PositiveThe London Review of Books (UK)... is in large part a straightforward biography, whose subject doesn’t come out of it altogether sympathetically ... Charnas’s book isn’t only, or even chiefly, about the complexities of the man, though it makes room for them. It is mostly about the complexities of his music. Charnas doesn’t get too technical, but his analysis of those basement-crafted beats is incisive ... What Charnas doesn’t explain is quite why all this happened. Why did Dilla’s music – a lot of it is quite strange music, not at all straightforwardly appealing – have such a profound effect on people?
David Wallace-Wells
MixedLondon Review of BooksThe Uninhabitable Earth is an example of the class of writing the eco-philosopher Timothy Morton has described as ‘ecological information data dump’: quantities of frightening and confusing information, mostly out of date by the time of publication, ‘shaking your lapels while yelling disturbing facts’. Morton believes this approach is unhelpful, and that it is essentially a symptom of the diffuse psychological pain caused by climate change—an attempt to prepare us for what has in fact already happened. And most of what Wallace-Wells describes has already happened ... Wallace-Wells is scathing about the oil industry, whose disinformation clogs public discourse and waylays political processes ... What will real action look like, if and when it finally comes? Wallace-Wells reminds us that we have the tools to change things, and even—a rare moment of optimism—‘to stop it all.\'
Tim Birkhead
PositiveLondon Review of Books\"The Wonderful Mr Willughby is the story of Willughby’s short life, elegantly and engagingly told by Tim Birkhead ... After centuries of work that has built on their innovations, and decades of accurately illustrated field guides, Birkhead reminds us that we cannot underestimate the darkness in which Willughby and Ray laboured ... Common names have continued to be chronically unstable, and Birkhead gives an interesting list of those that have changed since Willughby and Ray recorded them in the Ornithology.\
