious, familial and societal themes. Rambling in places but worth the investment.
   55. House of Prayer No. 2: Mark Richard. Sublime writing in this memoir of a “special child” growing up in the American South. Interesting stories, well told. Inspirational for writers.
   56. Invisible Child: Andrea Elliott.  Sad journalistic tale of a homeless child and her family growing up in New York City.  Excellent background and commentary.
   57. Gotham Writers’ Workshop Fiction Gallery: Ed.Alexander Steele & Thom Didato. Superb collection of short stories.  Insightful introductions and interviews too.
   58. The Social Distance Between Us: Darren McGarvey.  Tough reading this account of modern Britain and how it got into this state of unequal opportunity. Well worth it to see McGarvey’s insights and reflections.
   59. Song of a Dark Queen: Rosemary Sutcliff. Good YA novel about Boudicca, told from the first-person perspective of her harper. Builds nicely throughout.
   60. The Stories of Frank O’Connor: Frank O’Connor. Great collection that link together in what seems like an autobiographical thread.
   61. A Field Guide to Writing Fiction: A.B. Guthrie. Superb little book that has clear and precise ideas on writing.
   62. Never Let Me Go: Kazuo Ishiguro. A coming of age dystopian novel that centres on the relationship between three adolescents and their role in society. Great prose but the plot is a little contrived.
   63. Living Leadership: G.Binney, C. Williams, G. Wilke. Excellent book on practical leadership. Based on several case studies and research it gives good evidence and examples on how leadership can be exhibited at all levels. Refreshing and useful.
   64. Vintage Contemporary Short Stories. Ed. Tobias Woolf. Wonderful collection of short stories published in 1994. Half of them mention the Vietnam war in some form.
   65. Treacle Walker: Alan Garner. Sublime piece of fiction that is hard to describe. A magical, fabulous tale that I read in two sittings. So rich.
   66. The Airs of Earth: Brian Aldiss. A collection of hard SF stories that have dated badly. Turgid writing with only a couple of plots that stand up well now.
   67. The Things They Carried: Tim O’Brien. Sublime collection of semi-autobiographical short stories set in the Vietnam War.
   68. Giving Up the Ghost: Hilary Mantel. Autobiography of the author’s early life and horrendous treatment by doctors. Great writing.
   69. Hood: Stephen Lawhead. Mediocre rewriting of the Robin of Hood story.
   70. Charity: Mark Richard. Collection of raw short stories that reveal the underbelly of the American poor.
   71. Snow Country: Yasunari Kawabata. A short, poignant novel about a Geisha who falls in love with an entitled gentleman. Great prose and understated descriptions, episodic
   72. Terry Pratchett: Rob Wilkins. Excellent biography that encapsulates the life and style of Terry Pratchett. Humorous, with excellent footnotes, and an insight into the writing process of this great author.
   73. The American West: Dee Brown. A good summary of the brief period of the settling, travelling and fighting that led to the mythology. Interesting personal stories and details.
   74. A Psalm for the Wild Built: Becky Chambers. Wonderful, original novella. As delightful to read as one of the protagonist’s cups of tea.
   75. You Can’t Win: Jack Black. Fascinating autobiography of this small-time criminal and hobo set around the turn of the twentieth century.
   76. Five Days at Memorial: Sheryl Fink. Long, in-depth look, at the disaster-struck hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Very detailed and prescient about how unprepared we would be for Covid.
   77. Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow: Jerome K. Jerome. A series of humorous essays, published in 1886, is still relevant today.
   78. Jane’s Country Year: Malcolm Saville. Delightful account of a young girl in post-war rural England. 
   79. There Is Nothing For You Here: Fiona Hill. Superb autobiography/ thought piece of this coal miner and nurse’s daughter who ends up sitting around the White House. A grim series of class snobbery and misogyny events might have slowed Hill down but they didn’t stop her. Ends with a couple of optimistic chapters that entreat us not to leave any person or any place behind.
   80. A Prayer for the Crown Shy: Becky Chambers. Another Monk and Robot novella is thought-provoking and easy to read except for the annoying ‘they/them.’ pronouns that slow down the pace of reading.
   81. Bossypants: Tina Fey. A funny insight into parts of the TV-writing-comedy life. Easy to read but worth it.
   82. Before We Get Started: Bret Lott. A series of excellent essays about the writer’s life. The chapter on rejection is essential reading.
   83. Belonging: Kathryn Jacob, Sue Unerman & Mark Edwards. It looks at the important topic of diversity, inclusion and equality at work. Good in parts but repetitive and overlong in others. It has good ideas but is aimed at those in companies.
   84. The Imaginary Girlfriend: John Irving. A short autobiography about this accomplished author and wrestling coach.
   85. Kilvert’s Diary: Francis Kilvert.  The thoughts of a country vicar in the 1870s. His descriptions of young girls make uncomfortable reading. His observations of country customs and folklore are a valuable resource.
   86. Oliver Twist: Charles Dickens. The classic novel that reveals the underworld and drudgery of paupers in London.

   

   Further Reading

   • Recommended reading list for sports coaches and p.e. teachers
   • Best books of 2021

2. Summer reading recommendations 2022

   26th June 2022 7:24 pm 1 Comment

   It’s that time of year: schools are breaking up, annual holidays are planned and the thought of sitting down with a good book comes to the minds of many people. My summer reading recommendations are taken from the 44 books I’ve read, so far, this year.

   

   The reason I say the number is that I rarely take recommendations from people who read 1 or 2 books a year: how can they tell what is good or not? It is too easy to be swayed by the zeitgeist. If I recommend a book, it is because I think it will be worth your time.

   I have read some crackers and some duds. However, writing a book, and then getting it published, are impressive efforts (having had my first novel rejected by 23 agents and publishers, I have more empathy). So, well done to all the authors listed below.

   Top 5 non-fiction books.

   

   1. Atomic Habits: James Clear. A well-structured, well-written summary of a lot of different works that I have read and habits that I have adopted. Clear has put them all together in an excellent book.
   2. How the World Really Works: Vaclav Smil. Outstanding overview of what is important for humanity: food, energy, air, transportation of materials and goods. Myth busts useless forecasting and ideologies. He doesn’t come up with solutions but states facts that are essential to making informed decisions.
   3. Disorder: Helen Thompson. Outstanding overview of how our modern geopolitical mess had evolved. Thompson covers three areas: Fossil fuel dependency and the wars around it; financial and monetary policy of the Western democracies (above my brain capacity); and the failure of democracies and how they lead to an autocratic elite. Puts context into our everyday lives.
   4. A Writer’s Journal Workbook: Lucy Van Smit. Outstanding series of exercises and practices that helped me immensely find ‘my voice.’ I had low expectations and was pleased to be blown away. Truly wonderful and deep.
   5. Maid: Stephanie Land. An autobiographical account of a single mother trying to break out of the poverty trap. Superbly written, heart-warming, despairing and inspiring (you may have seen the Netflix series).

   Top 5 fiction books

   

   1. Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom: John Boyne. A clever premise for a novel set over centuries of world history.  I devoured this book and its writing. Truly original.
   2. Station Eleven: Hilary St John Mandel. Excellent, non-linear, novel about the aftermath of a global pandemic. Clever use of the shifts between times and the well-drawn characters.
   3. A Manual for Cleaning Women: Lucia Berlin. A superb collection of mainly autobiographical stories. An eye for detail, black humour, and stunning turns of phrase. Wonderful.
   4. Bleak House: Charles Dickens. A huge, entertaining novel set amongst a wide variety of people, situations and professions. Very rewarding.
   5. The End of the World and Other Catastrophes: Ed. Mike Ashley.  A classic collection of SF short stories from familiar and unfamiliar authors. The Ray Bradbury one is frighteningly accurate.

   Thanks

   

   Thanks to Devon Libraries for their brilliant service. Libraries have had their funding cut drastically since 2010: they are brilliant institutions that allow people from all backgrounds the opportunity to read, explore, learn and stay warm in the darkness of winter.

   Thanks to all the independent booksellers out there. If I order online, I get the book from Blackwell’s: they run an excellent service and more money goes to the deserving authors compared to the paltry sum that Amazon pays.

   Thanks to Pete, Rob, Susann and Sarah for gifting me some of the books on this list: it is much appreciated. No present is more welcome than a good book.

   The full list of books I have read this year and a brief summary.

   

