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Ben Parker

Ben Parker completed an MA in Creative Writing at UEA in 2008. He is currently working at Berghahn Books, an academic publisher based in Oxford that specialises in the humanities. When not lounging around reading poetry he tries to get serious with some popular science. He can also be found half-way up a climbing wall most weeks.

Of Mutability, by Jo Shapcott

Reviewed on August 9, 2010

Other than her Rilke translations, published in 2001 by Faber as Tender Taxes, Of Mutability is Jo Shapcott’s first collection for 12 years. This long gap may have been partly a result of the illness to which she alludes in ‘Procedure’: “all that mess / I don’t want to comb through here because / it [...]

How I Escaped My Certain Fate, by Stewart Lee

Reviewed on August 5, 2010

Part-autobiography, part-script, part-critical commentary: How I Escaped My Certain Fate, by the comedian Stewart Lee, is something of an experiment. To my knowledge, no other such book exists. This seems entirely fitting for a performer who, after carving out a relatively straight-forward but highly amusing career with Richard Herring on Fist of Fun and This [...]

The Elephant, by Sławomir Mrożek

Reviewed on June 8, 2010

One of the ten books in Penguin’s new Central European Classics range The Elephant is a collection of short stories by the Polish author Sławomir Mrożek. Published first in 1957 they were written at a time when Poland was governed by Soviet implemented Communism and it is this ideology which looms large over the majority [...]

Satisdiction, by Ammon Shea

Reviewed on May 6, 2010

In writing a review of a book such as this one, it can be tempting to employ as many polysyllabic words as possible, particularly the obscure ones you have picked up as a result of reading it. However, this would go against the spirit of Satisdiction, the paperback edition of Ammon Shea’s account of reading [...]

On Monsters, by Stephen T. Asma

Reviewed on March 30, 2010

Late on in Stephen T. Asma’s On Monsters he concedes that “one will search in vain through this book to find a single compelling definition of monster.” As he goes on to say, this is not because he forgot to include one, but rather because he does not think there is one. What qualifies as [...]

The Eerie Silence, by Paul Davies

Reviewed on March 5, 2010

Are we alone in the universe? This question, which forms the subtitle for Paul Davies’ new book, must rank as one of the most scientifically and philosophically interesting that we can ask. What makes it perhaps even more interesting is that unlike questions such as ‘why are we here?’ it presents us with only two [...]

How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, by Robin Dunbar

Reviewed on February 1, 2010

The answer to the question posed by the title, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?, is, according to Robin Dunbar, 150. Or, rather, no more than 150. This figure has become known as ‘Dunbar’s Number’ and is based on extensive studies conducted in a wide range of societies. If nothing else it should provide [...]

Why Not Socialism?, by GA Cohen

Reviewed on November 18, 2009

Why Not Socialism, is the final, essay-length book from GA Cohen, an important Marxist philosopher who died earlier this year. Its size and design suggest that it is a book intended to be carried in a pocket, perhaps on a camping-trip such as the one with which the book opens. The camping trip which Cohen [...]

The Cat Inside, by William S. Burroughs

Reviewed on September 16, 2009

In 1986, as William Burroughs was working on The Western Lands, the final instalment of the epic trilogy with which he closed his career as a novelist, he published a small book with a small print run. That book was The Cat Inside, republished this year by Penguin in a highly desirable ‘Modern Classics’ edition. [...]

The Ascent of Money, by Niall Ferguson

Reviewed on August 3, 2009

Just as those authors who were half-way through biographies of Michael Jackson felt their pulses quicken on receiving the news of his death, so too must have Niall Ferguson as the credit-crunch began in earnest and everyone started talking about money. The hardback edition of his book The Ascent of Money was published at the [...]

Spent, by Geoffrey Miller

Reviewed on July 1, 2009

Sex, Darwin, capitalism. Geoffrey Miller’s second book certainly ticks off some major search terms. His first, The Mating Mind, put forward the case for sexual choice as a major driving force in our evolution, and demonstrated the huge influence this had on human nature. Spent picks up where that book left off, applying evolutionary psychology [...]

The Secret Life of Words, by Henry Hitchings

Reviewed on May 28, 2009

Please welcome the newest addition to the Bookgeeks crew, Ben Parker, who kicks off by reviewing a book that takes as its subject the very tools of the reviewer’s trade – words… We are currently experiencing the fastest pace of neologisms, adoptions and coinages since the time of Shakespeare, thanks in part to the popularity [...]