My True Love Gave To Me - ed. Stephanie Perkins

This book of 'twelve winter romances' was a (slightly surprising) present which turned out to be the perfect collection of quick, easy & comforting reads during a rather exhausting period of looking after poorly children... The stories themselves are mostly teenage wish-fulfilment, with the mandatory supernatural elements thrown in (one of my favourites involved a wished-into-existence imaginary boyfriend with real hooves!) but I was impressed by the lack of passivity of most of the heroines, who tend to get their happy endings through hard work and creativity - in fact that same story ends with the girl resolving to "imagine greater things" and "exert my will on the world".

The Carriage House - Louisa Hall

I found this tale of a family of disappointed narcissists struggling to come to terms with their diminished identities fairly enjoyable but I wasn't captivated by it. It was only after reading it that I realised that I might have got more out of it if I'd ever read Jane Austen's "Persuasion"... I found most of the characters hard to like, but did warm towards the middle daughter as she attempted to rekindle her relationship with her first love.

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

I picked this up to blot out stressful thoughts one evening and it was the perfect book for the job - I came out the other end slightly dazed after just over 24hrs of compulsive reading.  As with most thrillers I found it a little distasteful in places - was there an element of misogynist fantasy about the whole setup? - but there were some genuinely shocking twists, some impressively flawed but strangely engaging characters, and I liked the way she played around with narrative voices.

Married Love - Tessa Hadley

This collection of powerful and intriguing short stories is superbly well written - most of the stories had at least one moment that made me linger over it. Many of these were because of the clarity with which an insightful observation was described: "He knew how passionately she succumbed to the roles she dreamed up for herself. She won't be able to get out of this one, he thought. She can't stop now.", "And I thought: I will always be the tame one, watching while she risks everything. I believed then that this meant I would be safe at least.", or "This tension of thwarted longing - even when they were on their own and could do whatever they liked - was somehow the whole character of their relationship. Sheila was always frantic for the next thing she didn't have from Neil; the sensation was as painful as wire spooled taut in her chest. She wondered sometimes what would become of them if the spool gave way and the tension slackened."

This collection displayed the precision and economy of the best short story writing, particularly in resonant moments like the mother unblocking a sink while reminiscing about her absent soldier son and wondering about the things he's seen in Afghanistan, when "hearing the boy flush the toilet in the cubicle behind her, she scooped up the nasty mess with some paper towels and dropped it into the black bag she had with her for rubbish, so that he would not have to see it." Similarly, in several of the stories the most significant events are not directly described - an illicit encounter where "their knees touched" sets the reader wondering about the subsequent baby's "mysterious black baby hair". Even in the most romantic story, the ultimate realisation of love is only hinted at (beautifully - "He knows he ought to marry Ellen Pearson and get a house full of furniture. But he can't. He won't.") and left to unfold 'offstage', but the spite and scorn that the central character has previously tried to arm himself with was described in detail. I admired this collection immensely but did not love it; the short story form seems to lend itself to a particular, slightly bleak, view of human relationships, which I found a little sad.

Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman

This fascinating book is full of insights into human judgement and decision making, with an emphasis on the Nobel-winning collaboration between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, in which they challenged the idea that human thinking is fundamentally rational, and showed how “systematic errors” of judgement can be explained, not by emotional interference, but by “the design of the machinery of cognition”.  The book includes two of Kahneman & Tversky’s key papers, including 1974’s “Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases”, in which they presented three major heuristics that we use to answer questions about probabilities or estimated values (representativeness, availability, and adjustment from an anchor) and demonstrated a range of biases that each frequently gives rise to.  The “fast and slow” thinking of the title refers to the “two systems” or modes of thought that much of the book discusses: the automatic, quick, involuntary and intuitive “System 1”, and the effortful, slow, complex and logical “System 2”.

One thing I particularly enjoyed about this book was the inclusion of lots of striking case studies and experimental results, such as:

• An office kitchen honesty box where the level of contributions increased sharply when an image of eyes “primed” the idea of being watched;
• Zajonc’s classic experiment demonstrating our liking for the familiar, where made up words were more likely to be judged to mean something good if the participant had previously seen them;
• Kahneman’s own discomfort as an examiner when he realised how strongly his grades for subsequent questions were influenced by the first essay he’d read from that student (a “halo effect”);
• Experiments where the ratings of competence given based on brief viewings of politician’s faces (generally higher for faces having “a strong chin with a slight confident-appearing smile”) correctly predicted (with around 70% success) the winner in an election;
• “Anchoring effects” where even an obviously random number picked on a wheel of fortune influences estimated answers to numeric questions, and even estate agents are influenced by the asking price when valuing a house, despite claiming not to be;
• An analysis showing the absence of any persistent variation in the results obtained by professional investment advisors, suggesting that successful stock picking is a matter of chance rather than skill – hard to believe because “we are far too willing to reject the belief that much of what we see in life is random”;
• A few shocking illustrations of the “planning fallacy” where forecasts are “unrealistically close to best-case scenarios” because others’ experiences and potential setbacks are not considered – such as Kahneman’s own team of textbook writers (who estimated they had two years’ work left, then learned that similar projects had a 40% failure rate and took around eight years if they did complete, but persevered anyway, finishing eight years later when the book was no longer in demand), and the Scottish Parliament building, originally budgeted at £40 million but finally completed for £431 million;
• An illustration of the costly effects of loss-aversion, where self-imposed goals act as reference points for our decisions, such as the New York cab drivers who go home early on (potentially high-earning) rainy days because they’ve met their daily targets, and work long hours on sunny ones when fares are scarce;
• A graph on reported life satisfaction, showing a peak at the time people got married and a sharp dip afterwards, which becomes less disturbing when read as “a graph of the likelihood that people will think of their recent or forthcoming marriage when asked about their life”.

