The first of the three is fine, and in sticking with the style that he is most admired for, Perez-Reverte has crafted THE NAUTICAL CHART in lyrical and visually rich prose. No problem there but the allusion to Melville, Conrad, Homer, and just about every author who has written about the sea was far too obvious. It felt forced and came across as an attempt to conflate all nautical themes into this one novel. It starts immediately with the story opening with the line: "We could call him Ishmael, but in truth his name is Coy." As I said, it's not subtle. And for a writer who has previously shown a masterful command of language, it's a little disappointing that he felt compelled to use so many nautical cliches. Coy, pondering the mysteries of a woman revealed to him through his romance with Tanger, wonders to himself whether he will "ever be able to draw the nautical chart that would allow a man to navigate a woman." Ouch! What a chalk-on-blackboard-screeching cliche. Perez-Reverte knows better and should have restrained both Coy and himself.

I thoroughly enjoyed the cartographic and navigational references and all the nautical digressions, and as always Perez-Reverte has done a lot of research. We can therefore be fairly sure that the historical framework - already informative and entertaining - is also accurate.

The plot has enough twists in it for it to remain a mystery and the writing does sparkle in the tense and emotionally charged scenes and the book is definitely a thriller. The problem remains that Perez-Reverte is just too obvious with his literary devices, allusions, and cliches, (did I mention that a narrator is suddenly introduced to help drive the story to its conclusion?). In the end the normal, enjoyable, rhythm and flow of his novels has instead run into some choppy waters.

Sir Christopher Wren has earned his reputation as a man of great learning and marvelous architectural works. He is therefore entitled to another book devoted to his lifework and HIS INVENTION SO FERTILE is just that. Adrian Tinniswood's "A Life of Christopher Wren" offers a well researched and finely detailed picture of the architectural legacy of Wren and his equally impressive, but lesser known work as an inventor, astronomer, and scientist. As a straight biography of the man - his thoughts and ideas and his family life - the book is a little sketchy. Unlike his friend John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys, Wren was no diarist. He in fact had very little to say about himself, his family, or the times in which he lived. When a biographer says that this is "a man you would give a great deal to know" you get a clear sense of the frustration Tinniswood faced in unearthing biographical details on Wren.

There is still of course quite a story to tell. Wren was born in 1632 and since his father was King's Chaplain at Windsor Castle one of little Christopher's playmates was the young Prince Charles (later Charles II). By the time Wren was 17 he had invented a pneumatic engine and a machine that wrote in the dark. His early interest was in astronomy and he made sundials and created a model of the Solar System. Wren tested the effectiveness of opium as an anaesthetic for prolonged surgery. This is where Tinniswood begins his book and I'd recommend skimming through the unpleasant description of experiments on a dog. A point that Tinniswood brings across, with Wren as a classic example, is that this was a time of knowledge as something whole. Learning was enlightenment in many subjects. Wren distinguished himself in mathematics, physics, medicine, and astronomy. In 1661, Wren not yet 30, was made professor of Astronomy at Oxford. Tinniswood highlights another interesting point about the general historical setting. How is it that this "fertile" period of great scientific discovery and expanding intellectual horizons coexisted with a time of civil war and massive political upheaval? The 1640's in England was a time of parliamentary revolt, a King (Charles I) losing his head - literally, and the rise of Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell represented a significant threat to Royalists such as Wren and his family. When the Restoration of the monarchy was achieved and Charles II took the throne, Wren was in a perfect position to benefit from the application of his "formidable intellect" in the service of his friend the King. Shortly after Wren and others formed a society for the study of science Charles II gave it a Royal Charter in 1661, and thus the Royal Society of London was created.

