It's my own fault I'm disappointed with THE RIDDLE OF THE COMPASS. I know I should never judge a book by its cover, but the image of the compass, and the idea that reading this would be like a quest to solve some puzzle, was just too appealing to leave alone. The book however doesn't deliver on its promise.

It starts well enough with a visit to Amalfi, Italy where we stand with the author and peer at the bronze statue of one Flavio Gioia, hailed in those parts as the inventor of the compass. However, when Aczel reveals that the man is most probably fiction and has nothing to do with the compass, the riddle really begins. The problem though is that it's the reader that remains puzzled througout. The town is where the first seaworthy, boxed, compass was developed but what's the point of Gioia? Marco Polo is mentioned and we are told about his adventures. It's interesting reading but the trips have nothing to do with the compass, except that they were to China where the instrument is generally agreed to have been first invented. The main area of focus in the book is the history of navigation from early times to our modern technological age with the importance of the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system. But why this emphasis on navigation if as Aczel himself says "the compass did not enable navigation - navigation across the seas took place long before the compass was invented..." Puzzling. He does go on to make the point however that the compass made navigation more efficient and opened up seaborne trade routes.

There really is not a lot here about the compass at all. Nothing much on it's scientific importance or on it's technical undepinnings. His descriptions about his boyhood years navigating in the Mediterranean provide a personal touch but don't tell us much about the tool. There are so many other scientific digressions that would have been more to the point. In discussing earth's magnetic properties why no mention of birds inbuilt compasses that let them migrate thousands of miles? There are other Earth energies besides magnetism; what is a diving rod but an ancient compass?

Naipaul in one of his typically politically-incorrect interviews said these very words about the continent. A BEND IN THE RIVER is therefore a gloomy book and offers a pessimistic view of Africa. If Conrad had not already taken the title, then this book could easily have been called HEART OF DARKNESS. That's not a coincidence either as Naipaul is frequently compared to Conrad in terms of literary style and theme. The setting is the same also. Although A BEND.. takes place in a fictitious African country it can be read as either Congo or Uganda as it is based on his visits to those countries in the 1960's.

The principal character and narrator of the story is Salim, an Indian and Muslim. Indian merchant families like his have been living in the coastal area of the country for generations. The blacks live inland. Salim decides to move to a small, formerly-quaint colonial town in the interior to set up shop and sell cloth. He is immediately at a loss, in conflict, confused - a man in search of an identity in a country in search of itself. Salim must contend with the rapidly changing social, economic and political environment of the newly independent country while at the same time sort out his own world view in the face of the contending opinions of the other characters. There is the influence of the Big Man - and simply because he is president for life - his interests must be served. There are others: a Belgian priest; Raymond, the white speech writer for the Big Man; Yvette, Raymond's wife; Mahesh, a disillusioned Indian, and finally, the most unlikey important character - Ferdinand. He is a simple boy from the "bush", who, in this upside-down country, becomes Governor of the town after the nation is "radicalized" by the Big Man.

The newly-independent former-colony and the various cultural and political influences of the inhabitants are the foils for two of Naipaul's favorite themes. First is his affinity for, and identity with, dispossessed persons. Dispossessed in the personal sense of the word - no home, no country, no identity - a nobody. Following from this personal sense of rootlessness and anomie is Naipaul's un-romantic and oftentimes very critical assessment of the ability of developing countries to sustain the hopes and dreams of their people. This is ably summed up by Ferdinand. "We are all going to hell, and everyman knows this in his bones...everyone want's to make his money and run away. But where?"

Naipaul's prose is direct, not symbolic, so many students of Post Colonial literature have had a field-day dissecting Naipaul's various literary allusions and castigate him as a conservative and supporter of neo-colonialism. If that's your area of interest and particular world-view then you will definitely not enjoy A BEND.. If on the other hand you simply like well written, slightly satirical novels with finely-detailed characters and are inclined to not take writers or your reading material too seriously then this is a book you'll definitely enjoy.