Although I’m sure I’m still susceptible to the many biases described in this book, I have noticed my own thinking to be changed by the ideas described here on several occasions.  I found myself including “the law of small numbers” (that “small samples yield extreme results more often”) in a mental list of possible reasons for the difference in litter distribution in different areas of my road.  I once shouted “regression to the mean” at the TV when a presenter spoke of poor performance following a win as a “curse”.  I resisted the urge to throw in extra items when selling on eBay, because I’d learned that people evaluate sets by forming an impression of the average or typical item, and therefore adding lower-value items can actually devalue the entire set.  More significantly, two sections of this book have led to my strangely calm and agreeable attitude to a potentially life-changing decision that last year filled me with dread.  Firstly, I became convinced that much of my resistance to a big change is probably because our innate loss aversion makes us value what we already have more than what we might gain (“the disadvantages of a change loom larger than its advantages, inducing a bias that favours the status quo”).  Secondly, I was reminded that, because even a drastic change like paralysis only affects people’s mental state when they’re focused on it, and other things regain focus over time, “nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you’re thinking about it”.

Some of the questions raised in this book are extremely hard to answer – such as whether people’s reluctance to automate life-or-death decisions, based on the “stubborn psychological reality” that “for most people, the cause of a mistake matters”, making a death caused by computer error seem more tragic than one caused by a human, should be overruled if an algorithm is available that makes fewer mistakes than a human expert.  I particularly struggled with the material in the final section about the contrast between the evaluations and priorities of the “experiencing self” and the “remembering self” (which disregards the duration of experiences, basing evaluations instead on moments of peak intensity and the way situations end).  Despite acknowledging that “memories are all we get to keep from the experience of living”, Kahneman mostly presents our tendency to base our decisions on the priorities of the “remembering self” as a mistake, but I felt (with my own experience of childbirth in mind) that – since we only experience each situation once but live with the memory of it for the rest of our lives – the emphasis on memory seemed reasonable, although choosing to disregard lived experience does of course raise major concerns. This section seemed to suggest more questions than it answered, such as the challenging question of whether medical interventions should be prioritised and designed based on how feared a condition is, how much suffering people actually experience in their daily lives, or how they evaluate their situation when reflecting on it.

In his conclusion, Kahneman notes with regret that in attempting to improve judgements and decisions, “little can be achieved without a considerable amount of effort”, and that the main route to avoid biases is to learn enough about them to recognise situations where errors occur, and then to consciously slow down and engage System 2.  He does also present some helpful advice and techniques though:

• “Decorrelate error” by making judgements as independent as possible, e.g. when conducting a meeting, ask each participant to summarise their opinions in writing first;
• In single-issue negotiations, avoid anchoring effects by going first if possible, and if you think the other side has made an outrageous offer, “make a scene, storm out or threaten to do so, and make it clear – to yourself as well as to the other side – that you will not continue the negotiation with that number on the table”;
• Before making significant decisions, hold a “pre-mortem” meeting where people imagine a disastrous outcome for the currently favoured plan;
• Start by considering base rates and averages when making estimates and predictions, e.g. always obtain and use statistics from similar projects as a baseline when making predictions, and consider how strong the correlation is between the predictors you’re considering and the result;
• Use simple checklists and formulas (such as the Apgar score) to assist with decision making – e.g. conduct interviews with standardized, factual questions, using “a disciplined collection of objective information and disciplined scoring of separate traits” to rate candidates;
• Use “risk policies” such as “never buy extended warranties” to group gambles together when considering potential losses and gains, and remember that “you win a few, you lose a few”;
• Remember that “intuition cannot be trusted in the absence of stable regularities in the environment”, and that experts are only reliable when they have experienced good feedback from a predictable environment.

Perhaps more controversially, he also concludes (with Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, the authors of “Nudge”) that the vulnerability of human decision making to biases, particularly the powerful impact of framing effects, means that people “often need help to make more accurate judgements and better decisions, and in some cases policies and institutions can provide that help”.  The “libertarian paternalism” advocated here consists of things like making pension plans opt-out rather than opt-in, and regulating the way that messages of importance are communicated (such as displaying the more intuitive “gallons-per-mile” alongside mpg on new cars) in order to provide a “nudge” towards decisions believed to serve people’s long-term interests.

Early in the book, Kahneman describes experiments using problems with intuitively appealing wrong answers that could be solved correctly with only a little mental effort.  He describes people who are more able to resist the tempting fallacies (presumably by deliberately slowing down to check their initial answer and search their memories for additional relevant facts) as “more alert, more mentally active, less willing to be satisfied by superficially attractive answers, more skeptical about their intuitions”.  According to Keith Stanovich, these qualities are not guaranteed by the possession of high “algorithmic” intelligence, but rather constitute a separate ability, “rationality” (or being “engaged”, as Kahneman describes it).  It would appear that this is the aptitude that we need to develop if we wish to avoid some of the pitfalls described so convincingly in this book.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman

This classic Gaiman fantasy adventure manages to pack in a lot of thoughtful observations about childhood ("Adults follow paths. Children explore.") and the nature of memory ("Different people remember things differently, and you'll not get any two people to remember anything the same, whether they were there or not.") I loved the opening epigraph, a quote from Maurice Sendak that sets the tone perfectly: "I remember my own childhood vividly... I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew. It would scare them." There were some powerful and insightful scenes, such as the father trying to drown his son in the bath while under the influence of an evil spirit, but failing because of his grim determination not to hit his children as he was hit, and the child's later announcement when presented with the possibility of erasing that portion of time that he wants to remember it "because it happened to me. And I'm still me." The ending, where the narrator's briefly regained memories and understanding fade away once again, is beautiful and bittersweet.