   1. Bleak House: Charles Dickens. Huge, entertaining novel set amongst a wide variety of people, situations and professions. Very rewarding.
   2. Fires: Raymond Carver. A collection of essays, poems and sublime short stories. Here’s a writer that has lived a rugged, short life.
   3. Atomic Habits: James Clear. Well-structured, well-written summary of a lot of different works that I have read and habits that I have adopted. Clear has put them all together in an excellent book.
   4. The End of the World and Other Catastrophes: Ed. Mike Ashley.  Classic collection of SF short stories from familiar and unfamiliar authors. The Ray Bradbury one is frighteningly accurate.
   5. Bowerman and the Men of Oregon: Kenny Moore. In-depth book that charts the rise of Oregon track and field and Nike. Starts with tales of Bowerman’s ancestors pioneering across the West, covers several Olympics and includes many anecdotes of runners and their training. Bowerman seems to be a Chuck Yeager-type character that forms part of the American myth.
   6. The Chequer Board: Nevil Shute. A novel set and written, in post-war Britain and Burma highlighting the lives of some ordinary people. More of a series of scenes than an overarching novel but tackles racism, religious bigotry and infidelity well.
   7. Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom: John Boyne. A clever premise for a novel set over centuries of world history.  I devoured this book and its writing. Truly original.
   8. The Wave of my Mind: Ursula Le Guin. A collection of essays and speeches from this masterful writer.
   9. Consider Her Ways and Others: John Wyndham. Slipstream-themed short stories for the most part. A couple are satires about the objectification of women. Wyndham the feminist?
   10. The Killing Hills: Chris Offnut. A crime novel set in rural Kentucky with a Military Policeman protagonist. Good but the location is the best character.
   11. Station Eleven: Hilary St John Mandel. Excellent, non-linear, novel about the aftermath of a global pandemic. Clever use of the shifts between times and the well-drawn characters.
   12. Livewired: David Eagleman. Interesting research on neuroscience and how the brain adapts to its surrounds and stimuli.
   13. One Thing Leading to Another: Sylvia Warner Townsend. A collection of witty, sometimes fantastical, short stories. Old-fashioned writing still that is worth picking through to find some killer sentences.
   14. Beowulf and Sellic Spell: J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Christopher Tolkien. The epic tale was translated and annotated. The tale is great, the annotations and lecture notes are dense and hard-graft but interesting. The supplemental tale and poems are good. Impressive.
   15. The Art of Impossible: Steven Kotler. A mish-mash of ideas gained from Ferris, Dweck, Duckworth and others. Some good points but not worth buying.
   16. A Manual for Cleaning Women: Lucia Berlin. Superb collection of mainly autobiographical stories. An eye for detail, black humour, stunning turns of phrase. Wonderful.
   17. Treeline: Ben Rawlence. Great tour around the arctic circle chronicling and detailing the different trees and the people around them.
   18. The High House: Jessie Greengrass. A well-written account of a small family surviving and preparing for a climate event that could happen to us all.
   20. How the World Really Works: Vaclav Smil. Outstanding overview of what is important for humanity: food, energy, air, transportation of materials and goods. Myth busts useless forecasting and ideologies. He doesn’t come up with solutions but states facts essential to making informed decisions.
   21. Follow the River: James Alexander Thorn. A fascinating and inspiring story about Mary Ingles’ escape from the Shawnee. Average novel though.
   22. How to Cook a Wolf: M.F.K. Fisher. Funny, dry and witty account of how to eat on a budget. Written in 1942 and revised 10 years later, it has useful tips for today.
   23. The Silver Branch: Rosemary Sutcliff. Children’s novel set in Roman Britain. Entertaining.
   24. A Writer’s Journal Workbook: Lucy Van Smit. Outstanding series of exercises and practices that helped me immensely find ‘my voice.’ I had low expectations and was pleased to be blown away. Truly wonderful and deep.
   25. Consider the Lobster: David Foster Wallace. Mind-bending, thought-provoking essays about a range of subjects. Dense footnotes require a magnifying glass! Interesting accounts on the McCain campaign trail, American English usage and talk show radio. Excellent.
   26. The Heisenberg Principle: Frank Herbert. Short SF novel about genetic engineering and immortality.
   27. 52 Ways to Walk: Annabel Streets. Well-researched series of short articles that are a welcome break from ‘step-counting.’ Some good ideas for those that like to get out.
   28. On Purpose Leadership: Dominick Quartuccio. A poor mishmash of soundbites and anecdotes. There are three or four good ideas but not worth a whole book.
   29. Ship of Strangers: Bob Shaw. Episodic SF novel. Easy to read and entertaining.
   30. Play Their Hearts Out: George Dohrmann. A sad, tragic and detailed account of a group of young basketball players who are exploited, and sold false dreams whilst their coach becomes a millionaire.
   31. On the Beach: Nevil Shute. Classic dystopian novel. The plot is excellent but the writing is a bit stilted.
   32. The British and Irish Short Story Handbook: David Malcolm. Published in 2010, this gives an overview of the development of the short story, its genres, major contributors and analysis of key works. Very useful to help find great authors and their works.
   33. The Constant Gardener: John Le Carre. Excellent thriller about Big Pharma in Africa and corruption within the British Government.
   34. Imagine If…: Ken Robinson and Kate Robinson. Enlightening and inspirational précis of Robinson’s work on creativity and education.
   35. The Thinking Body: Mabel Ellsworth Todd. A classic physiotherapist text from the 1930s. Lots of good analogies and ideas but little practical advice.
   36. Endless Shadow: John Brunner. Short, confusing, SF novel from 1964.
   37. The Arsenal of Miracles: Gardner F. Fox. Mish-mash SF novel from 1964, sexist by today’s standards and a far too convenient ending.
   38. How We Learn to Move: Rob Gray. Very good account of how athletes learn skills. Great case studies and research used.
   39. American Rust: Philipp Meyer. Family drama novel set in post-industrial Pennsylvania. Excellent exploration of the relationship between two friends who have to deal with the consequences of one mistake.
   40. Another Now: Yanis Varoufakis. A thinly disguised fiction piece about an alternative to our money-grubbing capitalist society. Thought-provoking.
   41. Write it all down: Cathy Rentzenbrink. Disappointing fluff about writing a memoir.
   42. How to be Animal: Melanie Challenger. A look at how humans are animals. Instead of exceptional beings with ‘souls’ and therefore no more important than any other being. Except to ourselves.
   43. Italian Folktales: Italo Calvino. Huge tome of traditional tales compiled and retold by Calvino. The footnotes are excellent. One to be read in chunks.
   44. Disorder: Helen Thompson. Outstanding overview of how our modern geopolitical mess had evolved. Thompson covers three areas: Fossil fuel dependency and the wars around it; financial and monetary policy of the Western democracies (above my brain capacity); and the failure of democracies and how they lead to an autocratic elite. Puts context into our everyday lives.
   45. Maid: Stephanie Land. An autobiographical account of a single mother trying to break out of the poverty trap. Superbly written, heart-warming, despairing and inspiring.

   If you have any further suggestions, please leave them in the comments section below.

   Happy reading.

   My recommended reading list for sports coaches and p.e. teachers.

3. Book review: How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil.

   14th March 2022 12:51 pm Leave a Comment

   It’s rare nowadays that I add a book to my recommended reading list. Not because I don’t read much, it’s mainly because of a lot of rehashed ideas that are repackaged and branded as new.

   

   Not this one.

   Subtitled, ‘A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future,’ Smil does an excellent job of covering big important topics that are essential to keeping humanity fed, sheltered and breathing (amongst other things).

   Refreshingly, Smil presents extensively referenced data and information without an underpinning ideology. i.e. instead of starting from a commonly polarised perspective (Big State vs Small State, Vegan vs Paleolithic, Catastrophe versus Cornucopia), he presents the information and then either picks holes in the ideology or supports some of what they are saying.

   Quality information is a starting point for making good decisions: in any profession.

   Big topics that are important

   The chapter headings are:

   1. Understanding Energy (Fuels and electricity).
   2. Understanding Food Production (Eating fossil fuels).
   3. Understanding Our Material World (The four pillars of modern civilisation*).
   4. Understanding Globalisation (Engines, Microchips and Beyond).
   5. Understanding Risks (From Viruses to Diets to Solarflares).
   6. Understanding the Environment (The only biosphere we have).
   7. Understanding the Future (Between apocalypse and singularity).

   * Ammonia, steel, plastics, concrete.

   These are big, important topics. Not pretend important topics such as ‘polarised training versus block periodisation’ or ‘moving to an e-commerce model of good and services’ but forgetting how much we need toilet paper.

   When I read this book, it automatically applied a bullshit filter to the amount of nonsense that is mentioned on social media: petty arguments about diddlysquat that sap energy and valuable brain space from tackling complex and important issues.

   On Forecasting.

   Smil is particularly critical of modelling and forecasting. It is easy to programme numbers into a model and come up with convenient numbers that allow forecasters to predict whatever they want. Conveniently, all climate change models end on dates ending in 5s or 0s.

   The inability of governments to understand what is happening now, let alone what is going to happen in 3 or 7 years’ time, means that we were caught with our pants down when Covid hit (and, after this book was published, Russia invaded Ukraine).

   An example of a forecast gone wrong, and that did not last the publication of the book, was Smil saying that, usually, population forecasts are some of the most accurate because they are based on extensive demographic data.

   ‘For example, The UNs 2019 population forecast for the year 2030 has Poland’s total (37.9 million in 2020) declining to 36.9 million with the low and high variant departing +/- 2% from the mean, and (barring mass immigration that is highly unlikely in such an immigration-averse country) there is a very high probability that the actual 2030 count will be within that narrow range.’ p27

   Of course, mass immigration has happened with over 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees seeking shelter in Poland over the last 2 weeks.

   Summary

   If you want a book that explains how and where your food, goods and energy comes from and how that is likely to change (or not) in the future then this book is for you. I would also recommend it for anyone who is struggling to cut through hyperbole about any ‘trend’ or ‘solution’ to our planet’s needs.

   Buy it from your Independent bookshop here (or visit your local library).

4. How I read: a personal guide

   3rd February 2022 1:02 pm Leave a Comment

   I was asked last week, ‘What’s your process for choosing books?‘

   

   I was flattered that someone thought I had an organised decision-making process rather than the random choices that catch my eye. But, on reflection, I do have a process and when I shared it, my colleague said it was worth sharing. So here you go.

   1: Have good recommendations

   I never choose a book by its cover and I rarely read a book that is recommended by someone who doesn’t read much. There is often a wave of hype about an essential populist book that every coach ‘must read.’ I wait for the Tsunami to subside, and the book price to fall, and then see whether any of my ‘trusted readers’ have read it.

   There is a danger of an ‘echo chamber’ here, but I find that those people who read more have a better perspective than those who just read what everyone else is reading.

   

   My trusted readers include Jane Graham (The Big Issue), Clare Wilson (New Scientist), Mandi Abrahams (Castle Books, Anglesey), Vern Gambetta (GAIN) and Andy Stone (GAIN PE).

   Between them, they read a lot of books from different perspectives. If they say something is good it usually is.

   Atomic Habits (pictured) was recommended to me by an ex-athlete, Sophie Jefferson, before Christmas. It is a few years old now, so it was in the library. I borrowed it and a parent, Steve Baylis, recommended it to me. Neither has recommended a book to me previously but I am glad they did.

   I also pick up recommendations from other books: e.g. Ursula Le Guin recommended Beowulf and Sylvia Townsend (pictured above) in her book, ‘The Wave in the Mind.’

   2: Buy or borrow?

   The second part of my process is related to budget and space. Where I can, I borrow. The books above are all borrowed from the library. They can order them in for a small fee (£0.85) and even purchase the book if they think it might be of general interest.

   Where the book is too niche, or out of print, I add it to my reading list and might buy it second hand from Abe Books if I have the budget. Newer books, usually reference, I might put on my birthday/ Christmas wish lists and hope that nice people give them to me. This gives time for the prices to drop and the paperback versions to be published.

   I try to read a mix of fiction, education and historical/ biography. This year I aim to re-read more of the excellent books about coaching and learning that are on my shelves: there is much to be gained from revisiting books a few years later.

   That’s it, that’s what works for me. Reading is my preferred method of learning (apart from doing) and it is a very cheap form of entertainment.

   In an age where time is precious and life seems too hectic, the process of choosing a good book and settling down with it seems more important than ever.

   Further reading:

   Best books of 2021

   Recommended books for coaches and teachers.

5. Best books of 2021

   15th December 2021 10:42 am 2 Comments

   

   It’s the time of year where I reflect on what I have read so far and share my best books of 2021. These have included some stone-cold classics, some long-forgotten gems, some new thinking and only a few duds.