The main substance of the book and the work for which we best know Wren - his architecture - we now see as simply just another career for Wren. The first building he designed was the chapel for Pembroke College, Cambridge but the work that was to stand him in good stead a few years later was his dome for the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford. For this he studied Michelangelo's drawings for the dome of St Peter's in Rome, and Wren went to Paris in 1665 to look at Lemercier's Baroque style dome at the church of the Sorbonne. Wren was again fortuitously placed to benefit when following the Great Fire of London in 1666, thousands of houses, over 50 churches, and a significant landmark were destroyed. John Evelyn said it best in his diary "I was infinitely concerned to find that goodly church, St Paul's, a sad ruin..." Because Wren was so quick on the draw with a post-fire plan for a redesigned St Paul's, there has always been a rumour that Wren himself may have started the fire. Tinniswood does not fan the flame of that falsehood at all.

After the task of surveying the fire damage was completed Wren submitted a plan for the redesign of not just St Paul's but of great sections of London. The Rebuilding act of 1667 set some things in place such as wider streets but only a few elements of the city plan were accepted. Even with St Paul's, Wren had to submit many designs. Tinniswood goes into detail on the "First Model", the "Great Model" and the finally accepted "Warrant Design" which incorporated a Latin Cross layout with a large dome. Any architect reading these descriptions will be on familiar ground. Some aspects of the profession such as constantly modifying plans, negotiating and compromise, all have a very old history.

Readers who enjoy history, science, and of course architecture will thoroughly enjoy this book. Given that it's a biography it's surprising that those are the fans who'll probably be disappointed. There's nothing new here about Wren the man and what we already know is not much. Look to his work instead; it says a lot that words alone can't express.

There are a couple of things about this work by Greenberg that struck me as significant, and added to the fact that the book is very well written, it makes for a very compelling read. Even after many years of scientific journalism and working within the industry Greenberg says that the scientific enterprise makes him "feel like a stranger in a strange land." This is no idle boast by someone trying to tout his credentials as an objective observer and skeptic. This is in fact precisely the perspective that Greenberg uses throughout; this arms-length approach allows him to come up with some rather perceptive insights and useful recommendations. The second point of interest, and something for which the scientific community should be commended, is that generally this book has been quite favorably received. Many times when an "outsider" reports on some subject, the first, and oftentimes the only point, aggrieved professionals focus on is that he's not an "expert", or he's a "non-specialist". That doesn't seem to be the case with most of the commentary on this book from the scientific community. And make no mistake, there's enough damning evidence here about the volatile mix of SCIENCE, MONEY, AND POLITICS and the resulting mess of "Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion", that it would be normal to expect self-defensive counter criticisms.

Greenberg traces the changing role of science and its relationship with politics, roughly since the period following WWII. Long gone is the era of the prominent presidential science advisors. Today it is money that dominates the scientific agenda. The chapter on the National Science Foundation (NSF) and its claim a few years ago that the country faced a shortage of tens of thousands of scientists is illustrative. Greenberg shows this lobbying effort for increased funds as a knowingly false issue pushed by a merger of institutional and academic interests. Greenberg quotes a US Office of Management & Budget Report which had this to say about scientists: "They are the quintessential special interest group..."

He has much to say on the inflated claims of many projects. Although he specifically mentions the aborted Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), it is clear he views more recent projects such as the Human Genome Project, and cloning, in the same light. Greenberg doesn't allow the book to end as a mere polemic though. He makes an interesting recommendation for the conversion of the NSF into a National Science, Engineering & Humanities Foundation. This is more in recognition of the need for a new "ethic" rather than as the desirability of conflating all knowledge to scientific methods as some scientists (E.O Wilson in CONSILIENCE) have recently called for.

Regardless of where you are in the sciences this book is sure to affect you. Many of the excesses and cases of influence and false claims are known about, and more importantly have already been condemned by well thinking professionals. Nevertheless by presenting it in such a readable format Greenberg will enjoy significant readership among the skeptical public. This at a time when science is engaged in the most far reaching issues for humanity, only means that scientists can expect more questions from an interested, and much better informed public.