Stanley's presumption that the white man he stumbled upon in the wilds of the Congo must be the lost Dr Livingstone was at least based on some knowledge. The same however, can not be said about some of the assumptions that Pagan Kennedy makes regarding the thoughts and motives of Presbyterian missionary William Sheppard in BLACK LIVINGSTONE. As another reviewer has already pointed out there are too many instances of "he must have thought" "he would have believed" "perhaps he felt" and so on. Suppositions that because they are repeated so often only draw your attention to the reality that there seems to be an awful lot that the author doesn't know about her subject. It's also very distracting.

More research may have only helped a little as there does not seem to be a whole lot of information available about William Sheppard. Born in 1865 in Virginia he attended Hampton Institute and then entered the ministry in Alabama. After pastorships in Georgia, this young black man in the predominantly white Southern Presbyterian Church was offered a position as missionary to the Belgian Congo in 1890. He and a fellow missionary - 23 year old white Alabaman Samuel Lapsley set off for what would be a 20 year adventure for Sheppard. Lapsley on the otherhand lasted no time at all. He died from fever in 1892, eventually being replaced by William Morrison who came out in 1897.

Writing style and paucity of research material on the main subject notwithstanding, the book does a good enough job with the descrition of some of the adventures that Sheppard embarked on. Such as his journey to the land of the Kuba peoples "who lived at the end of a labyrinth of secret paths; anyone who told the way into the city would be beheaded." This was also Congo under the rule of the rapacious Belgian King Leopold II and one of the duties assigned to Sheppard following Morrison's arrival was to document the cruel exploitation of the locals by the Europeans. Sheppards' uncovering of a massacre of locals by a cannibalistic king working at the behest of the Belgians showed both his bravery and his ability to handle tricky situations.

In the end the man was undone not by tribal feuding, politics or Belgian revenge, but by subtle human failings. He was found guilty of adultery having taken a few African mistresses while on service and was called home to answer charges by the church. It is strange that in discussing this episode the author is not as forthcoming with proposing what Sheppard might have been thinking or feeling. Perhaps it is finally a recognition that we simply can't know.

William Sheppard comes through as a brave, enterprising, and intrepid person. More akin to adventurer than missionary. He certainly rises above his fellow church workers. If BLACK LIVINGSTONE had been simply a telling of his story rather than guessing his thoughts, then the book would have been as enjoyable as the man was interesting.

Staring into THE EYE OF THE WHALE certainly seems to be a mystical experience. Unfortunately on the whale watching trips I've been on you get no closer to the whales than the deck of the ship. Not close up and personal (sometimes even rubbing and patting the "friendly whales")as is the case in Baja, California, with watching the Gray whales from small Zodiac boats. Perhaps you are like me then and (unlike the author) know nothing about the metaphysical powers of whales and their ability to bring about meditative and contemplative states in mankind while imparting transcendental wisdom. This book is therefore equal parts a journey of self discovery by the author and a natural history and scientific discourse on the Pacific Gray whale. For my liking there are just a few too many experiences here such as this one by a marine biologist: "It was a calf and I could see its eye looking into my eyes...I knew we were talking..." Mr Spock mind-melds with Gracie the Humpback a la STAR TREK: THE VOYAGE HOME.

Although the author and others see "whales smile by my fingertips" and get all "misty eyed" and believe that the whales are "trying to save us from our human side" these sentimental and lyrical asides are simply a matter of writing style. Overall they do not spoil the book. There is sufficient science and history here to satisfy those looking for something other than a "save the whales / save the world" soft-sell. The defeat of Mitsubishi's proposed salt-works at one of the whale breeding lagoons and the story of Charles Melville Scammon are themes that run throughout the book. Mitsubishi represents the modern day commercial threat to the whales while Scammon was an old-time whale-butchering sea captain. Scammons' conversion from hunter to benefactor (he ended up writing the definitive book on gray whales) is a tale well told. Perhaps, like the author, he too looked into the EYE OF THE WHALE.

"Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them" (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Going back to the era of his best work - WWII, Follett comes up with a winner this time. He knows the period well and the detailed descriptions of conditions in wartime England and France feel authentic.

JACKDAWS opens in 1944 just prior to the allied invasion of Normandy. Female English spy Felicity 'Flick' Clariet and her French Resistance husband Michel are participating in an sabotage attack on a German telephone exchange. The plan goes sour and they are the only two to escape. Michel is injured.