   I am selective in what I read: time, like The One Ring, is precious. I have a few trusted bibliophiles who recommend what to read and I mix that books derived from a trail of reading essays and journals and the always good book section in The Big Issue.

   It’s hard to recommend one or two books, so I shall split them up into sections, the full list with a short summary is at the bottom. The lists are biased towards those books that are well written, i.e. original, concise, use relevant examples and often just because they are humourous.

   Top 5 Fiction Books

   

   1. Fishmonger’s Riddle: A.E. Coppard. A collection of wonderful short stories set mostly in 1920s rural England.  Coppard is a master storyteller.
   2. Island: Alistair MacLeod. A sublime collection of short stories set in Cape Breton, Canada. Wonderful prose, rich story telling about a time not so far past but seems like it has gone forever.
   3. Animal Farm: George Orwell. Too close to the bone with the current political climate but what a masterpiece.
   4. Dune: Frank Herbert. Epic SF novel that I last read 35 years ago. It starts of brilliantly but fizzles out in the last 50 pages.
   5. We: Yevgeny Zamaytin.  Dystopian novel set centuries into the future where the population’s every hour is scripted. Written in the 1920s, it is frighteningly prescient.

   (No, Don Quixote and Middlemarch didn’t make my top 5. These are my choices not what I think I should be seen to recommend!)

   Top 5 Thinking/Ideas

   

   1. If You Should Fail: Joe Moran. A refreshing read about how life cannot be measured as a success or failure. Life is for living, with it’s ups and downs. Great examples, well referenced and concise. A welcome change from all the ‘you can do it if you try hard enough‘ pick-me-up books.
   2. Think Again: Adam Grant. Ideas on how to rethink what we do and how we think. Well laid out with useful anecdotes and examples. It shows the difference between arrogance and curiosity as well as how to develop our analytical skills.
   3. Essays: George Orwell. The Everyman edition of Orwell’s essays for The Tribune and elsewhere. Huge and varied, always interesting. A ‘dip in and read’ type book and one to keep.
   4. End State: 9 Ways Society Is Broken and How We Fix It.: James Plunkett. Thought provoking, non-partisan and optimistic. Worth reading if you want to try and improve your community.
   5. How To Read Numbers: Tom Chivers & David Chivers. Superb, readable and relevant book about understanding statistics and how they are manipulated. 22 short chapters that are well illustrated and explained. A keeper.

   Top 5 books if you like quality writing

   

   1. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: George Saunders. A brilliant book that analyses seven Russian short-stories and gives thoughts on how that transfers to other writing. Very clear, and pertinent points that would make dense reading if not broken up by the stories. Enjoyable.
   2. Nomadland: Jessica Bruder. Investigative, embedded journalism about the disenfranchised citizens of modern day USA. Superbly written, well-researched. Unputdownable.
   3. The Contemporary American Essay: Ed. Phillip Lopate. Lots of great writing by different authors in this 600 page book. I loved reading the different experiences and ideas that people have. Highly recommended.
   4. Creating Short Fiction: Damon Knight. A very practical book that has useful writing exercises in each section. The deceased author wrote lots of SF. His points are articulate, relevant and often humorous.
   5. Yeager: Chuck Yeager & Leo Janos. Page-turning, ripping yarn that details a life well-lived. Fantastic read about an amazing individual who took advantage of every opportunity that came his way.

   The Full List of books I have read in 2021 with synopsis

   

   1. Don Quixote de la Mancha: Miguel Cervantes. Epic, dense novel that is worth the time invested into reading it. Funny,revealing and surprisingly relevant today.
   2. Solutions for Novelists: Sol Stein. Extremely useful book about creating novels that have pace, character and conflict. Stein breaks down the information clearly and uses extracts to illustrate his points. Very good.
   3. The Old Ways: Robert MacFarlane. A description of several walks, and two sea voyages,  that the author took on his own or accompanied by others. Not what I thought it was going to be. The writing is good but the book lacks a common thread.
   4. Dreams and Wishes: Susan Cooper. A collection of lectures that the author gave from 1976 to 1994. The Dark is Rising is prominent in most, so fans might like it. The love of story telling and language and the importance of giving our children a chance to read is prevalent.
   5. The Complete Walker IV: Colin Fletcher and Chip Rawlins. Funny and informative, this extensive guide to all things walking from 2002 has dated only in some of the equipment reviews. The underlying principles of how to look after yourself and what to take, are well written. The authors use their vast experience to detail what is important, and what is less so.
   6. Keep the Aspidistra Flying: George Orwell. Interesting and funny novel about a self-destructive man who doesn’t want to take part in capitalism.
   7. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Doris Kearns Goodwin.  A tremendous book that is rich in detail and research. It offers many lessons to be learned from Lincoln although few people could be as magnanimous.
   8. Island: Alistair MacLeod. A sublime collection of short stories set in Cape Breton, Canada. Wonderful prose, rich story telling about a time not so far past but seems like it has gone forever.
   9. Mr Norris Changes Trains: Christopher Isherwood. A novel set in 1930s Germany. I disliked all the characters and forced myself through the book. The turmoil in the background is interesting though.
   10. The Redemption of Galen Pike: Carys Davies. A short story collection, one of which was expanded to become. ‘West.’ Whimsical but realistic and a joy to read.
   11. Skill in Sport: B. Knapp. An old one, but a good one. ‘Skill’ research here was based on a lot of simplistic tasks, but Knapp gives a clear overview on some sound teaching practices.
   12. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: George Saunders. A brilliant book that analyses seven Russian short-stories and gives thoughts on how that transfers to other writing. Very clear, and pertinent points that would make dense reading if not broken up by the stories. Enjoyable.
   13. No Great Mischief: Alistair MacLeod. Wonderful, albeit sentimental, novel about Scottish Canadians in the present and their history. Thought provoking.
   14. More Penguin Science Fiction: Ed. Brian Aldiss. Short story collection published in 1963. Authors include Asimov,  Gordon R. Dickson and Harry Harrison. Of it’s time with communists and nuclear Armageddon featuring in several stories. Great collection.
   15. Prisoners of Geography: Tim Marshall. How geography has affected the development of nations and its impact economically. Interesting overview.
   16. Essays: George Orwell. The Everyman edition of Orwell’s essays for The Tribune and elsewhere. Huge and varied, always interesting. A ‘dip in and read’ type book and one to keep.
   17. New Writing in Europe: John Lehmann. A summary of fiction in the 1920s to 1930s and thoughts on the novelists.
   18. The Body Builder: B.Deane Brink. A collection of notes and essays about Robert J. Roberts who was a pioneer of physical fitness in the YMCA in the nineteenth century. Short, but some good ideas in there.
   19. Attempts: Dan John. A collection of essays and blogs about training and managing life. I haven’t read much from John for 10 years, very few new ideas, but a good read. He communicates very well.
   20. Animal Farm: George Orwell. Too close to the bone with the current political climate but what a masterpiece.
   21. Free Play: Brian McCormick. A series of newspaper articles covering coaching topics such as as LTAD, early-specialisation and parenting of ‘talented’ sportspeople. Very good advice, well written with great examples.
   22. Burmese Days: George Orwell. A novel set in pre-war Burma that is rich in detail of ex-patriot life.
   23. A Clergyman’s Daughter: George Orwell. Easy to read, more like a sequence of diatribes against poverty, religion and the exploitation of workers in agricultural Britain.
   24. The Wild Silence: Raynor Winn. Disappointing follow up to ‘The Salt Path’. Some good sections but disjointed with little narrative structure.
   25. The Burning Room: Michael Connelly. A reread of a detective novel featuring Harry Bosch.
   26. Final Words: Kelvin Giles. A collection of stimulating blog posts and ideas about coaching. Has given me food for thought.
   27. Coming Up For Air: George Orwell. A despondent first-person novel about a middle-aged fat man who becomes nostalgic for his youth and mulls over his life so far. Set in 1938 it portrays the build-up to war and the horror well.
   28. Move: Caroline Williams. A great overview of the benefits of moving: well -researched and well-written.  It covers strength, learning, dance, breathing and stretching. All the things we do normally. Worth having.
   29. Anatomy, Mechanics and Human Motion: J.G. Hay & J. G. Reid. A 1988 edition that has some excellent basic principles but is a bit outdated in the conclusions of the limited research.
   30. Total Recall: Arnold Schwarzenegger. The second time I have read his gripping autobiography. The parts about his early life and hunger to succeed are excellent. He skates over his obvious flaws but it is interesting to see his terms as the Governator in light of recent politics.
   31. Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder: Arnold Schwarzenegger & Douglas Kent Hall.  The 1988 version which is half biography and half training tips. The raw energy and confidence oozes from the book that has surprisingly good common sense training advice.
   32. Physical Intelligence: Scott Grafton. A well researched, well written book about neuroscience and physical activity. Grafton uses his hiking expedition to illustrate the points about how and why our brains and bodies have developed together. Very good.
   33. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold: John le Carre. Classic Cold War spy thriller. The clarity and simplicity of the writing is deceptive. Very good.
   34. Natives: Race & Class in the Ruins of Empire: Akala. An account of British history and race relations in modern Britain from the perspective of a Scots-Caribbean man. Aklala references a slew of non-mainstream, but accurate and relevant, sources. Thought provoking.
   35. Dune: Frank Herbert. Epic SF novel that I last read 35 years ago. It starts of brilliantly but fizzles out in the last 50 pages.
   36. Mastery: George Leonard. A super little book that has a lot of advice. It sways a bit too much into Eastern pseudo-zen towards the end, but there is plenty to take from it otherwise.
   37. Exhalation: Ted Chiang. A collection of SF short stories, some of which are fantastic. Quality writing and thought provoking ideas.
   38. Yeager: Chuck Yeager & Leo Janos. Page-turning, ripping yarn that details a life well-lived. Fantastic read about an amazing individual who took advantage of every opportunity that came his way.
   39. Bookseller’s Tales: Martin Latham. A mixed bag of semi-autobiographical anecdotes that are interesting with historical and cultural accounts that are less so. Got better as it went on.
   40. How To Read Numbers: Tom Chivers & David Chivers. Superb, readable and relevant book about understanding statistics and how they are manipulated. 22 short chapters that are well illustrated and explained.
   41. Everest: Harriet Tuckey. A detailed, well-researched account of Griffith Pugh and his endeavours about researching human physiology. Written by his estranged daughter, it is a warts-and-all biography that pulls no punches. Fascinating because it details the human side as well as the science side.
   42. The Haunting of Hill House: Shirley Jackson. Classic thriller about the spiritual and psychological horror affecting guests in a house.
   43. Middlemarch: George Eliot. A very long novel that has some interesting characters. It was a good holiday read but I didn’t think it was life-changing.
   44. Sapiens: Yuval Noah Harari. Interesting overview of the human race’s evolution through social, industrial and agricultural revolutions. Puts a lot of ideas about happiness and progress into context.
   45. Arrival: Ted Chiang. An eclectic collection of SF short-stories some of which are superb.
   46. The Egoist: George Meredith. A long Victorian novel that was hard-going. Too much narration and explanation with little action. A real effort to get through this.
   47. Roadside Picnic: Arkady & Boris Strugatsky. Classic SF novel about humans dealing with aliens’ waste.
   48. Take Your Eye Off The ball 2.0: Pat Kirwan. In depth look at what to watch for during an NFL game. I was lucky enough to grow up with John Madden as the commentator of my youth. This book is a good start for those unfamiliar with the game.
   49. Fishmonger’s Riddle: A.E. Coppard. A collection of wonderful short stories set mostly in 1920s rural England.  Coppard is a master storyteller.
   50. Raised From the Ground: Jose Saramago. A moving novel about the oppression of rural workers in Portugal. Similar themes to Grapes of Wrath but different style.
   51. Think Again: Adam Grant. Ideas on how to rethink what we do and how we think. Well laid out with useful anecdotes and examples. It shows the difference between arrogance and curiosity as well as how to develop our analytical skills.
   52. Nomadland: Jessica Bruder. Investigative, embedded journalism about the disenfranchised citizens of modern day USA. Superbly written, well-researched. Unputdownable.
   53. Essays One: Lydia Davis. Large volume on varied topics of reading, writing and observation of the author’s surroundings.  Stimulating and rewarding.
   54. We: Yevgeny Zamaytin.  Dystopian novel set centuries into the future where the population’s every hour is scripted. Written in the 1920s, it is frighteningly prescient.
   55. No Time To Spare: Ursula Le Guin. Disappointing collection of blog posts. Some good paragraphs, but not worth buying.
   56. The Power of Geography: Tim Marshall. An excellent overview of countries and regions in the world that are affected by their geography. It gives an overview of the past and how this could potentially impact the future. Insightful.
   57. A Secret History of Time to Come: Robie Macauley. Dystopian novel set a few hundred years after the USA was torn apart by race wars. A good, futuristic western.
   58. The Creative Habit: Twyla Tharp. Interesting ideas on how to get into the creative mode and stick with it. Written from a dance/choreography perspective but relevant for anyone else looking to create.
   59. Dangerous Visions 2: Ed. Harlan Ellison. Collection of SF short stories written in the 1960s.
   60. Barca: Simon Kuper. Very well- researched book looking at the rise and decline of Barcelona FC.  Good interviews and analysis, no rose-tinted spectacles here.
   61. Shuggie Bain: Douglas Stuart. Booker winning novel set in Glasgow in the 1980s. Bleak, grim and a bit too close to home for me.
   62. The Contemporary American Essay: Ed. Phillip Lopate. Lots of great writing by different authors in this 600 page book. I loved reading the different experiences and ideas that people have. Highly recommended.
   63. Creating Short Fiction: Damon Knight. A very practical book that has useful writing exercises in each section. The deceased author wrote lots of SF. His points are articulate, relevant and often humorous.
   64. Negroland: Margo Jefferson. Disappointing extrapolation of an excellent essay that I had recently read. Interesting subject matter but I tired of the style.
   65. End State: 9 Ways Society Is Broken and How We Fix It.: James Plunkett. Thought provoking, non-partisan and optimistic. Worth reading if you want to try and improve your community.
   66. Collected stories: John Cheever. There are some superb stories in here including, ‘The Swimmer.’ However, at 900 pages, I had to take a break a few times because there are only so many stories about suburbia one can take at a time.
   67. If You Should Fail: Joe Moran. A refreshing read about how life cannot be measured as a success or failure. Life is for living, with it’s ups and downs. Great examples, well referenced and concise. A welcome change from all the ‘you can do it if you try hard enough’ pick-me-up books.

