The arbitrariness of star ratings is a tricky aspect of appraising books, films, music, plays – or Airbnb kitchens. In Benji Wilson’s breezy, enjoyable Rate This Book: How Star Ratings Took Over the World (New Modern Arcade), the TV critic unpicks the history, psychology, trustworthiness and impact of those little classification symbols, which are taking over every area of modern consumer life. It perhaps won’t be too long before a person’s death earns its own ranking.
Richard Coker’s Timor Mortis: How We Live with Death, also published by New Modern Arcade, a newish non-fiction imprint of Putnam, evaluates our final bodily transaction. Public health doctor Coker blends humour and profound wisdom in this rambunctious book. Grief, ageism, end-of-life decision, disease, shame, the sheer cost of corpse disposal – this could easily have been a depressing read, but is instead strangely life-affirming.