Snapper - Brian Kimberling

I found this book a little disconcerting, as I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but came away unsure what it had been about. The writing was captivating and full of humorous observations, with a believable and likeable central character, and lots of atmospheric detail about the Indiana setting. The book was written as a collection of episodes from various times in one man's life, but as his approach to life was mostly passive and reactive, and the anecdotes often focused on apparent trivia while only mentioning major life-changing events in passing, it didn't ever coalesce into a conventional novel. I don't think that this was a weakness, however; instead it felt like an accurate reflection of how arbitrary and chaotic life can often appear when compared to the neat and meaningful narrative arcs of fiction, and how the things and people that capture our attention are not necessarily the ones that will appear significant in hindsight.

The Woman Who Dived into the Heart of the World - Sabina Berman

I had an ambivalent reaction to this autism-from-the-inside story about a girl whose aunt finds her in a feral state and helps her to (almost) integrate back into society. 'Me' is an engaging character and her differences and perspective are well observed - I particularly enjoyed a scene where she is baffled that a crowd is moved to tears when her fear of public speaking leads her to sob while reciting a list of facts and figures about tuna processing, with her echolalia repeating certain phrases as though for emphasis. I also found myself constructively challenged by her disdain for the human emphasis on thinking and her eventual conclusion that the key to existence is to "plug back into the real world with every sense". However, I found her sophisticated level of language implausible for someone who acquired it so late, and it was unsettling that the way she used her unique perspective to devise innovative methods of humane fishing was so similar to the work of Temple Grandin, and yet this was not acknowledged anywhere in the book.

Love and other Dangerous Chemicals - Anthony Copella

A witty and erudite, but also rather sweet, look at human sexuality and emotions, using an unexpected romance between a pair of hyper-intellectuals in a sexology lab to make some good points about the nature of attraction and arousal, and academic versus emotional intelligence and awareness.

How to Talk So Kids Can Learn - Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish

Having already read books on parent-child communication and parenting siblings by the same authors, I found most of this to be a recap of their previous advice, with the examples transposed from the home to the classroom. It was useful to be reminded of some of their key principles (such as acknowledging children's feelings, problem-solving together, and focusing on descriptions of specific incidents rather than general evaluations), but there was not much genuinely new material. The main addition was a chapter on 'the parent-teacher partnership', advising parents to always begin discussions by describing something positive about the teacher's work, before describing what they feel the child needs and sharing any relevant information about the child's home situation and behaviour.  I was also struck by a couple of quotes on the inadequacy of punishment:

"When a child is punished he resolves to be more careful, not more honest and responsible." - Haim Ginott

"Punishment can control misbehavior, but by itself it will not teach desirable behavior or even reduce the desire to misbehave." - Albert Bandura

The Circle - Dave Eggers

I read this just after reading an article on Facebook's 'like' button and the tendency of social media to drift towards a disconnected and extreme experience, so I was receptive to the overall premise of this satire about what happens when an innovative internet technology company goes too far. I found some of it hard to believe (in particular the main character's tendency to agree and blame herself when she's criticised for not 'participating' sufficiently online), but most of it was both funny and scary. The way that the sinister 'circle' of surveillance and control was built up from individual projects that all started with good intentions was horribly plausible, as was the justification that constant surveillance would eliminate shame as well as aberrant behaviour because "when everything is known, everything acceptable will be accepted".

A Tale for the Time Being - Ruth Ozeki

An engrossing story about a Japanese girl's diary and the Canadian woman who finds it washed up near her island home, full of thought-provoking material about radioactive flotsam, kamikaze pilots, Zen monks, moral responsibility, and the tangled relationship between writer, reader and narrative. There is a potentially alienating magical element, but it is introduced late in the story, once the characters have been established as real and likeable, and it is made less jarring by relating it to a discussion about quantum theory.

A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin

Like the TV adaptation that first piqued my interest, I found this huge book to be almost addictive, but on reflection I have decided to continue with the TV version rather than read further books in the series. The screen version works extremely well for the complex story's combination of the brutal and the salacious (made likeable by some strangely charming characters), and also brings to life the epic world-building that the author does excellently but I lack the visual imagination to appreciate as a reader.

Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

I adored this slightly insane tale of multiple alternative versions of one woman's life, which made me want to grab a pen and start charting the many decision points and their consequences, an urge I haven't felt since trying to untangle the many connections and chance encounters in the same author's One Good Turn. The sections on life in World War II (from the German as well as British perspectives) were horribly compelling, and I loved the way that many details echoed through Ursula's different lives, and some events seemed to have a force of their own, finding a way to happen despite choices that 'should' have stopped them, like water flowing downstream around an obstacle, requiring more and more dramatic actions to be taken to prevent them...

The Purchase - Linda Spalding

Starting with the journey into exile of a disowned Quaker man at the end of the 18th century, this saga (loosely based on the author's own family history) explores the ethical problems faced by an abolitionist trying to start a new life in slave-owning rural Virginia with a young family in tow. The book makes good use of multiple viewpoints to show how many of the tragedies of the book arise from unintended consequences of well-meant actions - including the father's initial decision to "marry out" because he pitied his Methodist servant girl too much to send her back to the almshouse after his wife's death - as the characters attempt to navigate unexpected and unasked-for situations. Some of the most hurtful betrayals stem from the characters' painfully familiar tendency to lie to themselves about their motives when they act - or fail to! - out of self-interest.