   Thank you

   Thanks to the usual suspects who have lent, given, or recommended books to me: The Hayridge Library (thankfully reopened), Mandi Abrahams of Castle Books, Anglesey, Chris Fotheringham, Vern Gambetta and Andy Stone.

   Also, thanks to LiznoJan Books, Burway Books and Blackwells, Oxford for just being there.

   If you have a recommendation, please leave in the comments section below. Thank you for reading.

6. Two good books for the sports scientist/ sports coach/ interested reader.

   17th August 2021 11:35 am Leave a Comment

   

   Good books about sports science and statistics are as rare as rocking horse dung. I have read two, back to back, that were both readable and informative: ‘Everest’ by Harriet Tuckey and ‘How to Read Numbers’ by Tom Chivers and David Chivers.

   One of the problems with sports science is that it has disappeared down a cul-de-sac of its own making whereby a combination of desperation to ‘Publish or Perish’ and bad writing makes relevant and accessible information beyond the reach of the people who need it the most: the sports coach.

   This results in thousands of research papers being unread and coaches abdicating any form of ‘fitness -training’ to a crew of eager but inexperienced undergraduates who lack ‘context.’ This might involve fitness testing players and disappearing with the results or inflicting gym training sessions that are easy to measure but have little to no transfer to the competitive arena.

   I am talking about the 95% of the sporting world, not the rarefied atmosphere of Olympic and top-flight professional sport. Both of the books that I have summarised below offer insights into how communication and understanding can be improved between coaches, athletes and support staff.

   Everest: The First Ascent by Harriet Tuckey

   

   I can’t remember who recommended this to me but I am glad that I made a note of it. It is the detailed account of the work done by Griffith Pugh, a Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) Doctor turned physiologist.

    The headline is his work supporting and leading the first successful climb of Mount Everest in 1953. I have no interest in mountaineering as a sport but found this fascinating. The author is Pugh’s daughter and she gives a warts and all account of how Pugh was both thorough, insightful and driven, as well as irritable, aloof and absent-minded.

   The book covers part of Pugh’s war efforts helping develop Mountain Warfare equipment and training programmes prior to his Everest expeditions. It then shows how his research helped with:

   • Cold water survival strategies (Royal Air Force).
   • Altitude training and acclimatisation (Mexico Olympics).
   • Heat exhaustion (endurance runners).
   • Hypothermia and exposure (Duke of Edinburgh award scheme).

   All of the above still use protocols developed and suggested by Pugh decades ago,

   Pugh’s work as a researcher (not as an overall human being) should be recognised and posted in mind for all scientists working to support others. Sir Arnold Burgen said of Pugh,

   ‘He has an extraordinary facility for dealing with quite fundamental matters of human physiology in simple terms, applying general physics to them and working them out with little in the way of specialised equipment.’

   This all might sound a bit dry and geeky but Tucker brings the man to life and adds her own personal feelings that shed a spotlight on this ‘restless sharpshooter’.

   Thoroughly entertaining and enlightening.

   How to Read Numbers: A Guide to Stats in the News (and knowing when to trust them) by Tom Chivers & David Chivers.

   

   Don’t panic: this is a book of words with just a few numbers. One of the problems with interpreting ‘science’ is understanding how statistics work. The COVID Pandemic has resulted in a deluge of numbers that threaten to drown us: we either sink or swim to safer, more familiar, shores and allow others to give us a summary.

     This is partly due to bad writing and partly due to deliberate ‘massaging’ of the stats to suit a pre-determined narrative. I have got an ‘O’ level in Stats, did Stats in ‘A’-level maths and did a module on research methods (taught atrociously) in my MSc. I still find it hard to understand what is being written.

   In 22 succinct chapters, the authors summarise, explain and illustrate the most common statistical methods and flaws that we are likely to encounter. It is eminently readable and enjoyable. It is a classic example of true experts understanding that, ‘You haven’t taught until they have learned.’

   I learned a lot.

   I couldn’t put the book down (a sentence I never thought that I would apply to a stats guide).

   One chapter covers ‘Goodhart’s law’; ‘When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’

   I have seen countless physical measures become targets for poor athletes suffering at the hands of an ‘S&C coach’ or researcher. Often done without the sports coach intervening because they have been bamboozled by numbers and pseudoscience.

   Sports coaches: do yourself a favour and buy a copy (or borrow from the library) of this book and start questioning the methods used by support staff.

   ‘When reading about (or reporting on) targets, metrics and statistics, remember that they’re proxies for the thing we care about, not the thing itself.’

   British Fencing once told all its fencers that in order to represent GB they would have to be able to do a side plank for 90 seconds! An example of a measure becoming a target!

   Years ago, I saw Jack Blatherwick tear apart the research papers linking weight lifting to 10m sprint performance. The researchers had amalgamated different gender/ age groups and drawn a regression line through the data. They had eliminated the confounding variables that might also affect sprint performance: men run faster than women and adults run faster than teenagers (on average).

   Thanks to this book, I can now see what was happening and draw a critical eye on research papers (Dr Robin Williams wrote about dodgy sports science stats ).

   I have added this book to my ‘Recommended reading for teachers and coaches’ list. It is a worthwhile investment to help you get a better understanding of how important numbers are in our everyday lives.

7. The Top 5 Books of 2020

   11th December 2020 1:05 pm 5 Comments

   

   Here are my personal reading recommendations from this year. If you are stuck for ideas for presents or for something to read yourself then read on.

   Like many people, I immersed myself in fiction this year and yes,

   

   I did read Defoe’s ‘Journal of a Plague Year‘ that held worrying parallels with this year.

   Because the libraries shut in March and their online ordering service was closed, I had to buy more books than I would like (supporting Blackwells and LizNoJan as a result).

   I still managed to pick up many others from book-swap shelves, birthday presents and of course, my book maven Mandi Abrahams sent me some great ones.

   This has meant that my Tsundoku shelf has been full. Having the next book lined up always helps me read more.

   

   I read many good books, and several great ones, so I have had to split my Top 5 into separate fiction and non-fiction lists, so here goes. Please add any of your own ideas in the comments below.

   Top 5 Fiction Books

   A hard choice here because there were some dandies in the list but in no particular order:

   

   1. The Shipping News: Annie Proulx. Sublime prose and similes to die for. A great human interest novel with the Newfoundland coast being a key part.
   2. The Milkman: Anna Burns. An excellent, moving novel about a young woman living in Belfast in the late 1970s. Outstanding writing.
   3. The Blind Assassin: Margaret Atwood. A superb, cleverly crafted and well-written novel about life in the 1930s in Canada. Contains an SF short story and a fantasy story within the main novel. Enjoyable to read and fathom.
   4. Life and Fate: Vassily Grossman. An epic novel about one family and their friends set in and around Stalingrad in WWII. The sparse Russian writing is a delight to read and the human stories are well placed against the horrific backdrop. Fantastic.
   5. The Dog of the Marriage: Amy Hempel. Four books in one. A sublime collection of short stories that are superbly written and entertaining.