In other words - it's not very effective. Sure all the usual ingredients are here. Oddball characters, a zany plot and Hiaasen's biting satirical wit. Jack Tagger a middle-aged investigative journalist has been dumped at the obituary desk, which in the pecking order of newspaper business we are told, is definitely bottom-feeding territory. How did an experienced journalist end up here? By criticizing the profit drive and all-else-be-damned approach of the Maggard-Feist corporation - the new owners of Tagger's paper.

Tagger's instincts tell him there's something up with the reported death of 39 year old James Bradley Stomarti or Jimmy Stoma as he was better known by friends and fans of his former band - Jimmy and the Slut Puppies. Tagger isn't impressed by the story of Jimmy's death nor by the less-than-grief-stricken widow Cleo Rio. This is the set-up for the investigation and for Hiaasen to explore his topics of interest and develop the two themes of this novel. Tagger believes in professional journalism and Hiaasen contrasts this with the sell-out style that he sees practiced by large chain newspapers owned by corporations. The other topic is the world of rock music. Here Hiaasen has fun with names such as the bands album "Painful Burning Sensation" and hit singles such as "All Humped Out". Lyrics from a more recent hit give us the title for the book and hint at where it went wrong. "My baby is a BASKET CASE. A bi-polar mama in leather and lace." Here Hiaasen stretches the humor beyond being ludicrous until its parody and just plain silly.

Where the basket proves that it can't hold water is that over the length of the book the humor becomes more wry smiles and even embarassed grimaces rather than the side-splitting, laugh-out-loud type that we are used to.

The fact that Gilmour explores Kipling's writing in terms of these themes and how they reflected aspects of his character is a clear indication that this book is no hagiography. The focus here is on the subject of empire and as the subtitle says it is all about: "The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling". Gilmour quotes Kipling as saying that empire was "the fabric of my mental and physical existence." Kipling seemed to see empire as some divine right of England:

GOD of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord god of Hosts be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!
(Recessional)

It's this thinking that Gilmour focuses on and thus Kipling's life and works can't be seen as anything but a study in THE LONG RECESSIONAL. That's one emphasis; another is what Gilmour identifies as the "two sides to [Kipling's] head". With this he's looking at writings that were chauvinistic, ultra-nationalistic and even racist. Poems such as "The Female of the Species" and "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" being cases in point. Gilmour then shows the other side of the man's head with writings depicting his compassion and humanity - "If" for instance. Kipling's life can't be completely studied outside the context of family and the sadness of losing children and an unhappy marriage. The times and circumstances through which he lived also influenced him. Being born in colonial India and living through the Boer war and WWI all served to paint the lens through which Kipling saw and wrote about life in a rosy imperial tint.

The theme is familiar but rarely has it been expressed so hauntingly as it is here; and hardly ever has it been explored so completely by a first time writer. Ethnic identity kindled in the heat of miscegenation is beyond love or passion; it tugs at the very essence of who we say we are as individuals and how we claim our nationalities. Add to that mix a colonial setting with issues of wealth and privilege set against powerlessness and self doubt and you've got a rich tableau of human emotion from which to craft your novel and develop characters. This story is set in early 20th century colonial India. That and the central character Pran being the child of an English father and Indian mother immediately creates the setting for exploring the big question of "who am I?" This is the theme of much of V.S. Naipual's writing such as the MIMIC MEN.

There is no need for Pran to mimic anyone at least not for the first 15 years of his life. He is brought up by a Kashmiri lawyer who takes him as his own son. "His father will not hear a word spoken against him...when his aunties come visit, they pinch his cheeks and coo...Pran Nath, so beautiful! So pale! Such a perfect Kashmiri!". Pran's mother died with her secrets in childbirth and his real father - Englishman Ronald Forrester - is also long gone having died the night Pran was conceived. Pran is therefore not a perfect Kashmiri and this is eventually revealed to his lawyer father who promptly throws the youth out onto the streets.