Going Out - Scarlett Thomas

I found this entertaining road trip story about a collection of misfits seeking a miracle cure likeable enough, but didn't love it as much as the later books of hers that I've read where she explores ideas in more depth and uses more playful narrative structures. Shamefully, I even managed to miss the Wizard of Oz references, although with hindsight they're not exactly hidden.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce

I was impressed by the skill with which Rachel Joyce was able to breathe life into this unlikely scenario, in which an elderly man impulsively decides to hand-deliver a letter to the other end of the country in an attempt to "make a difference" and atone for the failures and betrayals in his past. For most of this book I found it an enjoyable read, imagining that it would make a likeable and quirky film. The unflinching integrity of one concluding scene probably rules that out, but I admired it all the more for that, and the final chapter was touching and uplifting.

Me Before You - Jojo Moyes

A self-confessed "weepie" about the unlikely love story between a suicidal quadriplegic and his resolutely small-town carer, raising questions about what it means to live well and what makes life worth living. Her writing style is a bit lightweight - chatty, dialogue-heavy, and a little too reliant on stereotypical characters - but the subject matter is fascinating, the conclusion seems honest and moving, and I did feel tears well up twice...

Perfect - Rachel Joyce

An absorbing novel which explores the powerful effects that brief moments and chance encounters can have, as a present-day account of life with OCD is intertwined with the memory of a hot summer in which events spiralled out of control, ending in tragedy. Both narratives raise questions about cause and effect, flawed perceptions, and responsibility.

Longbourn - Jo Baker

A surprisingly gripping story with a compelling plot as well as the expected fascinating detail about life below stairs. The meshing of the maid Sarah's story with the original tale of Pride and Prejudice was cleverly done, and the insights into the precariousness of servants' lives (and how lucky they felt themselves to have a safe position in conditions that seemed harsh to me) were eye-opening. This story added further crimes to those of the 'bad' characters, but also revealed the casual thoughtlessness of many of the 'good' ones. Rather unfairly, I don't think I'll ever be able to see Mr. Bennett in the same way again...

Siblings Without Rivalry - Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish

Another collection of mostly sensible-sounding advice from the authors of "How to Talk..." As with that one, I'll try to capture the gist here based mainly on the reminder sections:

Brothers and sisters need to have their feelings about each other acknowledged:
- with words that identify the feeling ("you sound furious!")
- or with wishes (give to children in fantasy: "you wish he'd ask before using your things")
- or with symbolic or creative activity ("how would you feel about making a 'Private Property' sign?")
Children need to have their hurtful actions stopped ("Hold it! People are not for hurting!") and to be shown how to discharge angry feelings acceptably ("Tell him with words how angry you are. Tell him, 'I don't want my skates used without my permission!'")
"Insisting on good feelings between the children led to bad feelings. Allowing for bad feelings between the children led to good feelings."

Resist the urge to compare, speak only about the behaviour that pleases / displeases you:
- Describe what you see / what you feel / what needs to be done

Children don't need to be treated equally, they need to be treated uniquely:
- Instead of giving equal amounts, give according to individual need (also applies to time!)
- Instead of showing equal love, show the child he or she is loved uniquely ("You are the only 'you' in the whole wide world. No one could ever take your place").

Let no one lock a child into a role (bully/victim, the naughty one, the clever one etc):
- Parents can take opportunities to show/remind children they can act differently (e.g. ask in a friendly way or tell someone no) & provide counter examples when siblings (or the child) uses labels.
- Don't give your attention to the aggressor, attend to the injured party instead (possibly including "x needs to learn to ..." statements).
- Children with problems do not need to be viewed as problem children; they do need acknowledgement of their frustration, appreciation for what they have accomplished, however imperfect, and help in focusing on solutions.

Handling fighting:
- Ignore normal bickering, give them space to work on their conflict resolution skills...
- When things start to escalate:
1. Acknowledge their anger. ("You two sound cross!")
2. Reflect each child's point of view. ("X wants..., and Y feels...")
3. Describe the problem with respect. ("That's a tough one: two children and only one puppy.")
4. Express confidence in their ability to work it out ("I'm confident that you two can work out a solution that's fair to each of you... and fair to the puppy.")
5. Leave the room.
- If things might be getting dangerous:
1. Inquire: "Is this a play fight or a real fight?" (Only play fights allowed.)
2. Let the children know: "Play fighting by mutual consent only." (If it's not fun for both, it's got to stop.)
3. Respect your feelings: "You may be playing, but it's too rough for me. You need to find another activity."
- In dangerous situations:
1. Describe what you see: "I see two very angry children who are about to hurt each other."
2. Separate the children: "It's not safe for each other. We need a cooling-off period. Quick, you to your room, and you to yours!"

When children can't work out a problem by themselves:
1. Call a meeting, explaining the purpose (to try to find a solution to problem x) & the ground rules (e.g. listening to each in turn without interruptions).
2. Write down each child's feelings and concerns, and read them aloud.
3. Allow each child time for rebuttal.
4. Invite everyone to come up with solutions. Write down all ideas without evaluating.
5. Decide upon solutions you can all live with.
6. Follow-up (e.g. agree a time to discuss whether things have improved).

Support a child who asks you to intervene, without taking sides:
1. State each child's case.
2. State the value or rule, e.g. "Homework assignments get top priority".
3. Leave room for negotiation. ("But if you want to work something out with your sister, that's up to you.")
4. Leave.

