Of Mice and Men (and Women)
20 Jul 2010
To view the podcast page on BBC's website please click here.
Gleefully machine-gunning the reader
28 Jun 2010
'In this small book, Irwin has crammed an astonishing amount of information about dromedaries (camels with a single hump) and Bactrians (camels with two). He writes in snappy sentences, gleefully machine-gunning the reader with facts and anecdotes, delivered with an undertone of dry wit. He tells us what to look for when you're buying a camel and, when your relationship sours, how to cook her. Most usefully, he also reveals the best way to defend yourself against the advances of an angry camel: "Rip off your clothes and throw them before him. He may accept this as propriation".'
To read the full review please click here.
Boxing clever
01 Jun 2010
'How and why writers have written about boxing since Homer's The Iliad with award winning writer Thomas Hauser, whose latest novel fictionalises a nail-biting championship fight.'
To listen to the full programme please click here.
The Gospel of Ventilation
25 May 2010
'Being naked in public can be fun, or naughty, or provocative, or health-giving, or political. It is almost always illegal. And, as anyone who has visited a nudist resort can testify, it is rarely, if ever, sexy. But, as Philip Carr-Gomm reveals in his academic romp through two millenniums of public exhibitionism from the ancient Greeks to animal-rights activists, you can be naked anywhere. You are only nude if someone is watching. Nakedness on its own is straightforward – it’s the context and the audience of nudity that make it interesting.'
To read the full review please click here.
Naked in The New Yorker
20 May 2010
'Nudity is our most basic state, yet there are few things that cause the same extreme mixture of titillation and horror. Still, if one looks closely, it’s everywhere. Mass nude weddings with as many as sixty couples take place every year at the Hedonism resort in Jamaica. There’s nude sky diving and nude boxing (so-called “bouncy boxing”) in Australia, nude skiers in Austria (brr), nude synchronized swimming in Spain, strip poker, naked flights (no hot drinks are served, to prevent scalding), organized nudism, anarchic streaking, Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl. Why does donning the birthday suit get us in such a tizzy? I recently wrote to Philip Carr-Gomm, a psychotherapist, writer, and author of A Brief History of Nakedness, to ask his opinion.'
To read the full interview please click here.
Bookshop discussion of 'Hare'
15 Mar 2010
For those of you who
Hare Today, Hare Tomorrow
05 Mar 2010
Simon Carnell, Author of the newly-published 'Hare' in the Animal series, will be discussing and celebrating this creature at Topping and Company Booksellers of Ely, Cambridgeshire on 18 March. Please visit the bookshop's website for more details.:
http://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/ely-events/simon-carnell/
I Am Oyster, Eat Me Raw
01 Mar 2010
Barbara J. King reviews Oyster and other Animal series titles on www.bookslut.com:
'"The oyster, raw food of both epicure and savage, from the sea, looking at the same time both like an open wound and sexual organs, reminiscent of the translucence of flesh and bodily fluids, sits on that border between culture and nature and between male and female, between land and sea, between cooked and raw.”
Passages like this one, nestled in the midst of a chapter called “Oyster Flesh: Desire and Abjection”, show why I’m addicted to London-based Reaktion Books’s Animal Series. Oyster – like the counterpart volumes Ape and Penguin that I’ve greedily devoured already, and presumably like the Whale, Elephant, and Cat editions basking on my bookshelf-in-waiting – offers sumptuous portions of natural and cultural history so surprising and visually gorgeous that readers will never again see the book’s focal animal in the way they had before.'
To read the full review please click here.
The Pre-masticated Bolus of Bovinity
25 Feb 2010
Edward Bottone's diatribe against the hamburger:
'You give the game away when you order: I’ll just have the burger, with ________ (insert topping) and French fries. Love and marriage, horse and carriage, burger and fries. You know what you are doing; denigrating cuisine, American cultural identity and defiling the planet — nothing less. But these are not the only reasons that I have had it with hamburger.'
To read the full article please click here.
Andrew F. Smith's Hamburger, of course, would disagree.
Let Them Eat Pancake
24 Feb 2010
Ken Albala's Pancake reviewed in The New Yorker Magazine.
'My favorite parts of Albala’s book are the tantalizing descriptions of the greasy substances suitable for frying pancakes. Butter, he writes, is best, but lard, duck fat, oil, and bacon grease also work in a pinch.'