Pran falls into the hands of a eunuch who pimps him out to Major Privett-Clampe a bizarre colonial character. No longer Pran the boy is now Clive. We see the beginnings of the chameleon. At first changes are for survival but soon he is learning, adapting, realizing that by being different people according to others needs he can achieve what he wants. Identity becomes a tool Pran uses with great skill in social climbing. We next meet him in Bombay where he has become Robert, the foster-child of Scottish missionaries. This is only his day time persona because at night he's back on the streets as Pretty Bobby. Still another reincarnation takes place and now we see THE IMPRESSIONIST emerging and developing to his full potential.

He stumbles upon a passport and ticket to London. They belonged to an orphaned heir named Jonathan Bridgeman who was killed in a Bombay back alley. No longer satisfied with mimicking those around him, the impressionist assumes Bridgeman's identity and returns to England and Oxford. It's no coincidence that the author has him studying anthropology because he has become something of a curiosity himself. He says to himself "how easy it is to slough off one life and take up another". Perhaps if he had heeded the implicit warning in his own thoughts he would have realized that a fluid identity is also no identity whatsoever. When Pran falls in love and realizes that his real Indian identity is appropriate for this situation it is too far gone and he can't recover.

Like both Naipaul and Waugh before him Kunzru writes a subtle satire. Also like Naipaul he is able to plumb the depths with the tragic elements that oftentimes envelopes the subject of ethnic identity. Kunzru wouldn't have been true to those others if in the end he neatly resolved the identity issue. Such matters have a long history and an interminable future.

What's Joseph Rykwert's perspective and what's his view of the city? It's not very easy to peg down. It's not that of "sociologists, traffic experts, and politicians" as he says that he's "always been struck at how little the physical fabric of the city - its touch and smell as well as its sights - occupies their attention". Maybe he's more inclined to take an economists view and see things as Jane Jacobs does. Then again maybe not. Rykwert says quite plainly that cities do not develop "naturally". The perspective is definitely not that of a speeding, disinterested motorist. Rykwert refers to the impact of cars as "catastrophic" and says "I am not, nor have I ever been a driver." Now we're getting somewhere - a supporter of New Urbanism? Not quite. He has this to say about one of those showpiece communities: "the whole business of 'community' at Celebration is about...real estate". Rykwert is equally critical of a few architects (modernists), certain building designs (government and institutional), a couple of city plans (Brasilia and New Delhi), and some approaches to urbanism (the New Town concept of post WWII Europe).

With all that's wrong it's amazing that this book didn't turn out to be a miserable reading experience. That's partly due to Rykwert's writing skill but moreso because of his very obvious love for the city. THE SEDUCTION OF PLACE and affection for city space is obvious. The depths of his thinking about the urban form is manifest and Rykwert offers a synopsis of what's wrong and also what's to love about a city. "My polemic is not against the disordered, even chaotic city but against the anonymous and alienating one." With this we finally understand what his perspective is. It's that of a person open to experiencing the personality of a city; that of someone at ground level. Our difficulty with coming up with a clear view of the city might be due to the fact that we haven't experienced the city as Rykwert has and it doesn't yet occupy the same space in our hearts and minds. He invites us to begin. "The very condition of openess is what makes our city of conflicts so attractive to its growing crowd of inhabitants. The lack of any coherent, explicit, image may therefore, in our circumstances, be a positive virtue, not a fault at all, or even a problem."

A possible reason why reviews of this book are so divergent is that BRUNELLESCHI'S DOME is so much more than an architectural triumph that for some it seems unlikely that such a slim book by a journalist could do it full justice. Ross King however fully recognizes the significance of the dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral and the mastery of it's creator Filippo Brunelleschi. He pays tribute to how both the man and his creation were symbolic of the great creative genius that we have come to see as typifying the golden age of the Renaissance. King also clearly shows how such individuals and their work were a boon to the continuing growth and influence of the Renaissance as a whole. Not only is the dome a wonderful architectural triumph - at 143 feet in diameter it is still the largest dome in existence - the very act of creating it spurred other developments. Construction techniques, machines and tools, methods of organizing work, architectural design and drafting; all had to be modified, improved, and in some cases newly invented to accomplish the goal.

