The Silence of Animals by John Gray

To be honest I picked this up because I thought it would be about how animals communicate, but instead it is about how we as human animals view ourselves as above other members of the animal kingdom and the pitfalls of viewing our human history as a progression from the past to the present.  Gray really made me think, about the basic assumption many of us hold that as time goes on and humans become more educated and exposed to 'civilization' that we naturally will become less savage and more altruistic, when all the evidence is against that thesis.  He writes of the silence of humans and its qualatitive difference from the non-language and silence of animals, and why we search silence out.  Challenging, difficult and rewarding.

Rags and Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt

On the one hand this is a really interesting collection, who wouldn't like to see some of their favourite authors rewriting the stories that have influenced them.  However, because most of these are not fairy stories I didn't know the inspirations, it would have been useful to have either a reprint of the stories included in the case of shorter ones or good summaries.  I did like the actual stories and found them moving, disturbing and haunting in turn, but I just felt this book was missing a trick.

Amazing Spaces by George Clarke

If you have ever longed for a secret hideaway, a bit of space in your life, if you built dens as a child and loved to play in tents, if you dream of escaping in a campervan this book will delight you. 

In George Clarke's Channel 4 series Amazing Spaces he met people building their own hideaways, either from scratch or reclaiming unwanted buses, caravans and shipping containers.  He created his own project too.  The series was very good and sometimes the book released to accompany a tv series can be a little lacking but that isn't the case with this one.  Clarke combines tasty pictures of the projects with plans and information on how every inch of these tiny spaces is put to multiple uses, a table is a bed, and a bath, and storage.

The book is divided into 3 sections

The first is an introduction on starting to think about your own project.  Why do you want this space, who is it for and how will it be used, where do you want it to be and will you build from scratch or use an existing space?

The second section is the projects featured in the series, broken down into movable spaces (caravans, buses, boats and trucks), multi-functional spaces (huts, tiny apartments, caravans and containers), new spaces (building from scratch) and recycled spaces (using existing resources)

The last section is on the practicalities of making your dream into reality, planning, using designers and/or architects, sketches, action plans, budgets, health and safety, the boring but vital stuff to make it all happen.

A nice size, illustrated in full colour throughout, delicious to look at and full of enough information to help a anyone take their dreams forward.

Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy

Rather like a romcom film, Nights of Rain and Stars is well written and uplifting.  On the terrace of a Greek taverna a 3 hour climb above the small village of Aghia Anna a group of foreingers watch as tragedy unfolds below and a local tourist boat bursts into flames.  The owner, Andreas, is local and has known all the villagers touched by the tragedy all their lives. With him are a diverse group all on the run from something.  Fiona is a young Irish nurse, with her boyfriend Sean fleeing the disapproval of her parents.  David is an English student trying to break free from the straitjacketing expectations of his father that he will follow him into his business.  Thomas is American professor on sabattical, his ex wife starting a new life back home that he fears will leave him without a place in his son's life.  And Elsa, a beautiful German television presenter running from the love of her life.  Bound together by a day and night watching the drama below unfold they find unlikely friendship with each other and with the help of Vonni, an Irishwoman who has lived in the village for decades, find their way each to their own resolution. 

Really sweet and wholesome, a book that makes you feel warm at heart and a nice distraction.

Tech Knits by Sue Culligan (also called Knits of Tomorrow)

This book seems to have been released in two formats at once, this and Knits of Tomorrow: Toys and Accessories for Your Retro-Future Needs appear to be the same book and I really like loads of the designs, I find them a witty and fun combination of retro and modern.

Culligan starts with a basics section, giving explanations on the materials and equipment you will need (yarns, needles, accessories), brief descriptions of techniques (casting on, off, stitches, fair isle, intarsia, beading, finishing, felting, short rows) and a listing of abbreviations.  The descriptions are short and this is better as a book for a knitter who knows the techniques or has access to a good knitting dictionary

The Projects are next.  Each begins with a good picture and a description of the importance of the piece of technology that inspired the project.  It's followed by a materials panel (yarn, needles, haberdashery, tension, finished size), notes and then the pattern itself and tips. 

The projects are:
Graphic Equilalizer Scarf - chunky and funky
Saturn Mobile - knitted stripy planet-like balls strung together
Atomic Laptop Cover - felted cover featuring Edward Rutherford's atomic model
Space Rocket Desk Tidy - two patterns for pen pots, one large, one small
Flying Saucer Paperweight
Space-Race Mobile - another mobile, this one space rockets in 4 patterns
Robo Dog Coat - witty K9 style robot dogs marching across a dog coat
Cassette Music Player Cover - Retro meets modern, a smartphone / mp3 case knitted to look like a cassette
Robot Pot Holders and Cushion - two designs and a cushion, could also be used for blanket squares
Circuit Board Beanie & Fingerless Mitts and Scarf - meandering lines and buttons mimic a circuit board
Men's Radio Mast Socks - plain socks with a motif like the old BBC broadcasting symbol of the Crystal Palace tower transmitting
Sputnik Lapotop Cover - button up cover featuring the first man made object in space
Robot Doorstop
Ray Gun Place Mat & Coaster - ray gun retro 50s in style, coaster with a comic book style flash
Headphones hat - earflap hat with over ear headphones in intarsia
Calculator Tablet Cover
Reel-to-Reel tote bag
Starship blanket - stars and rockets on squares

Cute and funky, there are several of these that appealed to me and I thought the book good value.

More Than This by Patrick Ness

A boy drowns in the cold ocean.  To begin with we know little about him beyond the brutality of his death, but details begin to emerge and we learn about teenage boy Seth's life in America.  His circle of friends and growing love for one of them, his brother Owen, damaged by a terrible incident in the boys' childhood, his emotionally distant mother and medicated father. His life before his death.

But Seth wakes somewhere else, a place beyond his death.  He is alone in the English town and house he lived in until he was 8 and the terrible thing happened to Owen.  The town is overrun with weeds and in places a burnt wasteland.  Is this his personal hell, purgatory, or something else?

Ness never lets the reader stand on firm ground, making us ask questions about what we know to be real and our relationship with reality and technology.

Ostrich by Matt Greene

Alex has a brain tumour, he has just come out of hospital after having a hole drilled in his head.  But he is also a teenage boy and has to sort out the strange behaviour of his hamster Jaws 2, the mysteries of his parent's marriage, school work and school social life.  He has so much to learn, how to narrate his life as French schoolboy Serge in his exams, and how sex works from the acres of pornography on the internet.

Being of a certain generation my closest experience to Ostrich has been Adrian Mole, but Greene's first person narrator Alex is far far funnier and far more poignant, I was left literally howling with laughter at some points and reading bits out to family, both things I don't usually do.  The ending is achingly sad, but Alex shines, the dazzling mind of a typical monosyllabic teenage boy opened up wide.