Further ideas for encouraging good feelings:
- Make sure that each child gets some time alone with you several times a week.
- When spending time with one child, don't talk about the other.
- Don't withhold attention or affection from a favoured child out of guilt.
- Don't lock children into birth order roles; give them opportunities to experience different roles (e.g. giving a youngest child responsibilities, letting an oldest child spend time being 'babied' by older cousins).
- Don't get trapped by 'togetherness'. (Give them breathing space from each other sometimes!)
- Let each child know what their siblings like or admire about them.
- Schedule family meetings.

MaddAddam - Margaret Atwood

The final part of this dystopian trilogy is another gloriously readable novel featuring appealing characters and believable human behaviour in extreme but horribly plausible scenarios. This one has a more optimistic feel to it than the first two though, with a touching love story, impressive inter-species co-operation, and a growing - if still comically partial - understanding between the remaining humans and the new-formed Crakers. As before, the combination of suspenseful plotting and bite-sized chapters made it hard to stick to a reasonable bedtime while reading this...

Playful Parenting – Lawrence J. Cohen

“Playful Parenting” is described in this book as “a way of filling children’s needs for attachment, love, security, confidence, and closeness”. Cohen argues that since children’s play serves three purposes – building confidence through trying on adult roles, providing opportunities for closeness, and aiding recovery from emotional distress – parenting in a playful way, even in challenging situations, is the best way to assist with these processes.  He asserts that children’s difficult behaviour typically stems from feelings of either isolation or powerlessness, and that it makes more sense to address the root of the problem (by playing with these themes while providing affection, secure loving connections, and attention) than to attempt to change behaviour through punitive discipline.  Cohen notes that the times that we feel least like playing are when we don’t feel a strong connection with our children, or their play is ‘stuck’, aggressive, repetitive or boring, or our families are experiencing stressful transitions – all times that our playful input is most strongly required.  His approach to play asks us to make a conscious effort to “follow the giggles, build connections, foster self-confidence, and try to love the games we used to hate”, taking time to play and being willing to set aside adult ideas of dignity and act the clown if required (since “it takes a village idiot to raise a child”).

The chapter on ‘roughhousing’ initially made the biggest impression on me, as it was furthest removed from my previous idea of myself as a parent.  After reading Cohen’s account of the benefits of active physical play, I was convinced that I needed to give it a go.  He describes play fighting as a way to practise restraint and control as well as aggression, and as a tool for building confidence and assertiveness in less physically active children.  He also states that children learn to self-soothe through the close contact that this kind of play involves and the opportunities it provides to practise settling down afterwards, and that this can also help improve children’s focus and concentration.  He provides the following ground rules for getting started with wrestling with your child:

• Provide basic safety (e.g. ground rules such as pushing not hitting)
• Find every opportunity for connection (lots of cuddle breaks, eye contact)
•  Look for opportunities to increase their confidence and sense of power
• Play through old hurts (“it must remind the child of the initial incident, but not so much that she is paralyzed with fear or powerlessness”)
• Provide the right level of resistance (this might mean humorously not noticing when the child has escaped…)
• Pay close attention (look for good signs: giggling or exertion)
• (Usually) let the child win
• Stop when someone is hurt (or take a break, regroup and continue)
• No tickling allowed (holding them down makes them feel out of control)
• Don’t let your own feelings get in the way (exaggerate them comically)

I was also very interested in Cohen’s ideas on discipline, which he is careful to define as “the teaching of our values and principles”.  He advocates approaching discipline through closeness, playfulness and emotional understanding.  His first suggestion is to take a break to calm down, perhaps by phoning someone, before responding to a challenging situation (this has worked well for me).  He then recommends focusing on connecting with the child, in the belief that punishments increase children’s sense of isolation and powerlessness, whereas re-establishing a connection can repair underlying problems.  A ‘meeting on the couch’ to reconnect is presented as a positive alternative to a ‘time-out’, since “when discipline is presented to children as a joint problem requiring a joint solution, things go much better”.  Unsurprisingly, play is a major theme in Cohen’s approach to discipline: playing with the issues causing conflict, such as making silly rules and pretending to break them; using a playful tone; making mock threats and ‘acting’ upset; and recognizing when bad behaviour is a form of social ‘experiment’.  Cohen’s opinion is that “parents avoid playfulness in difficult parenting situations because they are afraid of rewarding bad behaviour… but being playful is not about rewards or punishments, it is about restoring the missing ingredient – connection – that caused the problems in the first place”.  Rather than applying techniques to create obedience in specific situations, he thinks we should be aiming to instil good judgement, by brainstorming handling situations, discussing moral dilemmas, discussing feelings – ours and theirs – after a conflict, modelling our values, and fostering cognitive organization through providing a quiet cosy place to calm down, a structured schedule, creative projects, and safe physical play.  He emphasizes the need to look under the surface, at the child’s feelings and needs, by viewing challenging behaviour as a coded message and trying to respond positively to that. (This one has also worked for me, e.g. responding to a push with “I missed you too & I’d love to have a big cuddle”.)  We are also reminded to use our knowledge of our child and accept – or at least manage, or try to prevent, rather than punish – behaviour that is normal for their developmental stage or temperament.  Finally (in case all of this is sounding too ‘soft’) he concludes that “children need limits, guidance and structure… applied lovingly and in a relaxed manner, not in anger or revenge”, urging parents never to give in against our better judgement or because of fear of an emotional reaction, but instead to set a limit calmly and then stay engaged, listening to their feelings and accepting tears if they come.