Any reading you do on the Renaissance will be sure to mention southern Italy and the pioneering role Florence had in the movement. With Florence you're dealing with the finest sculpture, painting, and architecture, and with Brunelleschi's dome you've got distilled into one creation all that the Renaissance stood for.

First we had THE GREAT ARC, a story about the immense project to map the arc of the meridian in India. Now we learn that the British army and the government built a 1500 mile long GREAT HEDGE OF INDIA as part of a customs wall to keep out smugglers of salt. As is to be expected with popular history books on such arcane subjects eccentricity abounds. Also fairly typically of such stories the quest becomes a bit of an obsession for the author. Moxham tells us that at first his search was casual and on a whim. Eventually his desire to find some remnant of the great hedge caused him to make repeated visits to India, learn Hindi, become a useful navigator using GPS tools and techniques, and spend years poring over maps and charts of colonial India. Was it worth it? Much of that depends on the reception of this book but Moxham has the satisfaction of finally finding a remnant of the hedge. We learn this near the end of the book and there's a photograph of a rather nondescript clump of thorny bush that proves it.

Finding a bit of the hedge closes the chapter on one aspect of this book. This wraps up the book as a travelogue of Moxham's personal treks through present day India and his imaginary journeys through the time and space of India under the Raj. On another level as a historical account the book is a bit thinner. The facts of the hedge are known. It seperated northern India into two almost equal parts and was designed to prevent salt from being smuggled in from Gujarat and Maharashtra states in the west and sugar from leaving the north. Eventually as part of a custom line it would run from Rawalpindi in the north-west (in present day Pakistan) to Orissa state on the east coast. Because of the various climatic zones it traversed the hedge was made up of different plants. Prickly pear, thorn brush, and bamboo were used. It was over 8 feet high and 5 feet wide with occassional openings marked by a large tamarind tree under which sat a customs shed. It was an impenetrable barrier except for the spots where smugglers had set fire to a few clumps or rats had gnawed away some roots. Moxham tells us that both army and cats were deployed with the hedge eventually being manned by some 14,000 soldiers. We never learn how many cats were required.

Moxham's coverage of history includes discussion of the East India Company and its maintenance of the Salt-Tax which consumed up to a fifth of a peasants annual income. The hedge and customs wall gave way in 1879 but the salt-tax remained (albeit at a much reduced rate) right up to the time of Ghandi who in fact used it as a symbol of what he was protesting against. Nobody still defends the Raj but Moxham nevertheless feels compelled to flagellate his country over its past. He says "British individuals, and most of all the East India Company itself, took vast sums out of India and spent it in Britain. India, which when the British arrived had been relatively well-off, became much poorer." This is no doubt true but balance is required and Moxham is not quite so strong in making the point that it was a Scotsman named Alan Octavian Hume who repayed India handsomely. Hume was the principal organizer of the Indian National Union in 1885 which became the Congress party, which later under Ghandi led India to independence. The truth is the Raj and it's deeds are history and guilt today over the past not only achieves nothing, it takes away from the enjoyment of the book. A point that supports this comes from a review of this book I read in one of India's daily newspapers. Of interest to the writer wasn't the stale facts of the Raj's misdeeds, but that it was an Englishman who had uncovered the fascinating story of the great hedge of India.

What comes to mind when you imagine being marooned on an uninhabited tropical island? A Romantic image of castaways and survivors with stories of man and nature and moments of idyllic solitude is one possibility. The other extreme is the glimpse of the dark beast within us and how it's unleashed when civilizing influences are removed. Both in fiction and real life we have some classic examples. Is there a better imaginative illustration of the "beast" that the LORD OF THE FLIES? And for a recently published true story about someone who allowed wickedness free reign read BATAVIA'S GRAVEYARD. The classic story that depicts the sunnier side of human nature and our innate strength and courage is of course ROBINSON CRUSOE. This book treads a middle ground but perhaps from the subtitle "The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe" we get a hint of where the author's sentiments lie.