That's the setup for the story - the return of Flick to France to finish the job. We follow Flick as she develops her unusual plan which relies on cover as domestics and telephone operators. As such it's a small team she recruits, and they're all women. The only qualifying criteria is that they all be fluent in French and know something about engineering and explosives. Half the fun here is in their recruitment - "one flirt, one murderess, one safebreaker, one female impersonator, and one awkward aristocrat."

The plot is sufficiently well developed with the familiar Follett twists and turns. There is enough deception, duplicity, and danger here to make this quite a satisfying adventure ride. It's been a while but let's hope the famous Follett formula for entertaining espionage thrillers is back for good.

Forget the nattering about cultural and religious diversity. Edward O Wilson makes a strong and compelling argument that biodiversity should take pride-of-place as the pre-emininent subject of discussion. THE FUTURE OF LIFE should be the topic that the diversity industry concentrates on.

The substantive subject here however is not the scientific underpinnings of adaptation, evolutionary psychology and sociobiology in general, nor does this book go into the moral and political debates surrounding these topics. It's a refreshing break from the 'Science Wars' and the concomitantly fought, but larger, 'Culture Wars.' A refreshing break yes, but this book is by no means breezy or full of cheer. You may very well come away depressed - how else can it be when the subject is man - "the serial killer of the biosphere." In the end though there is some room for cautious optimism.

The litany of woes is well known - destruction of tropical rainforests, overpopulation, pollution, desertification, and massive loss of plant and animal species. Indeed science is generally in agreement on the fact that we are in the midst of a Great Extinction event. They've been others. This is THE SIXTH EXTINCTION (as Richard Leakey put it a few years ago), but it's the first since hominids arrived, and as Wilson says [we have] "accelerated the erasure of entire ecosystems and the extinction of thousands of million-year-old species." Wilson wrote about this previously in THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE but it seems to me, he is following on from CONSILIENCE (where he offered a sythesis of knowledge) by reaffirming that for mankind today, what we know (and equally as important, what we do not know) about the environment is the only knowledge that really matters. He says "perhaps the time has come to stop calling it the 'environmentalist' view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view."

Since we've not yet got that vision, the next best thing is to start using the sort of sythesis thinking that Wilson offers here. Economics is the science of rational man, so in appealing to reason, not emotion, Wilson blends biology with economics and shows the costs associated with a depleted environment. He mentions some "ecosystem services" such as pollination of crops, pollution control, climate control, and water purification, and mentions that a 1997 study by economists put the value of these services at $33 trillion per annum. A partial loss of even some of these naturally occurring, and therefore free facilities would severely disrupt our economic activity, and more importantly, we could never afford the replacement costs. He builds on this emphasis with examples of its practical applicability. "In 1992 a pair of economic botanists demonstrated that single harvests of wild grown medicinals from two tropical forest plots in Belize were worth $726 and $3,327 per hectare respectively, with labor costs thrown in. By comparison, other researchers estimated per hectare yield from tropical forest converted to farmland at $228 in nearby Guatemala and $339 in Brazil."

Although economics as practiced through industrialization and globalization is a large part of the problem, it must also be involved in the solution - "[making] conservation profitable." This book forces us to confront a dismal recent past and a less than rosy immediate future, but Wilson nevertheless ends on a guardedly optimistic note. He offers solutions such as immediate protection of the worlds most sensitive ecosystems or "hotspots", a ban on logging of old-growth forests and mapping of the worlds biodiversity resources.

Wilson does tangentially bring up his pet theory of sociobiology and briefly discusses our genetic wiring as a non-forest dweller as a partial cause for our antipathy towards wilderness. In the end though, the book is a direct appeal to our ability to change based on past environmental experiences, and Wilson demonstrates a philosophical belief in man's spiritual connectedness to nature. It's a sythesis of knowledge and life. It's actually the sort of view that his old scientific rivals - Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin - would probably offer a nod to. It will be interesting to see how they receive this book. Consensus possibly? Maybe biodiversity is indeed all that really matters.