There is also some useful material on sibling relationships.  Cohen states that “at the heart of sibling rivalry is a set of profound and universal questions: Am I loved? Truly, absolutely loved? Am I wanted? Am I special? Am I powerful? Will my parents stop loving me if they start to love that other kid? Can I make the world bend to my will? Why can’t I do what I see that person doing? Why can’t I get what I see that person getting?”  He recommends experimenting with some or all of the following options to smooth sibling conflicts: offer a solution; give encouragement and inspire their confidence (support them while they figure it out); flood (both) children with love and affection (e.g. a mum who said she’d fill up the older siblings with love, kissing them from toes to head, then cracking a ‘love egg’ on their heads); protect (intervene when needed, and teach children that “they have the right to be safe, others have the right to be safe with them, there is nothing so terrible that you can’t tell someone about it, and you can keep searching until someone listens”); provide perspective (calmly listen and reflect back); promote win-win outcomes; be playful (try a comic commentary?); and give up the search for perfect equality (acknowledging when things are not fair).

There are some specific suggestions in this book that I’d like to spend more time exploring, particularly those around playing out difficult situations to let children practice gaining control over their impulses (“Let’s play getting dressed and ready”) and using play “to recover from a traumatic incident, large or small”, often using role reversal – “the purpose is to go through the incident again, but this time letting the scary feelings out – usually through giggles. That’s why a child likes to play this kind of game over and over and over.”  The observations on communication are also convincing, for example the suggestion to tell children a story from your day (which they may respond to) rather than bombarding them with questions about theirs, and to honour the way they choose to communicate by paying attention when they talk about “unimportant” things or repeat themselves.  There are lots of play ideas for specific purposes too, such as for self-soothing (teaching three long breaths, with emphasis on the exhale, and encouraging games of soothing and comforting dolls), self-regulation (calling out frequent, rapid directions while children run, jump or dance), and motor planning / sequencing (obstacle courses & treasure hunts).  On the subject of connection building, one story struck me as particularly moving: when the author’s daughter was two, she used to ignore her mother when she came home after working a night shift, at one point even refusing to admit that it was mummy and not daddy who was holding her.   They turned the question of “who is that holding you?” into a family ritual, which always led to cuddles and closeness, but often with extremes of tears and giggling along the way.

I first read this book when my daughter was an impeccably behaved toddling only child, and found it only mildly interesting – I liked some of the ideas but was a little irritated by some of the self-conscious attempts to create new terminology (“PlayTime” for dedicated child-led playtime, “filling their cup” for meeting attachment needs, and the “towers” of isolation and powerlessness).  After re-reading it while she’s a more challenging three year old with a sometimes-turbulent relationship with her little brother, I became somewhat obsessed by it.  In the few weeks that followed I found that playful parenting – joining in with children’s play enthusiastically, retaining a sense of humour about your role as a parent, and looking for a playful response to difficult situations – can indeed make a huge positive difference to family life.  Since then, as the energy and momentum of my initial enthusiasm have faded, I have also been struck by how true the observations in the final chapter are: that when parents are feeling tired and isolated ourselves we will struggle to maintain the open and playful attitude needed to make this approach work, and that we first need to apply the same principles to ourselves and how we deal with our own feelings, in particular by talking openly about our experiences of parenting.

The Shock of the Fall - Nathan Filer

This excellent and enjoyable novel manages, in a similar way to "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" (to which it has often been compared), to draw the reader into the inner world of someone with an unusual mental state by creating an engaging character with a convincing voice. In this case, as well as shedding light on the experience of living with schizophrenia and navigating the mental health care system, the book provides a moving and insightful portrayal of a family crippled by grief after a tragic accident.

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History - Elizabeth Kolbert

I picked this up from the library after reading an enthusiastic review, but by the time I got home I was wondering when I'd find the time and energy to read it. I needn't have worried - I found this as absorbing and hard to put down as a good novel, probably because of Kolbert's personal and engaging writing style and the fascinating examples she uses to introduce the wider themes of the book. Each chapter uses a specific extinct or endangered species as a window on to our understanding of extinctions, or some aspect of the "Sixth Extinction", the mass extinction caused by the impact of humans on the natural world:

- Atelopus zeteki, the Panamanian golden frog, now extinct in the wild due to chytrid fungi, believed to have been spread recently by humans moving other species of frog between continents;

- Mammut americanum, the American mastodon, which disappeared in the 'megafauna extinction' that coincided(!) with the spread of modern humans, and whose bones led the French naturalist Cuvier to propose the concept of extinction in 1796;

- Pinguinus impennis, the great awk, slaughtered wholesale over a few hundred years by seamen who found their breeding colony off the coast of Newfoundland a source of easy food. (I found this chapter particularly sad.) Kolbert cites this as an example of a contemporary 'cataclysmic' extinction that challenged Darwin's view that gradual natural selection could account for all historic extinctions;

- Discoscaphites jerseyensis, an example of an ammonite, a type of marine invertebrate that was wiped out (along with the dinosaurs) in the end-Cretaceous extinction, now widely believed to have been caused by the aftermath of an asteroid's impact;

- Dicranograptus ziczac, a tiny marine organism or 'graptolite' that disappeared, along with most graptolites, at the end of the Ordovician period, probably due to glaciation, illustrating the point that the cataclysms that cause mass extinctions are varied. This chapter also describes the proposal to officially declare a new 'Anthropocene' geological epoch to recognise the recent human transformation of the Earth's geology through activities such as deforestation, damming rivers, and burning fossil fuels;

- Patella caerulea, a limpet threatened (like all shell-creating 'calcifiers') by "global warming's equally evil twin" ocean acidification, another major effect of the rising carbon dioxide levels produced by burning fossil fuels;

- Acropora millepora, a type of coral, another calcifier which is severely threatened by (amongst other things) ocean acidification, with some experts predicting that all reefs will have begun to dissolve within the next fifty years;