   Top 5 Non-Fiction Books

   Again, I read some good ones, and those of you looking for coaching books might be disappointed. I went with the best writing and ideas (Academics who want their work read should learn how to write better).

   

   1. The Body: Bill Bryson. A superbly written overview of what makes the body work, and the people who discovered how. A page-turner.
   2. Europe Between The Oceans (9000 BC-AD 1000): Barry Cunliffe. A comprehensive overview of the macro movements and events that have shaped our history. It uses the geography of our European peninsula to describe why peoples moved and traded and fought. Excellent.
   3. The Art Of Fact: Ed. K.Kerrane & B. Yagoda. A superb collection of essays, book excerpts and newspaper articles from scores of different authors. A showcase of literary non-fiction and an account of many different human stories.
   4. The Weightlifting Encylopedia: Arthur Dreschler. Written in 1998, this is a well-written, comprehensive guide to the sport. If it was published now it would have less text and more pictures. I like this edition. Great personal examples from the author and well laid out. Fantastic.
   5. Play Practice: Alan Launder & Wendy Piltz. An experience-based practical book about using developmental and “working model” games to help develop sports sense and ability. Based on the authors’ real-life mistakes and successes, it offers many practical ideas of relevant games for PE teachers. Very useful.

   The full list of books with a short summary of each

   

   1. A Slip of the Keyboard: Terry Pratchett. A series of newspaper articles and speeches made over 25 years. The first half is about writing and publishing, which is very funny. The second half is about his Alzheimer’s disease and how he is coping with that. Truly a great writer.
   2. Night Walks: Charles Dickens. Essays on his ramblings around London. His observations are witty and descriptive. I might make Dickens a thing to read every Christmas time now.
   3. What Matters Most: John Doerr. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) form the backbone of this book. Case studies of this form of management. Very useful.
   4. James S. Corey: Tiamat’s Wrath. Sci-fi soap, wearing a bit thin now.
   5. Calypso: David Sedaris. 18 semi auto-biographical essays. Laugh out loud in parts. Very well written.
   7. The Stinging Fly (Summer 2019): Various. Modern writing, short stories and poems. The ‘Border’ focus was excellent, but some of the younger generations of writers are self-indulgent, only talking about their writing.
   8. The Body: Bill Bryson. A superbly written overview of what makes the body work, and the people who discovered how. A page-turner.
   9. Night Boat to Tangiers: Kevin Barry. Modern and interesting, raw prose. A bit too disjointed for me. 
   10. A Movement Approach to Educational Gymnastics: Ruth Morison. Read for the 2nd time, got more out of having taught for 5 years now. Superb.
   11. The Modern Antiquarian: Julian Cope. A beautiful book that comes in a box! Covers pre-history in Britain and how the Romans and Christians wrote over what existed previously. has a gazetteer of dozens of stone circles, henges and dolmens in the UK. Very interesting.
   12. Emerald Eye: Various, ed Frank Ludlow and Roelof Goudriaan. A collection of SF and fantasy short stories from Ireland. Very good.
   13. An Introduction to Movement Study and Teaching: Marion North. Short, with some good ideas. A lot of dance and drama involved.
   14. The Depths: Henning Mankell. A Swedish novel about the navy in WWI. The interesting lead character is deeply flawed.
   15. Young Skins: Colin Barrett. A short story collection by this modern Irish writer. Set mostly in one fictional small town, great prose, interesting situations.
   16. Life Among the Savages: Shirley Jackson. Extremely well-written memoir of life in rural Vermont with young children. Funny and relevant 50 years later.
   17. And Then There Were None: Agatha Christie. Good plot, but dated and laborious writing.
   18. Dynamic Physical Education for Elementary School Children: Robert Pangrazi. A huge book, in-depth and lots of practical ideas. A must for p.e. teachers.
   20. The Buried Giant: Kazuo Ishiguro. A beautiful, sad mythical tale. A treat.
   21. Consider This: Chuck Palahniuk. An excellent book for writers about writing. Useful tips and relevant anecdotes. 
   22. Socratic Discourses: Plato and Xenophon. Part of the Everyman’s library, wisdom from the wisest of all. Hard to get through due to the conversational style of writing, but useful nuggets in there.
   23. Anatomy For The Artist: Sarah Simblet. A sumptuous book by this Dr and artist. Great illustrations, I enjoyed reading this.
   24. Martin Eden: Jack London. A semi-autobiographical account of a struggling writer who burns out. Brilliant.
   25. The Dog of the Marriage: Amy Hempel. Four books in one. A sublime collection of short stories that are superbly written and entertaining.
   26. The Witcher: Andrzej Sapkowski. Time killing fantasy short story collection. Meh.
   27. Life In The Universe: Michael J. Farrell. What a collection of entertaining short stories. Funny and well written.
   28. With Lawrence in Arabia: Lowell Thomas. A super little book written in the aftermath of World War I, before Lawrence’s death. Very descriptive and atmospheric writing.
   29. Tales of Space and Time: H.G. Wells. 5 short stories/novellas. Interesting to see what Wells thought 2020 and beyond would look like. 
   30. The Shipping News: Annie Proulx. Sublime prose and similes to die for. A great human interest novel with the Newfoundland coast being a key part.
   31. The Stinging Fly (Winter 2019): Various authors. Collection of short stories and essays. Very good writing.
   32. Hothouse: Brian Aldiss. Classic SF novel set on a future Earth which is dying. A Hugo award-winning journey of discovery.
   33. Britain BC: Francis Pryor. An extensive account of pre-Roman Britain. Lots of archaeology and description, well written and interesting.
   34. The Encyclopedia of Physical Fitness: Ed by Thomas Cureton & Reuben Frost. An overview of many sports and some dance and outdoor activities. Includes rules and histories of the activities: dated in parts, useful in others.
   35. Twelve Stories and a Dream: H.G. Wells. More misses than hits from this prolific writer feels a bit dated in parts. I like the way that he wraps up each story.
   36. The Pianist: Wladyslaw Szpilman. A sombre and understated account of one man’s miraculous survival of the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. Shows how random and arbitrary death was.
   37. The Revenant: Michale Punke. A novel of the Western frontier in the 1820s. More of a fictional history lesson. 
   38. The Milkman: Anna Burns. An excellent, moving novel about a young woman living in Belfast in the late 1970s. Outstanding writing.
   39. Your Move: A New Approach to the Study of Movement and Dance: Ann Hutchinson Guest. An illustrated guide to Labanotation. Hard going but interesting. It is like learning a new language.
   40. Europe Between The Oceans (9000 BC-AD 1000): Barry Cunliffe. A comprehensive overview of the macro movements and events that have shaped our history. It uses the geography of our European peninsula to describe why peoples moved and traded and fought. Excellent.
   41. The Small Back Room: Nigel Balchin. Short novel about a scientific research unit in London during World War II. Interesting and niche.
   42. A Short History of English Literature: Sir Ifor Evans. This edition was written in 1963 and covers plays, novels and prose up until then. A useful guide.
   43. Midnight’s Children: Salman Rushdie. A hard read with very flowery prose.: one sentence was two pages long,. The story is interesting but I can’t see what all the fuss is about.
   44. Arizona Ames: Zane Grey. Disappointing and simplistic Western. A one-dimensional lead character.
   45. Life and Fate: Vassily Grossman. Epic novel about one family and their friends set in and around Stalingrad in WWII. The sparse Russian writing is a delight to read and the human stories are well placed against the horrific backdrop. Fantastic.
   46. Modern Short Stories: J. Hadfield (Ed). 20 stories from authors such as Conrad, Wodehouse and Pritchett, printed in 1962. Great examples of this form.
   47. The Stinging Fly (Summer 2020): Various, Edited by Danny Denton. A collection of essays, poems and short stories. The essays and a couple of the short stories were good, the poetry I can leave.
   48. The Weightlifting Encylopedia: Arthur Dreschler. Written in 1998, this is a well written, comprehensive guide to the sport. If it was published now it would have less text and more pictures. I like this edition. Great personal examples from the author and well laid out. Fantastic.
   49. Self-Editing for Fiction writers: Renni Browne and Dave King. An older book, very useful with clear examples and downright funny in places.
   50. Proverbs of Middle Earth: David Rowe. An informative book that shows how much thought went into Tolkien’s world-building.
   51. Proxopera: Benedict Kiely. Short novel about an old man and his family in Northern Ireland in 1977. Sad, funny, poetic. A good read.
   52. Play Practice: Alan Launder & Wendy Piltz. Experience-based practical book about using developmental and “working model” games to help develop sports sense and ability. Based on the authors’ real-life mistakes and successes, it offers many practical ideas of relevant games for PE teachers. Very useful.
   53. From Alamein to Zem Zem: Keith Douglas. Superbly written account of the 22-year-old’s journey in North Africa as a tank commander in WWII. Clear, personal, tragic and funny.
   54. Once There Was a War: John Steinbeck. Accounts from his time as a correspondent in England, North Africa and Italy during WWII. As usual, well-written and entertaining. How that man has lived inspires me.
   55. Tiny Habits: B.J. Fogg. A lot of book for a small amount of gain. Some useful ideas, but too much fluff.
   56. The Sportswriter: Richard Ford. Nothing to do with sports, just a novel about one man dealing with life over a weekend. Thought-provoking.
   57. Waylander: David Gemmell. A fantasy novel that I first read 30 years ago, simple page-turner.
   58. The Blind Assassin: Margaret Atwood. A superb, cleverly crafted and well-written novel about life in the 1930s in Canada. Contains an SF short story and a fantasy story within the main novel. Enjoyable to read and fathom.
   59. The Edge of the Sword: Anthony Farrar-Hockley. An autobiographical account of the battle of Imjin River in the Korean war and life in captivity. A ripping yarn that is understated and inspirational.
   60. Hero in the Shadows: David Gemmell.  The third Waylander novel, read for the first time in 20 years.  Interesting themes if a bit repetitive.
   61. Cat’s Eye: Margaret Atwood. Strange novel in which nothing much happens, similar style to Blind Assassin.
   62. Playing For Keeps: David Hamberstam. An account of Michael Jordan’s rise to prominence and dominance in the NBA. Well written with a good background on Jordan and his teammates and opponents. 
   63. On Solitude: Michel De Montaigne. A short series of essays from the 16th Century French philosopher. Some good ideas.
   64. The Art Of Fact: Ed. K.Kerrane & B. Yagoda. A superb collection of essays, book excerpts and newspaper articles from scores of different authors. A showcase of literary non-fiction and an account of many different human stories.
   65. Roverandom: J.R.R. Tolkien. A story written for his young children before The Hobbit. Interesting to see how the author is developing ideas that he uses in later books and those that he abandons.
   66. Goodbye to All That: Robert Graves. Autobiography of the young poet’s life including his account of serving with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in WWI. Very good.
   67. The Bodysnatchers: Jack Finney. Classic SF story about alien seed pods taking over a small town in California. Part of the ‘reds under the beds’ genre.
   68. Fight Club: Chuck Palahniuk. A sparse, tightly-plotted novel about Generation X trying to find a life. Much quoted, but worth the read.
   69. Anatomy of Agility: Frans Bosch. The dense, complicated textbook that has some enlightening points. Not for beginners.
   70. E.M. Forster: Aspects of the Novel. A collection of Forster’s ‘Clark Lectures’. A short but delightful read.
   71. Albert Camus: The Myth of Sysiphus. A philosophical treatise about the absurd. 
   72. The Collected Stories of Nabokov. Over 60 short stories in this huge volume. I was defeated halfway through so took an operational pause. Resumed and enjoyed about a dozen in the second half.
   73. The Alchemist: Paulo Coehlo. A short novel about a young man searching for meaning in life. A modern fable.
   74. Journal of a Plague Year: Daniel Defoe. The parallels with 2020 are uncanny. Interesting and depressing to see how little has changed.
   75. Penguin Science Fiction: Ed. Brian Aldiss. A collection of SF short stories published in 1962. Some great reads, including one by Steinbeck.
   76. The Salt Path: Raynor Winn. An autobiographical account of a suddenly homeless couple walking around the South-West coast path. An uplifting read, great descriptions of our local area.
   77. The Narrow Land: Christine Dwyer Hickey. A superb novel with Edward Hopper and his wife as central characters and Cape Cod as the location.
   78. The Man Who Walked Through Time: Colin Fletcher. One man’s journey on foot across the Grand Canyon National Park. Sometimes descends into a stream of consciousness but a reminder of how transient we are.