"The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment" (Gaylord Nelson)

If you've read any of Matthiessen's non fiction you'll know that when he's passionate about a subject he has the ability to bring feelings alive with his poetic and vivid command of language. Tie that in with his inclination to be a naturally introspective writer - literally seeking inner truths through nature - and you've got the threads that are woven together here to make THE BIRDS OF HEAVEN a beautifully written book. In describing a glimpse of three Japanese cranes on a misty early evening on the snow covered banks of a river, Matthiessen is at his evocative best. "Sun silvered creatures, moving gracefully without haste and yet swiftly in the black diamond shimmer of the Muri River - a hallucinatory vision, a revelation, although what is revealed beyond this silver moment of my life I do not know."

While Matthiessen is poetic and romantic as a nature writer he is a blunt and critical social commentator. Our species comes in for some stick. We neither stack up well in creation - look at the beauty of an African Crowned crane, the "red-black-and-white head crowned by a spray of elongated feathers on the nape, like spun gold in the bright sun...how wonderful it seems that even the boldest colors of creation are never garish or mismatched, as they are so often in the work of man." Nor do we do so well with what we create - China's Three Gorges Dam will destroy some pristine crane wintering lands and is, according to Matthiessen, "a grand folly of enormous cost." Worse still is that we are such a self destructive species. The dam, he goes on to say, will also cause "social and environmental ruin" in this part of China.

Poignancy, yes, even sorrow at the passing of so many of the last wild and unspoilt areas of the planet, but sentimentality, wistfullness, hopelessness, and inaction are not words that are in this author's vocabulary. Indeed the fact that cranes are the central focus here is cause for cautious optimism. Cranes have always been a vibrant part of our cultural history and remain evocative symbols of our spiritual and creative imagination and are seen as omens of good luck and longevity in many countries.

The fifteen species of cranes (eleven of which are endangered or threatened) have lessons to teach mankind. Matthiessen's recounting of the sectarian squabbling that took place at an international gathering of crane conservationists is illustrative. While economics, politics, and nationality remain common dividing factors among the human participants, more than half of the species of cranes are content to make the Amur River basin in central Asia their common gathering ground.

A powerful book for Matthiessen's writing, the beautiful paintings and illustrations offered in support, and the stories of the cranes themselves - Saurus, Crowned Crane, Brolga, Siberian and the rare Whooping and Japanese Cranes - two of the most endangered species that Matthiessen says are "heraldic emblems of the purity of water, earth, and air that is being lost." We need to conserve, appreciate, and learn from these birds of heaven, and heed the "horn notes of their voices, [that] like clarion calls out of the farthest skies, summon our attention to our own swift passage on this precious earth."

Yes, Kurlansky is worth his salt as a writer, researcher and uncoverer of unknown facts about odd subjects. As he did with his previous non fiction books he has woven strands of information into an interesting tapestry, equal parts - enthralling history lesson and cultural voyage. The only problem is - at 450 pages and 26 chapters, with numerous visits to different cultures, countries, eras and rulers in an attempt to cover as many of the 14,000 uses that salt is known for - finishing SALT: A WORLD HISTORY leaves you in a brine of facts, but also very thirsty for a unifying theme or story and a more memorable read.

Certainly my knowledge of historical trivia is now seasoned with tidbits such as: the Anglo-Saxon word for saltworks being 'wich' means that places such as Norwich, Greenwich, etc, in England were once ancient salt mines; Ghandi's independence movement in India began with his defying the British salt laws, and the French levied taxes on salt until as recently as 1946.

A common theme in Kurlansky's books is that food is seen as a topic of historical interest. Here we learn about the role salt played in preserving cod, whale, ham, herring, caviar, pastrami, salami and sausage, and as it was with COD and THE BASQUE HISTORY OF THE WORLD this book is sprinkled throughout with recipes.

Salt is certainly an interesting subject; cultural history buffs will love this book and Kurlansky still has a humorous, easy, and very readable writing style; it's just that he probably could have salted away some of the facts without us missing much and he should have developed a flowing theme rather than one that was so saltatory.

Starting off with a discussion about Belgian King Leopold II and his rapacious rule in the former Belgian Congo, Michela Wrong pretty quickly lets you know what she thinks are the primary causes of the problems facing Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) - interfering, self-interested Western powers. This book is however not a polemic against the west, nor a diatribe about colonialism and imperialism. IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MR KUTZ is a very balanced account.

