MUST READS  – Oct 31, 2019

THE ASTRONAUT SELECTION TEST BOOK 

by Tim Peake (Century £12.99, 256 pp)

In 2008, Tim Peake applied to train as an astronaut with the European Space Agency (ESA). He was successful and later spent 186 days working on the International Space Station.

But, before going into orbit, he had to pass the ESA’s rigorous selection process. ‘This is the manual that I wish I had been given when I applied to be an astronaut’, he writes.

While his book has a serious purpose, it’s also a hugely entertaining and demanding challenge, with quizzes, puzzles and tests based on the ESA selection criteria.

From spatial awareness tests, to translating words from unknown languages and ranking 15 items in order of their importance to a team travelling 50km across the surface of the Moon, this is an ideal gift for budding space cadets.

THE MYSTERY OF THE EXPLODING TEETH 

by Thomas Morris (Corgi £8.99, 400 pp)

Anyone who is ever tempted to grumble about the state of the NHS should turn to this gruesomely entertaining book and feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude.

Browsing medical case histories from the 17th to the early 20th century, journalist Thomas Morris discovered that ‘you can hardly flick through the pages of an old medical journal without stumbling across a story that is compellingly disgusting, hilarious or downright bizarre’.

The medical oddities are often so outlandish as to defy belief, from the chap with an egg-cup fatally lodged in his intestines, to a baby whose convulsions were successfully treated by clamping a live pigeon to his bottom.

Still, as Morris points out, ‘these demonstrate the admirably tenacious determination of doctors to help their patients, in an age when their art left much to be desired’.

KILLING COMMENDATORE  

by Haruki Murakami (Vintage £9.99, 704 pp)

Mozart’s Don Giovanni and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby are inspirations behind Haruki Murakami’s latest book.

His unnamed narrator is a successful young portrait painter whose wife has suddenly announced that she no longer loves him.

An old friend offers him refuge in a remote mountain-top cottage that once belonged to his famous artist father, Tomohiko Amada. There, the narrator discovers an extraordinary painting by Amada, titled Killing Commendatore. And he makes the acquaintance of a wealthy businessman who commissions two portraits, which leads to a strange journey of self-discovery.

Murakami has produced a captivating novel, full of otherworldly detours and fascinating digressions.