- Alzatea verticillata, a tree that in a study of a series of plots at different elevations (and therefore temperatures) in Peru does not appear to 'migrate' by dispersing seeds up the mountain as temperatures rise, and therefore appears to lack resilience to climate change;

- Eciton burchellii, an army ant, whose complex system of followers (such as birds that eat the insects they disturb, and butterflies that eat the birds' droppings) find it hard to survive in reduced 'forest fragments' in the Amazon, showing the disproportionately disruptive effect that deforestation can have;

- Myotis lucifugus, a bat under threat from 'white-nose syndrome', a cold-loving fungus recently imported to the US, where it is proving deadly to the bat population (an example of how "we are, in effect, reassembling the world into one enormous supercontinent - what biologists sometimes refer to as the New Pangaea");

- Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, one of only around a hundred remaining Sumatran rhinos, used to introduce a discussion of "oversized" animals whose lack of natural predators more than compensated for their slow reproductive cycles - until humans came along. According to this account of the megafauna extinction, "though it might be nice to imagine there was once a time when man lived in harmony with nature, it's not clear that he ever really did";

- Homo neanderthalensis, the Neanderthal, probably wiped out by us through a process of 'leaky replacement' that means that "all non-Africans ... carry somewhere between one and four percent Neanderthal DNA". In attempting to describe the unique qualities of humans that make us so powerful and therefore deadly, she describes a project to study Neanderthal DNA in search of "the mutations that make us the sort of creature that could wipe out its nearest relative, then dig up its bones and reassemble its genome";

- Homo sapiens: since we too depend on the biological and geochemical systems that we are so disruptive to...

A Good American - Alex George

I was intrigued by the review comment on the cover that mentioned "echoes of John Irving", and this did indeed contain much that fit that description, being a family saga with a large cast of characters who are often bloody-minded and eccentric, but generally extremely likeable, in which chance encounters and implausible but humorous episodes often have dramatic repercussions. I enjoyed this novel immensely on its own terms, however, and actually found myself preferring the more soberly written sections to the occasionally farcical comedic ones. In particular, the bittersweet love story of the narrator's grandparents was touching, and the discoveries that the narrator makes towards the end of the story were powerfully described and thought-provoking.

The Testament of Mary - Colm Tóibín

Although this book is slim, it deserves to be taken seriously. It's a beautifully written account of a mother's grief as she gradually loses her son, culminating in her watching his torment as he is crucified, and goes on to show her struggle to preserve her memories of him as they are appropriated and rewritten by those who seek to proclaim their own interpretation of his life. The passages that stay with me most are those about the zombie-like risen Lazarus, and Mary's endless feelings of guilt at her choice to save her own life by running away rather than staying to the end to bathe and bury her son's body.

A Hologram for the King - Dave Eggers

I picked this up out of curiosity, having been intrigued by Eggers' writing before, but didn't have hugely high hopes of it as I wasn't initially drawn to the subject matter (a US salesman in Saudi Arabia). In fact it was a very human and powerful story, exploring one man's alienation and disorientation as he repeatedly fails to make the most of chances for meaningful connections, while watching his hopes for the future slip away in circumstances he can barely understand, let alone control. I was particularly struck by the chillingly terse portrayal of his shame after making a mistake that could have had fatal consequences, and the description of him "feeling devastated, as always, by himself, his inability to do what he should do when he should do it".

Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger

This ghostly tale of secrets and contested identities is gripping and enjoyable, and the parts that deal with the claustrophobic and complex nature of life as a twin are compelling and believable. Some of the characterisation was a bit heavy-handed though, and several key moments in the plot didn't quite ring true, so overall I agreed with the friend who lent it to me that the effort involved in suspending disbelief was too much at times, and this book doesn't manage the difficult challenge of living up to the expectations set by The Time Traveller's Wife.

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle - Monique Roffey

Although this account of expat life in Trinidad was well-written, fascinating and believable, I found it hard to get emotionally involved with it. The structure, in which the last part of the story was presented first, added an element of intrigue, but for me this came at too high a price, as I felt that it would have been much easier to care about the characters if I'd first been introduced to them at the start of their story.

Human Traces - Sebastian Faulks

I was totally absorbed in this ambitious and thoughtful saga about two men who bring very different backgrounds and beliefs to their shared passion for unravelling the mysteries of the human mind. As their careers develop and their professional and personal relationships grow more complex, their experiences serve to illustrate different aspects of our psychological makeup. I was particularly interested in the theory (attributed to one of the central characters based on his readings of historic and religious texts, but acknowledged by the author as based on Julian Jaynes' concept of bicameralism) that hearing voices used to be a near-universal experience, only fading with the evolution of a self-aware consciousness. I found this an engrossing and satisfying read, with the only false note being a rather incongruous hint of the supernatural at the end, which seemed a rather heavy-handed way of making the point that "there were things that could not be explained".

One Day - David Nicholls

I felt compelled to read this one to find out what all the fuss was about. I was pleasantly surprised - underlying the romcom-style will-they-won't-they plot was a genuinely moving love story, and it was refreshing to have someone so self-destructive (and even at times unlikable) as one of the central characters. The structure of describing one day in each year worked well for me, allowing for some effective and often amusing period detail, and managing to conceal a thought-provoking twist despite the nature of the ending having been widely signalled as part of the hype surrounding the film of the book.