The author points her finger at the west for its exploitative policies with sole interest in the vast natural wealth (diamonds, gold, uranium, copper, tungsten) in the Congo and for our myopic cold war policies which viewed everthing through a "with us or against us" lens. Nevertheless she is very clear in stating that the principal agent for the rot that now grips the failed nation state of the DRC is very much home grown.

Mobuto Sese Seko was the ultimate ruler of Zaire for 32 years from 1965 until a rebel army chased the aged and ailing despot to Morocco in 1997 (he died of prostate cancer within a few months). Beginning as a simple army sargeant his rise to power was at the expense of his former friend and commander-in-chief, the democratically elected (but communist leaning?) first prime minister of Congo, Patrice Lumumba. Mobutu was adroit at political gamesmanship on the international stage, playing one western power against another. Domestically he was no dunce either, manipulating tribal interests and influences to his own benefit. All this is carefully laid out by the author and highlighted by using some of the more bizarre and extravagant examples of his excesses.

The referrence to Mr Kurtz in the title is of course Joseph Conrad's character from THE HEART OF DARKNESS. The connection is more than the setting in Congo. Wrong quotes Conrad - Kurtz at the end of the novel is dying; drifting down river he says "the horror, the horror." This book extends "the horror" to the disastrous juxtaposition of both domestic and foreign greed, corruption, ineptitude and self interest as demonstrated by individuals and agencies of government, that have conspired to make the DRC what it is today - "a paradoy of a functioning state."

This oft quoted remark the president made last year is the epitome of what Berkeley calls the "conventional American conception of Africa as a unitary landscape of unremitting despair." The president and his conventional...wisdom? is not the target of Berkeley's book though. The author says that part of the purpose of THE GRAVES ARE NOT YET FULL is a "pointed rebuttal" to Afro-pessimists, the prime example being Robert D Kaplan and his book THE ENDS OF THE EARTH.

Similarly to Michela Wrong and her book - IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MR KURTZ, Berkeley sees a lot of the problems in Africa as having foreign origins. Much moreso than Wrong though, he develops on the theme that violence and ethnic warfare are not the results of some "ancient tribal hatreds" in the words of Kaplan, but are in fact organized, manipulated, or orchestrated devices used by various African leaders as a means of exerting control and maintaining power. Ethnic conflicts in Africa he plainly says "are all provoked from on high."

He illustrates this point by developing a series of profiles on the manipulative leaders and tales about the victims of their crimes. Berkeley is pretty blunt in his reporting and with his words. He starts off by saying that "this is a book about evil". It should be no surprise then that he is willing to put names to these "creatures of evil". Mobuto Sese Seko of Zaire is here, but again, this book is broader than Wrongs', - hers stopped there, but Berkeley looks at South Africa, Liberia, Angola, Sudan and Rwanda. He names Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Samuel Doe, Charles Taylor, Jonas Savimbi, Hasan Turabi and John Garang. It's not just Africans that are responsible though and in an entire chapter devoted to the role of former Assistant Secretary of State for Africa in the Reagan administration Chester Crocker, we see Berkeley's thesis developed to the full. While not calling the man a war criminal he nevertheless says that he was "the kind of figure many war criminals depend on: an articulate front man, capable of putting an intellectual gloss on otherwise crude power politics." Berkeley believes Crocker is morally guilty of crimes against humanity for supporting the despotic and murderous rule of Samuel Doe in Liberia in the late 1980's.

With all these examples of criminal regimes, evil rulers, and morally corrupt and culpable supporters, it's possible to believe that this is an unremittingly bleak book and that the author holds out no hope for Africa. Not so at all. Berkeley says that "not all the news from Africa is bad, and much of it is hopeful." Yoweri Museveni and Uganda are put forth as an example of what a peaceful, democratic, African future might look like.

All told this is a well researched, broad ranging book which develops an interesting thesis on the causes of what seems to be such an unyielding problem. Berkeley's rational, well written and very plausible argument does offer hope for Africa. While it is true that despotic regimes and evil rulers are a significantly widespread and sometimes well embedded sore, the truth is that once identified and named, a cure can be sought for any disease. This is a much more manageable (and realistic) beginning point than the hand-wringing, non-solution offered by viewing Africa as a single entity plagued with irrational violence and unfathomable tribal slaughters.