I very much enjoy reading (and listening) to anything written by Greg Graffin, so I guess I’m the perfect audience for his most recent book, Population Wars: a new perspective on competition and coexistence. It’s a tour through biology, zoology and anthropology to argue the points of environmental stewardship, that population wars rarely read to … Continue reading
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Book review: Rebel footprints
Okay, everyone just buy this book because it is fabulous. Especially if you live in London and love its history. It’s 10 chapters of radical protest, documenting both campaign successes and failures throughout various bits of London – from Battersea to Bermondsey and Clerkenwell to Shoreditch. It is populated with the most amazing people, union … Continue reading
Book review: A Great Game
About halfway through this book, I looked at the author’s inset and realised that it was written by Canada’s current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. Oops. It apparently took 8 years to write, with lots of other people helping with the research. I don’t doubt that he wrote a lot of it, because the language feels … Continue reading
Book review: The causal angel
So. It’s still a bit WTF and I’m still not 100% that I actually understood some of the plot but what a bloody brilliant story. It’s even harder to explain the plot by the third book. Basically, there’s a war and Jean has to rescue Mieli, they each have to steal some stuff, and then … Continue reading
Book review: The fractal prince
I think my comprehension of the plot has fallen from my 75-80% confidence from The Quantum Thief to perhaps only 65-75% in its sequel. Well, not really, I’m experiencing a bit of a peak-end rule cognitive bias. So. Um. Plot. It’s…uh…complicated. I think, basically, they have to steal the original code of a post-human who … Continue reading
Book review: Thinking, fast and slow
I imagine if you’ve been to the airport or any bookstore that has best seller lists, you’ve come across Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, fast and slow. You might think it’s one of those easy pop-psych books that you can read in the plane, but it’s rather more tough than that. It makes you think and then … Continue reading
Book review: The quantum thief
I think I understood about 75% (maybe 80%) of what the hell was going on in this book. About 25% I can sort of infer or just assume “SPECIAL THING THAT GOES BOOM”. Saying that, it was very enjoyable. It did take about reading 40% of the book to really get a grip on the … Continue reading
Book review: The power of knowledge
This is not a book for the faint of heart. My version is a giant hardcover that runs at 412 pages but feels more like 800. It is big. It is long. However, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t interesting. Or at least, large parts of it. The central thesis is that the accumulation of … Continue reading
Book review: Ancillary Sword
Well I am inconsolable because I no longer have that book to read. IT IS SO GOOD.I think there are three main reasons why I love this series: I love the preciseness of all the rituals and formalities I love the artificial intelligences that populate the books Breq is such an awesome character, she is … Continue reading
Book review: A slip of the keyboard
I remember I bought this book when out adventuring in the Lake District. It is the kind of book you buy on holiday. I have read so much Terry Pratchett. I think I’m only one short of reading all of the Discworld. If there was a literary character that I could somehow make real it … Continue reading
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