To read the full review please click here.
A Hot Topic Down Under
10 Feb 2010
Colleen Taylor Sen, author of Curry, has been interviewed on Radio New Zealand's This Way Up programme.
To listen to the interview please click here.
Manhood review
25 Jan 2010
'This vastly entertaining, eclectic book . . . is full of myths, lore, natural history and medical information about the male nether regions.'
To read the full review please click here.
A Spicy Conversation
18 Jan 2010
Colleen Taylor Sen, author of Curry, in conversation with Yvonne Lau on the ConversAsians TV show.
Running reviewed
12 Jan 2010
'As well as being vital to our early survival, running is a universal form of play, as this fascinating study shows', writes Christopher McDougall in The Observer.
To read the full review please click here
Chili, Isn't It?
23 Dec 2009
Morris on Owl
09 Dec 2009
Desmond Morris speaks about his fascination for owls, and why they prompted him to write his new book Owl. He shows how owls are the supreme nocturnal predator, describing their extraordinary eyesight, acute hearing, silent flight and unique talons. He also talks about how owls have a dual symbolism, both loved as symbols of wisdom, and feared as silent, pitiless hunters of the night.
Nibbling at the Edibles
08 Dec 2009
The Edible series from Reaktion books explores the rich history of food – and the pleasure it gives us. Each title in the series focuses on one food, drink or ingredient, exploring its orgin, evolution, and spread around the world, as well as what it represents to the people who consume it. In addition, each book includes a variety of recipes.
Our US publicist Carrie Adams recently decided to try her hand at making recipes from books in the series. Click the links to see how she gets on making latkes, pizza, hamburgers and cornish pasties.
Talking about Animals
26 Nov 2009
Jonathan Burt, Editor of the Animal series and author of Rat, will be in conversation with Peter Williams, author of Snail, and Kevin Jackson, author of Moose, about their books and the Animal series.
Desmond Morris will also appear to sign his new book Owl.
Blackwell bookshop Oxford, Thurs 26 November at 7pm, tickets £2 (redeemable for a glass of wine).
Full details here (scroll down to view)
Born to Run
23 Nov 2009
Mathew Syed reviews Running: A Global History for The Times
'It is the attempts by Gotaas to get beneath the surface of running that provide the book’s most revelatory moments.'
For the full review please click here
Owl Dreaming
19 Nov 2009
'Owl, newly published this past October by Reaktion Books, covers the biology, history, legends, interpretation in art and literature, as well as various cultural myths on each continent about owls. Reaktion is a British publisher with a series of animal books linking science to fantasy. Next on my list: Cat, Snake, and Swan. The layout is brilliant; every tidbit about owls, or whichever animal of choice, is in one book. This series is an academic's wet dream.'
Read the full review here
Review of the Edible series
18 Nov 2009
"Knowing the provenance of your food is all the rage these days. Locavores eat only what is grown and produced close to home. Manufacturers tout their fair-trade-certified ingredients (so eco-friendly!), and chefs generate favorable buzz by serving sustainable, trackable seafood. It seems reasonable, then, that tracing cheese to Egyptian jars circa 3100 B.C. would help sate our collective hunger for information. And while we're at it, what about understanding the spread of curry to the Caribbean or the supposed link between chocolate and romance?"
Read the full article here
Travels with Bob
17 Nov 2009
Robert Harbison is launching Travels in the History of Architecture on Thursday 19 November at the Department of Architecture and Spatial Design, London Metropolitan University. The launch will feature photographs by Esther Whitby.
Full information here
Invented Knowledge
10 Nov 2009
Check out Invented Knowledge author Ron Fritze's website – a wealth of information about history and pseudo-history.
Our mollusc of the moment!
30 Oct 2009
Christopher Hirst in The Independent has reviewed Snail by Peter Williams.
Read the review here
Chronicle of Higher Education on Reaktion's Animal series
18 Oct 2009
'At the beginning of Moose, one of the most recent additions to the Animal series published by Reaktion Books, Kevin Jackson recounts the disappointments of a commercial moose-watching vacation he took years ago in Maine, in which hours of puttering around the waters of an ice-cold lake yielded a grainy, barely perceptible image through his binoculars.'
Read the full article here
