It’s Not Rocket Science.



Warning! Contains short description of Brain Matter not where it should be. This means you!

I galloped, loped, whistled through The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid. The last Bryson book I read was A Short History of Nearly Everything which was a meaty tome, breathtaking in its ability to explain the big concepts of everything about the universe from Big Bang to Evolution in standard Bryson comedic prose. In contrast The Thunderbolt Kid was a quick romp through the heady and safe days of Bryson’s childhood, funny and evocative and maybe a little bit too nostalgic; the stuff of comfy, Sunday night drama. However, the book was very successful in its attempt to make this reader laugh out loud.

Daughter won a competition at the library and we went to pick up the cinema ticket (Wot! No book token?) which was the prize. I left her scanning the online catalogue and complaining that all the books she wanted were out at other libraries (The one I want seems to be booked out to Ashworth High Security Hospital - which is slightly worrying) while I scanned for some light reading. What I came up with was Brain Matters: Dispatches from Inside the Skull by Katrina S. Firlik. Strangely it seems to have some of the style of Bill Bryson – quite light really, starting off by discussing whether brain tissue is like toothpaste or tofu – answer: it depends of whether it is just sitting there being sliced or being forced through holes drilled in the skull. The book has only been out once before but already I can detect the smell of a nice Chianti wafting from the pages.