MixedThe Observer (UK)Proving that these behaviours are evidence of cognition, rather than being automatic reflex responses, albeit impressive ones, is a tough hurdle to clear and Calvo doesn’t quite make it over ... As fascinating as these titbits are, you have to cut through reams of deadwood about the author’s career to reach them. It’s a shame. This subject deserves writing that fills the reader with a sense of wonder.
Peter Frankopan
RaveThe Observer (UK)The Earth Transformed ... is packed with riveting examples of how history has been affected by our environment ... While most other historians look at these events – the rise and fall of the Roman empire, the abuse of minorities – in terms of politics and economics, Frankopan sees them as ripples set in train by environmental fluctuations ... Frankopan’s view of the past carries a resonant message for our future.
Martha C. Nussbaum
PositiveThe Guardian (UK)Nussbaum is going a different way, taking aim at the entire system of moral thought that, consciously or not, has led us to treat living things as objects ... Make no mistake, this is a serious work of philosophy – and probably not most people’s idea of an ideal beach read, with its earnest interrogation of Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. That being said, the book does tell the sad stories of specific animals ... Some readers may view these tales as tacky emotional vibrato in what is otherwise a scholarly read. Nussbaum defends herself, making the point \'extinction never takes place without the suffering of individual creatures\' ... Justice for Animals is a timely and weighty reminder that a positive future is possible and worth fighting for.
Annie Proulx
RaveThe Guardian (UK)The Harvard biologist EO Wilson wrote that chopping down the rainforest to make money is like burning a priceless Renaissance painting to cook a meal. Proulx wants us to see the loss of wetlands in the same way – and to appreciate the beauty in these swampy and often stinking places. Boy, does she succeed. The prose is just magnificent ... She is particularly adept at describing the ebb and flow of estuarine waters that define these shifting and unpredictable places ... perhaps what’s most interesting about the book is her refusal to engage in the usual left versus right political debate ... Instead, Proulx makes a more difficult and unsettling argument: that we are all, in our own way, complicit in the environmental despoliation happening around us. She doesn’t blame Donald Trump or Joe Biden – her beef is with the Judeo-Christian belief that creation is made for humans, meaning we can use the world as we wish.
Kevin Barry
RaveThe Evening Standard (UK)... mordant Irish wit and banter. The end result is a cross between Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot and Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges; sad and funny in equal measure ... The scenes in the ferry terminal are written like a screenplay: all dialogue and stage directions, with next to nothing else besides ... as with everything Barry writes, it’s the language that grips you by the throat — just so lyrically Irish ... Among the next generation of writers — Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Safran Foer and so on — the one that stands above the rest for ambition, language and sheer verve is Barry ... If you haven’t heard of him yet, you soon will. I’d wager he’ll wind up with the Nobel Prize for Literature before he’s done ... While Night Boat to Tangier doesn’t quite hit the heady heights of his earlier work (or his astonishingly good collections of short stories) it’s still a first-rate read.