   Further reading:

   • Top 5 books of 2019
   • Recommended reading for teachers and coaches

8. Top 5 books of 2019

   9th December 2019 3:02 pm 2 Comments

   

   Looking for some books to give as gifts for Christmas? Here are my Top 5 books of 2019, plus a simple reflection of the rest that I have read.

   Sports coaches and p.e. teachers are often quick to jump on the latest book that is doing the rounds. Many of these are over-hyped and do not stand up to long term scrutiny. It is also often the only book that someone has read.

   Over the last 6 years I have read 474 books. Thanks as always to Mandi Abrahams of Castle Books, Beaumaris and to the staff of the Hayridge Library for their help and suggestions.

   Reading broadly gives me a sense of perspective. The following five are good ones.

   In no particular order…

   1. Instead of Education: John Holt.

   Excellent thoughts on how people can learn outside of a competitive education system. Written in 1976, thought provoking and relevant.

   “Education, with its supporting system of compulsory and competitive schooling, all its carrots and sticks, its grades, diplomas and credentials, now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of all the social inventions of mankind.

   2. How to Run a Government: Michael Barber.

   Superb book with excellent examples and guidelines throughout. Useful for every manager or leader of an organisation that wants to get things done. No politics, just practical ideas and processes.

   Here is Barber on implementation,

   “The widely held view that the way to bring about change is to ‘win hearts and minds’ and then proceed is largely a myth. In fact, the reverse is true; you need to proceed, and if you do so well- a very big and important ‘if’- hearts and minds will follow.”

   

   3. Letters of T.E. Lawrence: David Garnett (Ed.).

   Hard to describe how inspirational and revealing these letters were for me. Addressed to Siegfried Sassoon, E.M. Forster, Robert Graves and many others, it shows how Lawrence/ Shaw enjoyed his life in the RAF as a mechanic working as part of a team. It showed how he hated the limelight, and was poor, not wanting to ‘make money form the war’ and have his royalties from ‘7 Pillars of Wisdom‘ to charity. 

   “Do make it clear that generalship, at least in my case, came of understanding, of hard study and brain-work and concentration. Had it come easy to me I should not have done it so well.”

   4. The Peckham Experiment: I.H. Pearse & L.H. Crocker.

   An account by these two biologists of the first health centre set up in the 1930s. A Utopian experiment that was sadly cut short by the war. An outstanding account of what can happen when a community is given opportunity to develop.

   “Experience has already taught us that health can only come forth from mutuality of action within a society sufficiently mixed and varied to provide for the needs of mind and spirit as well as of body.”

   5. West: Carys Davies. Sublime short novel about exploration and grief. Simple and elegant. I have read some great fiction this year, but this would be the one to read again.

   Other reading

   

   It was hard to narrow this down, honourable mentions are highlighted below. If you have a suggestion or would like to mention a book that you have enjoyed, please leave it in the comments section.

   Reading recommendations for teachers and coaches. My all time shortlist (non-fiction).

   The full list of books I have read in 2019.

   1. Words Are My Matter: Ursula K. Le Guin. Excellent start to reading in 2019 with this series of essays, book reviews and literary thoughts from the recently deceased author. Famous for her SF books, but the ideas and expressions in this book have opened my mind to new avenues of reading. A treat.
   2. The Courage To Be Disliked: I. Kishimi & F. Koga. Interesting look at Adlerian Psychology, told in a student/ teacher type interview. The two main points are to develop self reliance and to live in harmony with society.
   3. The October Country: Ray Bradbury. Collection of Gothic horror stories.
   4. The Barcelona Way: Damian Hughes. A mish-mash of ideas gleaned from observations during Pep Guardiola’s time at the club. Some good points from this: Cultural Architect, Cultural Assassin.
   5. The Lonely Voice: Frank O’Connor. High craft, reading it makes me want to be better. A series of essays about short story writing looking at literature’s greats.
   6. Surfacing: Margaret Attwood. Novel set in Quebec featuring a woman trying to find her identity and not submitting to cultural norms. Enlightening.
   7. Son of the Morning Star: Evan Connell. Extensive historical account of Colonel Custer and the battle of the Little Big Horn.
   8. Sketches From a Hunter’s Album: Ivan Turgenev. Collection of stories from 19th century Russia. Shows the plight of the peasants. Entertaining and great atmospheric descriptions.
   9. Crazy Weather:Charles L. McNichols. Super coming of age story of a white boy living on a Mojave reservation. Very detailed descriptions.
   10. The End of Average: Todd Rose. Very interesting book about statistics being badly applied to humans. 
   11. The Trial: Franz Kafka. Interesting story, but turgid writing and structure make it a tough read 
   12. Most Secret: Nevil Shute. A ripping war yarn about a secret mission in France. Splendidly understated.
   13. Slide Rule: Nevil Shute. Autobiography of this engineer and author, detailed account of early aviation in the UK.
   14. Skin in the Game: Naseem Taleb.A few good points set out in this unnecessarily thick book. If you lecture but don’t practice, or have a tangible downside if you are wrong, then you lack “skin in the game.” 
   15. The End of the Affair: Graham Greene. Short novel set in the 1940s, concise expression of human love and faith. 
   16. Brilliant Presentations: Richard Hall. Well laid out and easy to follow guidelines on improving your presentations.
   17. Revolutionary Road: Richard Yates. Superb novel about a dysfunctional couple in the suburbs of Connecticut. A page turner 
   18. West: Carys Davies. Sublime short novel about exploration and grief. Simple and elegant.
   19. Doctrines of the Great Educators: Robert Rusk. A synopsis of thoughts from Plato, Montessori and several others. Lots of good ideas. 
   20. Stone Mattress: Margaret Atwood. Nine tales of speculative fiction. A leaning towards the older generation. Good fun.
   21. Where Shall We Run To?: Alan Garner. Amusing and poignant autobiography of childhood in the war.
   22. Space,Time and Nathaniel: Brian Aldiss. 1950s SF short stories, some good ideas. 
   23. The Mint: T.E. Lawrence. Autobiographical account of Lawrence’s time as Airman Ross in the RAF basic training. Superb prose about life as a recruit between the wars. Hardly ever referenced, but I would recommend.
   24. How Things Are, A Science Tool-Kit For The Mind: Ed. John Brockman & Katinka Matson. A series of essays written in 1994 about science based topics and ideas. Thought provoking and interesting to read now, 25 years later, how much has changed. 
   25. Winning in the Trenches: Forrest Gregg. Autobiography form this Packer great. The most interesting part is his childhood, and then dealing with the players’ strike in Green Bay. A great man, the book is less so.
   26. The Creative Writing Handbook: Ed. J. Singleton & M. Luckhurst. A series of workshop ideas and premises for writing groups such as short stories, poetry , journalism and screenplays. Useful, but written 20 years ago, so dated in parts.
   27. Death in Venice and Other Short Stories: Thomas Mann. A sad collection of dysfunctional individuals, written over one hundred years ago. Superbly written.
   28. Deep Work: Cal Newport. A look at how to be productive, rather than busy. Very good ideas on switching off and concentrating on purposeful work.
   29. The Shrinking Man: Richard Matheson. Classic SF story, focusing on the detail at home of this problem.
   30. Encyclopedia of Physical Education, Fitness and Sports (Vol 4): Ed. T Cureton. Produced in 1985, so dated in some parts, but excellent in others. Very easy to read and well laid out. Information presented for coaches and teachers should always be this good.
   31. The Black Klansman: Ron Stallworth. So strange it can only be true account of the black police officer infiltrating the Colorado Springs branch of the KKK. Entertaining.
   32. Forgotten Voices, of the Falklands War: Hugh McManners (Ed) Imperial War Museum account of various people in the conflict. Heavy Para bias and critical of Sandy Woodward and 5 Brigade. Their view points would have been appreciated.
   33. How to Live on 24 Hours a Day: Arnold Bennett. A super little book about making use of the time we have got. Beautifully written and very relevant.
   34. Live and Let Die: Ian Fleming. A James Bond novel, interesting, but seems racist in parts now.
   35. Jeeves in the Offing: P.G. Wodehouse. Comedic novel.
   36. The Inimitable Jeeves: P.G. Wodehouse. Short stories featuring the fall and rise of Bingo Little.
   37. The Playmaker’s Advantage: Leonard Zaichkowsky. Well written, well evidenced account of how game sense is developed in the brain. Good examples throughout.
   38. The Kean Land: Jack Schaefer. Collection of western short stories. Some are very good.
   39. Writing with Intent: Margaret Atwood. A collection of essays, reviews and thoughts from this veteran writer. I couldn’t put this down. I loved the writing.
   40. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: Robert Sapolsky. In depth look at stress and how it affects the human body. Extremely informative and entertaining to read.
   41. Iron Ambition: Mike Tyson. An interesting account of his life with Cus D’Amato. The boxing parts are best, it gets bogged down int he courtroom mob accounts.
   42. The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues & Signs: Tristan Gooley. Interesting and informative. 
   43. The Road to Little Dribbling: Bill Bryson. Travel writer’s sequel, funny but now sounding bitter. Has Britain gone downhill or the writer?
   44. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: T.E. Lawrence. Epic account of the Arab Revolt, part novel, part autobiography. Descriptive and fluent. Second time of reading, worth it.
   45. Negotiating With the Dead: Margaret Atwood. Seven essays about writing.
   46. American Gods: Neil Gaiman. Expansive and funny account of old gods trying to make it modern USA. 
   47. The Iliad: Homer. Finally read it, a lot of repetition, some great descriptive passages.
   48. The Natural History of Aggression: Ed. J.D. Carthy & F.J. Ebling. A report from a symposium held in 1964, lots of interesting research ideas.
   49. Raylan: Elmore Leonard. Short novel with a somewhat disjointed plot. More like a series of events. Dialogue is crackling.
   50. How to Write Your First Novel: Sophie King. Some useful ideas.
   51. Robinson Crusoe: Daniel Defoe. Read again after forty year gap. Descriptive adventure story, a reflection of its time and also a man’s development. 
   52. Under the Frog: Tibor Fischer. Superbly written tragi-comedy about life in Hungary pre-revolution. 
   53. Instead of Education: John Holt. Excellent thoughts on how people can learn outside of a competitive education system. Written in 1976, thought provoking and relevant.
   54. Conscious Coaching: Brett Bartholomew. Some interesting ideas, but generally unwieldy. Also, assumes that life in the gym is essential to athletes and that the squats, cleans mode of training is what counts.
   55. Lady With Lapdog and Other Stories: Anton Chekov. Two of these took my breath away, the rest are just very good. 
   56. The Handmaid’s Tale: Margaret Atwood. Dystopian novel about a woman surviving in the US ruled by a religious dictatorship. Might have seemed far fetched when written in 1985, less so now.
   57. The Peckham Experiment: I.H. Pearse & L.H. Crocker. An account by these two biologists of the first health centre set up in the 1930s. A Utopian experiment that was sadly cut short by the war. An outstanding account of what can happen when a community is given opportunity to develop.-
   58. The Testaments: Margaret Atwood. Sublime sequel, a real page turner. Thrilling words indeed.
   59. A Town Like Alice: Nevil Shute. Read again as a light touch. How to build a community from scratch.
   60. The Wizard of Earthsea: Ursula Le Guin. Read with my son, a coming of age quest.
   61. In Pursuit of Excellence: David Hemery. Detailed account of interviews with elite sports performers from the 1980s. Insightful and well researched.
   62. The Road: Cormac McCarthy. Brilliant novel, sparse prose, heart wrenching, love story between father and son in post apocalyptic USA.
   63. Star Trek in Myth and Legend: Thomas Richards. Very interesting book for fans of the series. Links in to the bigger world of literature.
   64. Ribbonworld: Richard Dee. Pedestrian SF Novel, poorly written.
   65. Letters of T.E. Lawrence: David Garnett (Ed.). Hard to describe how inspirational and revealing these letters were for me. Addressed to Siegfried Sassoon, E.M. Forster, Robert Graves and many others, it shows how Lawrence/ Shaw enjoyed his life in the RAF as a mechanic working as part of a team. It showed how he hated the limelight, and was poor, not wanting to ‘make money form the war’ and have his royalties from 7 Pillars to charity. 
   66. A Map of Imaginary Lands: Huw Lewis-Jones. A beautifully designed book of illustrations and maps from favourite books. Guest authors describe their love of stories and maps, nothing challenging, just a pleasure to read and observe.
   67. My Abandonment: Peter Rock. A great coming of age novel with a 13 year old girl protagonist. Set in the woods of Oregon, inspired by a true story and the basis for the film ‘Leave no Trace.’ Very good, read in a day.
   68. Fear & Fantasy: The Stinging Fly anthology, Various authors. An interesting collection of poems and short stories, a great short read.
   69. Gridiron Genius: Michael Lombardi. Analytical look at the management side of football. Insights gained from working with Bill Belichick and Bill Walsh. Very interesting and well laid out.
   70. The Stinging Fly (Spring 2012): Various authors. Short stories and poems from emerging writers. Carys Davies, Robert Hopkins and Colin Barratt stand out.
   71. A Secret Vice: J.R.R. Tolkien (ed. D.Fimi & A. Higgins). One for word smiths and language enthusiasts.
   72. The Exuberant Animal: Frank Forencich. Rambling book with good ideas, but few concrete conclusions or examples.
   73. How to Run a Government: Michael Barber. Superb book with excellent examples and guidelines throughout. Useful for every manager or leader of an organisation that wants to get things done. No politics, just practical ideas and processes.
   74. Why I Write: George Orwell.  Clear, precise, accurate and had me thinking from the start. A short book with a few essays, well worth keeping.
   75. The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends: Peter Ellis. Lots of fairy tales, few about the Celts. More stories from these Celtic nations. 

