Non fiction Book Reviews Part 32 - Object Lessons again

 Welcome to part 32 in a series of non-fiction book reviews, originally based on the idea that the books I request tell you everything you need to know about me. I have, after so many chapters of this series, realised that all these posts say about me is that this was just a place to put these reviews, but now I can see how broad my non-fiction reading is, and how many interesting, good (and sometimes not-so-good) books and topics I've had a chance to explore. Today we have three books from the Object Lessons series, which is a series of 'short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.' I love these, and have previously read Sticker, Blackface, Fat, OK, Glitter, Gin, TV, Recipe, Wine, Trench Coat, Videotape, Cat, Taco, Metronome, Snack, Lipstick, Stock Photo, and Microphone. There are currently a total of 110 books in the series, so more than 15 percent. Not bad! Today I add Concrete, Fist and Laboratory to the list.

Concrete by Stephen Parnell | Goodreads Expected publication date 3 September 2026

Concrete has an image problem. Portrayed as boring, cheap, and thoughtless, it is often considered synonymous with bad architecture. For many, concrete is architecture gone wrong – dogmatic, ugly, and as miserably grey as English drizzle.

Stephen Parnell's Concrete is an apologia of concrete, second only to water as the world's most consumed material. From the personal, intimate scale of jewelry to the monumental scale of Brutalist architecture, Parnell explores the personality of concrete and how it is embedded and embodied in everyday and familiar objects. He revels in concrete's ambiguity and contradictory qualities, from its sensitivity to the tiniest imprint to its immense compressive strength in hydroelectric dams, and traces how concrete is both the ultimate unaesthetic material as well as the quintessential building block of modernity.

An interesting book about concrete? Yes please. Like all the books in this series, the topic is begun from the authors own experience and knowledge. This volume has limited focus on Stephen Parnell and his relationship with his subject. Enough that the reader understands his focus, but it's not about him it's about concrete. Concrete buildings, concrete structures, abandoned concrete, environmental impacts of concrete. It's surprisingly interesting. I wish there were more pictures to illustrate what is being described, since there were many architectural explanations that could have been supplemented (or replaced by) a photograph.

Fist by nelle mills Expected publication date 26 November 2026

Our ability to make a fist is what distinguishes humans from every other species, including primates. The fist played a crucial role in the birth of language and appears in nearly every form of nonverbal communication, particularly haptics and kinesiology. We use our fist to protest oppression, give pleasure, knock on doors, give daps, and (inaccurately) measure our hearts-yet we see them as a sign of someone on the edge.

This book asks what happens when we lean over the edge of what a fist can do and symbolize. Fist uses historical moments and artifacts, primary interviews, and personal narratives to explore the fist's polysemous and divisive nature. Fist examines knuckle tattoos, the Black Power salute, Obama's fist bumps, the Fig, and fisting, the last sexual taboo. Fist uncovers what flexing our knuckles says, not just about us, but the world in which we live.

This volume does talk about 'fist' but it is mainly in the context of race and social justice in America. This is a powerful book, organised in interesting ways. As usual there is an element of memoir. This book is not organised in a linear way, but in sections (within the chapters). I recommend this book if you want to know more about racism in America. It focusses on fist in the broadest sense - boxing and art and symbols of power, but this is a book about race in America, with fists as the framing device. 

Laboratory (Object Lessons) by Emily York  Expected publication date 29 October 2026

The laboratory stands as a powerful symbol in the public it is place for bodily dissections and monstrous creations, technological innovation and corporate secrecy, governments working in the public interest or government out of bounds, scientists as geniuses and saviors and evildoers, learning spaces from the 9th grade biology lab to the San Francisco Exploratorium, and more. But what actually happens in a laboratory, why does it have such fraught connections to our hopes and fears, and how does a laboratory relate to the 'real world'?

Quintessentially associated with the scientific revolution, the laboratory came to be a space to study 'facts' as natural phenomena, isolated and separated from emotions and biases. Yet the laboratory is also intertwined with the messy ambiguity of the world and embodies the power and privilege of resources, expertise, and innovation.

Having read (most of this) book I can't tell you what a laboratory is. I can tell you that Emily York thinks they are important. Emily York appears to be an academic who does science adjacent stuff. The book discussed the representation of laboratories in popular culture, dealing with animals and ethics, trying to define what a laboratory is, explaining that everything is an experiment and therefore also a laboratory. 

The American science and science based funding discussion feels like its probably out of date already, since the regime there is staunchly anti science.  There is no definition of laboratory that I can comprehend - it doesn't have to be a physical thing, it doesn't have to be a science thing, it doesn't have to be a government or academic thing. It can be an island, a building, a concept. Emily York embraces such a wide view of her subject that to me it became blurred and uninteresting.  This is one of my favourite Object Lesson's front covers, so that's something!