Dinosaurs in our Street! by David West

Book review: First impressions of this book are great. It is hardback. The front cover is slightly embossed with the tyrannosaur poking his head out of the Pink Floyd-inspired brick wall background. You can feel his teeth if you want, something you wouldn't want to do if it were real. The book's spine is good too. If you have this sitting on your book shelf a little dinosaur will be keeping its beady eye on you.

Inside all the pages are glossy full colour. There are thirty dinosaurs featured including the well-known ones. Each has a double-page spread with a computer-generated image of the dinosaur in an urban scene with people milling about it. So you'll see a brachiosaurus, for example, standing on its back legs and using its long neck to eat some vegetation from a roof garden at the top of a five-floor block of apartments as people nonchalantly walk past. Also by linking the dinosaurs to these modern urban environments there is a recognisable association that might bring these ancient creatures to life even more than other dinosaur books might.

Beside the images are a couple of paragraphs giving you the lowdown about the dinosaur and a little fact box contains the details of the dinosaur's period, where its fossils have been found, its size, weight and whether it was a herbivore or not, and a scale picture to a human to give you a visual idea as to how big it was. Having checked against Wikipedia quickly though I am not sure of the accuracy of the facts. For example the book says the altirhinus came from the Late Cretaceous period whereas Wikipedia says it came from the Early Cretaceous period. Maybe these things are too hard to estimate and I am probably being too picky.

My 9-year-old daughter loved the book: "It tells you about dinosaurs, how to pronounce their names, whether they are herbivores or carnivores and where their fossils have been found." She loves learning and facts.

My 22-month-year-old son loves it too. Especially when I act out a roaring dinosaur that wants to eat his belly. The pages are at risk of being ripped by him though if he isn't careful.

Overall I can see this being ideal for any young dinosaur fan, and if they want more detail into a particular dinosaur then that can easily be looked up online.

It's on AMAZON now: DINOSAURS IN OUR STREET!

The Fact or Fiction Behind Urban Myths (Truth or Busted)

Book review: I got this book for my 9-year-old daughter, but also read it myself for the purposes of this review. She loves this series of books having already read and re-read  The Fact or Fiction Behind London (Truth or Busted). She loves the facts and non-facts and loves de-mistifying things, especially stuff her mother may have said to her about things like swallowing chewing gum.

The presentation is probably one of the things that appeals to her with bold black and white and grey design throughout and lots of pictures in differing art styles. There's something going on on every page. And the text of the book is very bitesize making it ideal for children, but also ideal for the book to be picked up and read from any page at any time.

As well as the truth or busted bits there were other sections too, like sections called "It'll never happen" where figures from the past have said something about a modern (for the time) contraption and have since been proved wrong, or the "Where in the world" sections where things like champagne and poodles origins are explained and are not as we might have believed. Although these are not necessarily "urban myths" they are still interesting.

My daughter's thoughts on the book: "A lot of old wives tales aren't actually true and you find out in this book." And for me maybe the book was a bit short, being under 100 pages (like the other in the series), but I know my daughter loves it (even if she reads it all within a day) and that is good enough for me.

On AMAZON: The Fact or Fiction Behind Urban Myths (Truth or Busted)

The Art of the Jersey: A Celebration of the Cycling Racing Jersey by Andy Storey

Book review: “The Art of the Jersey” looks back at a selection of cycling jerseys from as far back as 1952, right up to 2015. The jerseys are ordered chronologically, each presented via an individual colour photograph of its front (lying flat), together with some brief accompanying information. At the start of each chapter, the author, no doubt aided by the fact that he works for a cycling clothing company, is able to talk about developments/advances in materials and printing technologies used in producing the jerseys of the corresponding era. In particular, he explains that such advances allowed for more intricate and elaborate designs from the 1980's onwards, and thus the vast majority of the jerseys covered are drawn from this timeframe.

The balance struck between images and text works well for a book of this nature. The companion text for a jersey notes the manufacturer as well as frequently containing interesting notes on the associated team and its sponsors, though it has a slightly repetitive feel at times. The inclusion of comments on key riders to have worn the respective jerseys, and some of the things they achieved while wearing them, is a great idea as this will bring memories flooding back for many cycling enthusiasts. The action photos showing a small number of the jerseys being worn in competition are also a nice touch, but there are sadly relatively few of these.

Many of the 228 jerseys highlighted seem to be taken from the author's personal collection, and though the selection is certainly interesting, it isn't particularly comprehensive. While it would of course be unreasonable to expect to see every cycling jersey that ever existed, there were some surprising omissions. For example, there is not a single jersey from some very well-known and important teams such as Française des Jeux, Casino, AG2R, TVM, Cofidis, Europcar, GAN, Astana, BMC, Phonak, and Gerolsteiner. In addition, teams such as (Deutsche) Telekom, Festina, Banesto and Lampre each make only a single appearance with jerseys that many readers probably won't consider to be the "classical" designs most associated with those teams. There are perhaps a few too many versions of some jerseys (for example, Giro d'Italia leader's jerseys numbering into double figures, many of which look very similar), as well as some curious selections of commemorative jerseys and other jerseys that never belonged to any team. Replacing some of these with examples of those from a number of the aforementioned omitted teams would have improved the breadth of the selection.

From the perspective of a cycling enthusiast, this attractively presented book is enjoyable and certainly does a solid job of filling a void, as it isn't always easy to get that cycling jersey fix. However, it would have benefitted from a more structured approach to selecting the featured jerseys, and may not be comprehensive enough to live up to some cycling fan's expectations.

- Review by Dr. Mark Parsons, cycling enthusiast

Book available on Amazon now!!!

Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming

Book review: Whenever I told people I was reading this book they would immediately, without fail, sing the “Live and let die” part of the Wings song of the movie. Interestingly the book is quite different to the movie. There is no crocodile farm or speedboat chase for example. There is Harlem though, and the scene with the bar table going through the floor, and other scenes that were subsequently used in the films “For Your Eyes Only” and “Licence to Kill”.

Inside of this version of the book is a neat intro written in 2012 by Andrew Taylor (who?). He talks eloquently about this book, how “Fleming had the gift of narrative” and how Fleming applied his classic formula for the first time: "Bond is sent to an exotic location to deal with an amoral and physically unusual villain with limitless wealth and a superhuman lust for power.” In this case it is Mr. Big, “the head of the Black Widow Voodoo cult…. a soviet agent… a known member of SMERSH” who is the villain. Mr. Big is also said to be “the Zombie or living corpse of Baron Samedi himself, the dreaded Prince of Darkness” giving him “the best protection of all… Fear.” That’ll explain the shadow of an oversized hat on the front cover above the “D”, and not because there is an appearance by Jamiroquai within.

The plot hinges around a famous pirate’s treasure trove of huge quantities of gold being smuggled out of the Caribbean and distributed around Harlem with the proceeds suspected of “being used to finance the Soviet espionage system, or an important part of it in America”. Bond of course is the man sent along to make things good, meeting up with old friend Felix Leiter, and of course getting the girl, in this case Solitaire.

Being the second Bond book this is certainly a more ambitious affair than the prior “Casino Royale” with more exotic locations, food and wildlife featuring. It is a thriller that thrills, is probably grittier than the film, with Bond suffering more injuries, not to mention Mr. Leiter, and enjoyable in its own right.

James Bond will return in Moonraker.

BOOK AVAILABLE ON AMAZON HERE.