   Currently reading: The fifth season by N.K. Jemisin.

9. Is your school stopping your child from learning?

   13th September 2019 11:00 am Leave a Comment

   “Education, with its supporting system of compulsory and competitive schooling, all its carrots and sticks, its grades, diplomas and credentials, now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of all the social inventions of mankind. “

   John Holt

   

   So says John Holt in his sublime book, “Instead of Education.“

   There are many lessons for teachers and sports coaches in this book (and parents if they choose to read it.)

   Holt’s underlying premise is that the Education System with its S-chools and t-eachers (his annotations) systematically prevents and inhibits the natural learning of children.

   It will make for uncomfortable reading for many people.

   “Next to life itself, the most important human right is the right to control our own minds and thoughts. That means, the right to decide for ourselves how we will explore the world around us, think about our own and other persons’ experiences, and find and make meaning of our own lives. Whoever takes that right away from us, by trying to ‘educate’ us, attacks the very centre of our being and does us a most profound and lasting injury.”

   page 8

   If we force someone into a situation, we are inhibiting their freedom to choose.

   Holt loves learning, and this being a Pelican book, is a fan of the autodidact, but not as in stumbling upon things by accident or struggling to learn everything from scratch. Instead he calls them “do-ers” and they seek help and guidance from those who can.

   “The do-er, not someone else, who has decided what he will say, hear, read and write, or think or dream about.  He is at the centre of his own actions. He plans, directs, controls and judges them. He does them for his own purposes- which may of course include a common purpose with others.”

   page 9

   

   The “do-er” is making decisions about what they want to learn, and seeking out opportunities to do so.

   This may be familiar to those of you who have done a 6- week calligraphy course, tried creative writing, wanted to learn to play the piano, or tried to learn a language on Duolingo.

   Or, to sports coaches who have someone come to them to learn how to do a handstand, swim butterfly, or do a clean and jerk.

   “The most we may be able to do may be to find ways to help some children to find ways to prevent compulsory learning from killing the curiosity, energy, resourcefulness, and confidence with which they explore the world, and to find ways outside of school to nourish and encourage these qualities, so that even if they learn little or nothing worthwhile in school, they can continue the learning they were doing so well before they went to school.”

   page 12

   “The most valuable and indeed essential asset the student brings to any task is a willingness to adventure, to take risks. Without that, it can’t learn anything. The teacher must not kill this spirit, but honour and strengthen it. Thus one of the stupidest things the S-chools do is insist that children ‘comprehend’ everything they read, and read only what they comprehend. People who read well do not learn this way. They plunge into books that are ‘too hard’ for them, enjoying what they can understand, wondering and guessing about what they do not, and not worrying when they cannot find an answer.”

   page 74

   A personal bugbear of mine, as both my children who were keen book lovers before starting at school, have been told they are not allowed to read ‘advanced‘ books! Instead, their reading ability is measured by number of words read!

   

   “From my own experience in t-eaching I know that when a t-eacher invents what they seem like a good series of graded tasks, he may fall in love with it, and try to lock the student into it. We can see this in the teaching of most school subjects, which are not sequential at all, and in the teaching of music which is in some ways sequential, but has much more room for exploration and invention than many music teachers encourage or allow.“

   page 75

   

   Martial Arts, gymnastics and swimming love grades and certificates.

   The learner may enter the Dojo to learn self-defence, but is soon told they have to learn the grading syllabus. The belts become the goal, rather than learning to fight (and no, they are not synonymous).

   The same with swimming, well intentioned parents sign their kids up to swim classes for safety reasons.

   They then watch their child trapped in an artificially constructed stage because the child’s breast stroke is perceived to be incorrect. This has little to do with preventing drowning in quarries or at sea, but the parents are by then lost in this system.

   They have no idea if the child will be safe, so they compare notes to see if their child is a “winner“. Holt talks a lot about the Education System being designed to produce “winners“. By definition if only a few children can be winners, the rest must be losers.

   The certificates show that your child is a “winner.”

   Later Holt describes a good tennis coach he once had.

   “As long has his students are having fun flailing away at the ball, let them do it. If he sees that they are beginning to get more frustration than fun out of this, he may suggest a simpler, more do-able, and hence more enjoyable task. The trick is to find the balance that is most interesting, exciting and useful to the student. Better yet, to let the student find it.”

   page 76

   This is gold dust and reflects the biggest change to my coaching over the last 5 years. I once watched my daughter in a tennis lesson spend the last half hour having 8 attempts at hitting a ball. The rest of the time she was queuing or running around the net.

   In the same time, my younger son was “flailing away at the ball” on the sideline with his mate. I stopped counting at 100 attempts. They were having fun and discovering different ways of using a racket, throwing, catching and then some wrestling.

   Teachers hate chaos, and yet a lot of learning goes on whilst flailing. A lot more than when queuing. I now allow a period of self-discovery in every class: the children work on what they want to work on.

   I observe them and then can help them get better at what they want, before adding in ideas of my own.

   “Well, back to reality,” and have gone on doing just what we had done all along, which was to try to bribe, scare and shame children into learning what someone else had decided they ought to know.”

   page 160

   On teachers returning to work after attending a conference learning how to be better teachers. The honesty, whilst refreshing, is also dispiriting.