The author may admire the fortitude of the main character of her story - a young Scottish seaman named Alexander Selkirk - but she is not at all hesitant about showing his true colors. Born in 1680 to a village tanner Selkirk decided that such sedentary work was not for him. He ran away for a life of adventure (oftentimes dangerous) on the seas. Such a life suited him as he was impetuous and ill-tempered. At the age of 23 he was named sailing master of the galley Cinque-Ports captained by Thomas Stradling. The galley and a larger ship - the St George - under the command of William Dampier set off on a privateering expedition in search of Spanish Galleons. In 1704 after a fruitless year at sea the galley arrived at the uninhabited Juan Fernandez archipelago in the south Pacific, 400 miles west of Valparaiso, Chile. After a month of rest and replenishment Stradling decided to set sail again. Selkirk said the ship wasn't seaworthy and got into a violent argument with his captain and demanded to be put ashore. Stradling gladly obliged and left the man and some supplies behind on what now became SELKIRK'S ISLAND.

Diana Souhami begins her book with a description of the natural beauty of this volcanic archipelago which is now protected by UNESCO as a Worldwide Reserve of the Biosphere. No further colonization is permitted and the islands population of mostly lobster fishermen and their families is capped at 500. Chile has made the most of its tourism potential by naming the islands Santa Clara, Marinero Alejandro Selkirk, and of course Robinson Crusoe Island.

Using sailing logs, seafarers accounts of the voyages, and the journals of Dampier, and Selkirk's eventual rescuer - Captain Woodes Rogers - the author tells a tale that shows hardship at sea may have been preferable to time spent alone on land. The challenge for castaways is always more than mere physical survival. The intense loneliness that comes with having only oneself as company oftentimes exerts a psychological toll. Selkirk's experience was no different. He was marooned for over 4 years but it was the first year that was the hardest mentally. He immediately regretted his decision to stay and spent the first 8 months in a cave near the seashore paranoid that if he moved he would miss seeing a ship and also in fear of imagined wild animals inland.

There was fresh water and good shelter on the island and Selkirk eventually adjusted. His diet included turtles, seals, lobster, and when he went inland he found turnips, cabbage, palm nuts, peppers, and plently of wild goats. In reading this book i've come to believe that Selkirk may very well have been the first Westerner to develop what is now a well known West Indian style of cooking meat. "Jerked" meat is slowly cooked over pimento wood fires with pepper and spices liberally applied.

If we were hoping for a positve human story as the ending of this tale then we were misleading ourselves. Selkirk did have his bible with him and read verses out loud so as not to forget how to speak, but it seems the lessons were lost on him. Upon his eventual return to Scotland in 1711 there was some initial joy. He was welcomed home by friends and family and he met and eloped with a dairymaid named Sophia Bruce. A return to his old ways quickly ensued. He became reclusive and irrascible and lost his temper and battered a man. This prompted him to decide that the sea was still best and he set off leaving behind Sophia and another woman and a name for himself as a bigamist.

Perhaps Souhami is correct in portraying Selkirk and others as greedy, selfish, and quite brutish and vile characters. Afterall this was a time of pirates and privateers and of loose allegiances both at the personal and national levels. In doing so though she takes a strongly negative view of human nature and throws cold water on Selkirk as a model for Robinson Crusoe. It's actually left to Daniel Defoe and others of his generation such as the great poet and hymn writer William Cowper to offer a more charitable and ultimately redeeming view:

"Society, Friendship, and Love
Divinely bestowed upon man,
Oh had I the wings of a dove
How soon would I taste you again!
My sorrows I then might assuage
In the ways of religion and truth,
Might learn from the wisdom of age,
And be cheered by the sallies of youth."
(The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk by William Cowper)

Souhami doesn't go anywhere near this at all. As a travelogue the book is great with sufficient details on the idyllic setting of the islands. The history is well researched also. It's just that for a book with a central theme on the character of man the author disappointingly doesn't explore the subject fully enough.