The Tessellations File by Chris de Cordova

The majority of this book is a set of 40 black and white line drawings of tessalations increasing in complexity which are free to photocopy and useful for parents and teachers alike.

However, at the beginning there is an excellent 8 page introduction by de Cordova on tessellations, how they work and how to extend the basics to create tessellations of your own, along with a short bibliography.  Good if you're a bit mystified by the maths of the whole thing.

Pretty Girl Thirteen by Liz Coley

Angie Chapman is walking to the front door of her house.  Which is a little odd because the last thing she remembers is being in the woods at Guide Camp and the sight of a strangers eyes.  There is a plastic bag in her hand and she is wearing clothes she would never choose.  A strange ring on her finger, fingers that look odd, and scars on her wrists.  As she unlocks her front door to let herself in and calls out her mother hurtles hysterically down the stairs to meet her.  And Angie's nightmare begins.  She isn't 13 any more, she's 16 and the past 3 years have been simply lost to her.

Angie faces the trauma of medical examinations, police questioning and finally returning to high school and the friends who are 3 years older than she remembers them.  Psychiatrist Dr Grant is employed to help with Angie's amnesia and it emerges that she is suffering dissociative identity disorder: her self has fractured into separate personalities who developed to protect Angie from her ordeal but are not yet ready to communicate with her.

An absolutely gripping thriller that had me telling my family to go away so I could finish it and I was sad to finish it, really the highest praise I could give a book.

Highland Landforms by Robert Price

An authorititive short introduction to the underlying geology of the Scottish Highlands from the Grampians in the south north to Shetland and Orkney and east to St Kilda. 

Price begins with an chapter on the current shape of the land indicating the highest points and the differences between the water cycle (movement of water from the sea to the land and back to the sea) under glacial and non-glacial systems.  He then moves to the current geology of the area mapping the different rocks with an explanation of the formation of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.  Next there is an extensive chapter on the effects of glaciation on the area, before individual chapters on the Grampians, the north-central Highlands, the Ancient Foreland (far west coast and Outer Hebrides / Western Isles), the North-East Highlands (Caithness), Orkney and Shetland and lastly Arran, the Inner Hebrides and St Kilda.  A chapter on coastal landforms follows next, of great importance within the area as the rise and fall of land due to weight of ice has created extensive raised beaches, abandoned forms such as cliffs and stacks as well as the Machair.

Finally there is a brief discussion of the land as resource, the different uses it is placed to by people and how geology plays a part in their use of it.

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Taleb's book can be distilled into the single idea he gives in the conclusion: 'Everything gains or loses from volatility.  Fragility is what loses from volatility and uncertainty'.  There are things that are fragile, such as a tea cup, fragile because it breaks if you drop it.  Then there are things that are robust, like a skyscraper that can resist earthquakes.  And Taleb proposes a third category, things that actually benefit and grow from shocks and uncertainty, such as the human skeleton which strengthens when the stress of manual labour is placed upon it.  

His book expands on this theme through medicine, society and, most of all, Taleb's field of expertise, economics and the stock market.  He proposes a new way of looking at pretty much everything that I found enlightening and inspiring, and also daunting as our current economic structure is a fragile one.  Taleb's writing although opaque at times is beautifully crafted and structured.


A book that was hard work as I am not a natural numbers person, but so worth the effort.

Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen

A book that restored my faith in reading in general and comics in particular

Clark Kent (not that one) is an ordinary midwest teenager living in small town Kansas in a world just like ours.  Superman exists as a comic character and cultural myth but humans are just that, there are no superpowers.  Clark's parents thought it would be cute to call him Clark, so for every birthday he gets Superman paraphanelia and every day is tormented at school.  His crush on girl next door Cassie is unrequited and high school is torturous. 

So to find peace of mind Clark takes himself off hiking in the hills at weekends.  Until the night he wakes up sleeping several feet off the ground and realises he can fly. The public wants to know who he is, the governement want to literally take him to pieces and people need him to save them, but he still just wants a quiet life. 

The pacing and artwork of this story is just beautiful, narration bubbles are in the style of scraps of manual typewriting, Clark needs to use something tangible and not hackable to record his story but it also speaks of an attachment to the visceral and traditional.  There are intermittent old style Superman comic panels with their high bright Warholesque colours and thick black lines which contrast with the subdued colour palatte and watercolour style renderings of Clark's story. 

It is just a beautifully put together story arc, an absolute pleasure, artistically and narratively satisfying, a rare thing.

The Dark Judges by John Wagner and Alan Grant (Judge Dredd)

The Dark Judges is a collection of the 2000AD magazine stories in which the four Dark Judges appear: Mortis, Death, Fear and Fire.  Their nemesis in the futuristic postapocalyptic metropolis of MegaCity One, psychic Judge Cassandra Anderson.  They have come from Deadworld, a dimension in which it was judged that since some humans are responsible for crime all humans have a criminal propensity and therefore must be executed. 

The joy of Wagner and Grant's writing is, as ever, their satirical contemporary references combined with Bolland, Ewins, Robinson and Smith's artwork.  Good fun

Slated by Teri Terry

Kyla is on her way out of New London Hospital to a new family.  Her memories and personality have been wiped clean.  She is a blank slate with no knowledge of the past that caused her to have her mind wiped, and whether it was voluntary or forced on her.  What she does know is that this is her last chance.  Attached to her wrist is her Levo, a device that measures her mood and renders her unconscious, even dead, if she becomes angry or agitated.

Kyla goes to school with her new sister Amy and tries desperately to adjust to life in a stratified society where Slateds are outcasts.  She makes a friend in Ben, also a Slated. But something is wrong, Kyla finds anger rising up inside her and her Levo unreactive.  Dreams and surfacing memories plague her, and even her new mum and dad are not what they seem.

Fast paced with a warm heart and thriller storyline.  The Slated idea is a natural extension of what most teens feel, that they do not fit in the world they inhabit.  A good read.