   “The schools say, of course, that the reason for compulsory attendance laws is to make sure that the children learn all the important things the schools are teaching. But children must be in school even when school tests show and the school admits they are not learning anything, or have already learned what the school is teaching.“

   Page 161

   It’s interesting that schools tell parents that they are encouraging the children to be “resilient” and “independent”, yet then tell the children not to do cartwheels in case they get hurt and not to read more advanced books in case they get put off reading!

   

   “Even in schools which allow and encourage children to ask questions and reward them for doing so, the children soon stop asking. For when we reward children for doing what they like to do- find out about the world– they soon learn only to do it for rewards. Since the rewards of the school only go to a few winners, most children, the losers, stop asking questions. This is one of the flaws of positive reinforcement; it works only as long as we keep it up.”

   page 177

   Summary

   This book resonated with me, and I am perfectly aware of my confirmation bias. I love teaching, but hate the constraints formed by a system. I love learning and am constantly seeking out teachers, mentors or courses to help me on my journey.

   Holt has articulated his views on teaching extremely well. I recommend this book to all coaches and people who want to learn.

   Thanks to Mandi Abrahams of Castle Books for the recommendation.

10. Summer Reading Recommendations for Teachers and Coaches

    10th July 2019 11:51 am 6 Comments

    Ideas on what to read this summer

    

    Are you looking for a good book to read on holiday? We are over half way through the year, so I have had a chance to read a few that may be of interest.

    You might want to unwind with some easy reading and then gear up for the season or autumn term with something more substantial.

    
    I try to avoid hype trains; they often make a lot of noise and leave nothing but dust and leaves spinning mindlessly behind. The reader picks themselves up, brushes off the dirt and continues along the track until they hear “You must read this, you must read this” and promptly get knocked down again.

    Instead, I shall just recommend books that are well written, informative and entertaining in some fashion. At the end of this blog you can see a short summary of every book I have read so far this year.

    

    
    I have avoided buying books this year for the most part, and used the excellent library service. This is an effort to get my Tsundoku down to a manageable size.

    I did have a small flurry post GAIN as usual, thanks to my colleagues recommending books.

    Light but worthy.

    1. West: Carys Davies. Sublime short novel about exploration and grief. Simple and elegant. If you can only read one novel this year, this will inspire you to read more
    2. Revolutionary Road: Richard Yates. Superb novel about a dysfunctional couple in the suburbs of Connecticut. A page turner
    3. How to Live on 24 Hours a day: Arnold Bennett. A super little book on making the most of your time. It can be read on a flight. I have written a full description here.
    4. Words Are My Matter: Ursula K. Le Guin. A series of essays, book reviews and literary thoughts from the recently deceased author. Famous for her SF books, but the ideas and expressions in this book have opened my mind to new avenues of reading. A treat.
    5. Writing with Intent: Margaret Atwood. A collection of essays, reviews and thoughts from this veteran writer. I couldn’t put this down. I loved the writing. I had never read Atwood until this year, taking Le Guin’s recommendation and running with it.

    Impress your colleagues with your knowledge

    If the staff room is full of teachers looking at Instagram for ideas for their next lesson, then try these out for size.

    

    1. The Playmaker’s Advantage: Leonard Zaichkowsky. Well written, well evidenced account of how game sense is developed in the brain. Good examples throughout. Essential for those working within “Talent Development Pathways”!
       “Junior success is a poor indicator of long-term senior success. Their success at the age of 10 had a zero correlation with their success as a senior. Same was true with their success at ages 11-14 and 15-18. We have a zero correlation. That means those who were better at a young age were not those who were better at an older age.” Quoting Arne Gullich’s research of German soccer development academies and German Olympic sports.
    2. Doctrines of the Great Educators: Robert Rusk. A synopsis of thoughts from Plato, Montessori and several others. Lots of good ideas. Full review here.
    3. The End of Average: Todd Rose. Very interesting book about statistics being badly applied to humans.
       “The fact that there is not a single, normal pathway for any type of human development- biological, mental, moral, or professional- forms the basis of the third principle. This principle makes two important affirmations:
       • First, in all aspects of our lives and for any given goal, there are many, equally valid ways to reach the same outcome
       • Second, the particular pathway that is optimal for you depends on your own individuality.”
    4. The Courage To Be Disliked: I. Kishimi & F. Koga. Interesting look at Adlerian Psychology, told in a student/ teacher type interview. The two main points are to develop self- reliance and to live in harmony with society.
       “A way of living that acknowledges only company work is one that is lacking in harmony of life.”
       A thoughtful quote to end on as you go away for some relaxation and reflection time.

    The Full List

    1. Words Are My Matter: Ursula K. Le Guin. Excellent start to reading in 2019 with this series of essays, book reviews and literary thoughts from the recently deceased author. Famous for her SF books, but the ideas and expressions in this book have opened my mind to new avenues of reading. A treat.
    2. The Courage To Be Disliked: I. Kishimi & F. Koga. Interesting look at Adlerian Psychology, told in a student/ teacher type interview. The two main points are to develop self- reliance and to live in harmony with society.
    3. The October Country: Ray Bradbury. Collection of Gothic horror stories.
    4. The Barcelona Way: Damian Hughes. A mish-mash of ideas gleaned from observations during Pep Guardiola’s time at the club. Some good points from this: Cultural Architect, Cultural Assassin.
    5. The Lonely Voice: Frank O’Connor. High craft, reading it makes me want to be better. A series of essays about short story writing looking at literature’s greats.
    6. Surfacing: Margaret Atwood. Novel set in Quebec featuring a woman trying to find her identity and not submitting to cultural norms. Enlightening.
    7. Son of the Morning Star: Evan Connell. Extensive historical account of Colonel Custer and the battle of the Little Big Horn.
    8. Sketches From a Hunter’s Album: Ivan Turgenev. Collection of stories from 19th century Russia. Shows the plight of the peasants. Entertaining and great atmospheric descriptions.
    9. Crazy Weather:Charles L. McNichols. Super coming of age story of a white boy living on a Mojave reservation. Very detailed descriptions.
    10. The End of Average: Todd Rose. Very interesting book about statistics being badly applied to humans.
    11. The Trial: Franz Kafka. Interesting story, but turgid writing and structure make it a tough read
    12. Most Secret: Nevil Shute. A ripping war yarn about a secret mission in France. Splendidly understated.
    13. Slide Rule: Nevil Shute. Autobiography of this engineer and author, detailed account of early aviation in the UK.
    14. Skin in the Game: Naseem Taleb. A few good points set out in this unnecessarily thick book. If you lecture but don’t practice, or have a tangible downside if you are wrong, then you lack “skin in the game.”
    15. The End of the Affair: Graham Greene. Short novel set in the 1940s, concise expression of human love and faith.
    16. Brilliant Presentations: Richard Hall. Well laid out and easy to follow guidelines on improving your presentations.
    17. Revolutionary Road: Richard Yates. Superb novel about a dysfunctional couple in the suburbs of Connecticut. A page turner
    18. West: Carys Davies. Sublime short novel about exploration and grief. Simple and elegant.
    19. Doctrines of the Great Educators: Robert Rusk. A synopsis of thoughts from Plato, Montessori and several others. Lots of good ideas.
    20. Stone Mattress: Margaret Atwood. Nine tales of speculative fiction. A leaning towards the older generation. Good fun.
    21. Where Shall We Run To?: Alan Garner. Amusing and poignant autobiography of childhood in the war.
    22. Space,Time and Nathaniel: Brian Aldiss. 1950s SF short stories, some good ideas.
    23. The Mint: T.E. Lawrence. Autobiographical account of Lawrence’s time as Airman Ross in the RAF basic training. Superb prose about life as a recruit between the wars. Hardly ever referenced, but I would recommend.
    24. How Things Are, A Science Tool-Kit For The Mind: Ed. John Brockman & Katinka Matson. A series of essays written in 1994 about science based topics and ideas. Thought provoking and interesting to read now, 25 years later, how much has changed.
    25. Winning in the Trenches: Forrest Gregg. Autobiography form this Packer great. The most interesting part is his childhood, and then dealing with the players’ strike in Green Bay. A great man, the book is less so.
    26. The Creative Writing Handbook: Ed. J. Singleton & M. Luckhurst. A series of workshop ideas and premises for writing groups such as short stories, poetry , journalism and screenplays. Useful, but written 20 years ago, so dated in parts.
    27. Death in Venice and Other Short Stories: Thomas Mann. A sad collection of dysfunctional individuals, written over one hundred years ago. Superbly written.
    28. Deep Work: Cal Newport. A look at how to be productive, rather than busy. Very good ideas on switching off and concentrating on purposeful work.
    29. The Shrinking Man: Richard Matheson. Classic SF story, focusing on the detail at home of this problem.
    30. Encyclopedia of Physical Education, Fitness and Sports (Vol 4): Ed. T Cureton. Produced in 1985, so dated in some parts, but excellent in others. Very easy to read and well laid out. Information presented for coaches and teachers should always be this good.
    31. The Black Klansman: Ron Stallworth. So strange it can only be true account of the black police officer infiltrating the Colorado Springs branch of the KKK. Entertaining.
    32. Forgotten Voices, of the Falklands War: Hugh McManners (Ed). Imperial War Museum account of various people in the conflict. Heavy Para bias and critical of Sandy Woodward and 5 Brigade. Their viewpoints would have been appreciated.
    33. How to Live on 24 Hours a Day: Arnold Bennett. A super little book about making use of the time we have got. Beautifully written and very relevant.
    34. Live and Let Die: Ian Fleming. A James Bond novel, interesting, but seems racist in parts now.
    35. Jeeves in the Offing: P.G. Wodehouse. Comedic novel.
    36. The Inimitable Jeeves: P.G. Wodehouse. Short stories featuring the fall and rise of Bingo Little.
    37. The Playmaker’s Advantage: Leonard Zaichkowsky. Well written, well evidenced account of how game sense is developed in the brain. Good examples throughout.
    38. The Kean Land: Jack Schaefer. Collection of western short stories. Some are very good.
    39. Writing with Intent: Margaret Atwood. A collection of essays, reviews and thoughts from this veteran writer. I couldn’t put this down. I loved the writing.
    40. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: Robert Sapolsky. In depth look at stress and how it affects the human body. Extremely informative and entertaining to read.

    Read my All time recommended reading list for teachers and coaches

    Thanks as usual to Devon Libraries and the Hayridge in Cullompton for the loans, and to Mandi Abrahams of Castle Books in Beaumaris for her annoying habit of recommending two books for every one I have just read!

    If you have a suggestion on what to read this Summer, please leave it in the comments below.