Bitter Greens - Kate Forsyth

Reading this book was a very mixed experience. After the first couple of chapters I seriously considered putting it aside - very unusual for me - as it struck me as a clumsily written historical novel in which the believability of the narrator's voice was constantly undermined by the intrusion of informative asides describing this or that amusing period detail. However, once the fable of "Petrosinella" (Rapunzel) began to be told, the flaws in the outer story (which did improve significantly, although it then strayed into bodice ripper territory on occasion) were made forgivable by the captivating simplicity of this wonderfully human fairy tale, which I loved because of its engaging and likeable characters (yes, even the witch!) and the psychologically plausible nature of (most of) the magic. I also enjoyed the use of other author's Rapunzel poems to illuminate different perspectives on the story.

Dominion - C J Sansom

I was totally hooked on this huge counterfactual thriller set in a version of 1950s Britain where the Nazis are in power in all but name, and Churchill is a resistance hero. I enjoyed the plausible details, such as the growing tensions between family members with opposing political sympathies and the complex personal histories drawing people into resistance work, and also found the final Historical Note, in which the author warns of his fears about the threat of the SNP, fascinating and eye-opening. The most memorable section of the novel for me was the description of the reactions of passers-by who must choose whether to risk their own safety by protesting when they see Jews being marched away - a scene that's been described so many times, but to my shame I found it had added personal impact when transposed to the familiar streets of London... The only thing I found to dislike in this book was a slightly unpalatable attitude to infidelity: although their motives were presented in a convincing way, I felt that we were invited to celebrate the decency of the lovers' eventual farewell rather than focus on any damage their liaison had done.

Tigers in Red Weather - Liza Klaussman

This family saga was well-written and gripping, but I found it very disturbing, as beneath the sultry summer fun and games, the violence and cruelty that gradually emerges presented a horribly plausible account of how the mistakes and crimes of one generation can affect the next.

The Last Runaway - Tracy Chevalier

This book seemed initially as though it was specifically designed to appeal to me, being a historical novel about a Quaker woman, with themes including entering a new culture as an immigrant, and the difficulty of balancing family loyalties, personal desires, and the demands of conscience. Despite all this promising material, I found the novel unsatisfying, although the depiction of a 19th century Quaker community and their attitudes to slavery was indeed fascinating. The main problem was that the central character never quite came alive for me, seeming to veer oddly between impulsive actions and coldly calculated ones, and I never quite managed to see her choices through her eyes.

The Rabbit Back Literature Society - Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen

This Finnish novel about a mysterious group of authors and the society that shaped them was a "wild-card" present and I'm extremely glad to have received it - it is both brilliantly insane, and insanely brilliant. As the story develops, we are presented with an increasingly disturbing set of answers to the perennial question of where writers get their ideas from, as well as being reminded that nothing is ever as it seems. Although this book contains several elements that I would usually find irritating - a blurred line between fantasy and reality, and overt reminders that we are reading a work of fiction - I was drawn in by the viewpoint of the central character, who is both likeable and strongly grounded in reality, and totally won over by the originality of the ideas explored.

The Crane Wife - Patrick Ness

An elegant and touching fable about the transformative effect of a mysterious woman - and her art - on one man and his daughter. I enjoyed reading it, but for me it was ultimately too much of a parable, and told with too much detachment, even including an unusual section when a crucial event is described five times, as having happened for as many different reasons.

The Ice Queen - Alice Hoffman

A modern adult fairy tale about fire and ice, this worked brilliantly on its own terms and was utterly captivating, but the magic and drama were too strong to really let it get under my skin, apart from in the very human beginning and ending sections. I was also strangely unsettled by the ability of the central characters to take decisive and bold actions to bring about seemingly impossible events. The parts I was most intrigued by were those about the more mysterious effects of lightning strikes, but in this kind of book it's hard to tell how realistic these accounts were...

How It All Began - Penelope Lively

I was drawn to this because I liked the idea that the first book I started after the birth of my son should be by the author of 'Consequences', which I had thoroughly enjoyed when my daughter was a newborn. It didn't quite live up to expectations though; I found the narrator's observations about the far-reaching effects of the initial chance encounter (a mugging in which an elderly woman's hip is broken) jarringly heavy-handed, and I must confess to being sentimental enough to find the ending, particularly to the storyline about her daughter's growing friendship with an Eastern European immigrant, a little unsatisfying.

The Memory of Love - Aminatta Forna

Like so many novels about recent conflicts, I found this tale of the aftermath of civil war in Sierra Leone to be a powerful, moving, and memorable book with important things to say about human potential for both violence and healing, but am unable to honestly say that I loved it - it was ultimately too unsettling to be one I'd return to for an enjoyable re-read. The story line that stuck with me most was that of the psychiatric patient whose fugue states are an escape from the awful knowledge that the soldier who her daughter survived by marrying was the same man who had murdered her husband.

Sarah Thornhill - Kate Grenville

I was excited to be given this for Christmas, having loved 'The Secret River', and it did not disappoint. It centres on the aftermath of the events of the first book, from the point of view of the daughter of its main characters, who gradually comes to understand what lies beneath her comfortable lifestyle. It also introduces new themes, as later settlers and children with mixed backgrounds further complicate the dynamics of race and class, raising questions of identity and belonging. Although it's an easy read, it is gripping and thought-provoking, and the central characters are likeable and convincing.

Fatima's good fortune - J & G Dryansky

I picked this book up hoping it would be an Amelie-style quirky-but-sweet tale about a kind woman's positive influence on those around her. Alarm bells rang for me when I realised it was co-authored (why does this bother me so much?) and it did indeed fall a bit flat. Mostly it was likeable enough, if a bit obvious and sometimes implausible, but in a few places I felt it crossed a line and strayed into patronising cultural imperialism - was it really necessary for the Tunisian heroine to lose a few pounds and start wearing Western clothing in order to claim her happy ending?