Category Archives: Writing & Reading

What I Read In June and July

I apologise once again for the reduced frequency of my book blog. Frankly, I blame myself. However, I am enjoying a brief respite from my current project (working title: The Only Way Is Ethics) so I can catch up. John … Continue reading

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The White Heat of Creation

I wrote somewhere that there is no surer sign of an unwillingness to write than an untended blog. I should perhaps qualify that statement, because blogs might remain untended for all sorts of reasons, chief of these being, in my … Continue reading

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What I Read In May

Featuring the struggle to reach the top of coming up to, notwithstanding inasmuch as which I just about manage to summarise the books I have read listened to consumed before the relevant month is out. The first two and the … Continue reading

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What I Read In December

Blake Crouch Dark Matter Jason Desson used to be the most promising physicist of his generation, but lack of funds meant that he couldn’t make progress on his efforts to quantumly entangle more atoms than existed in a tiny dot, … Continue reading

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What I Read In November

Mick Herron: Real Tigers, Spook Street, London Rules, Joe Country, Slough House, Bad Actors, Clown Town Following on from Slow Horses and Dead Lions (both reviewed last month) these novels — which should be read (or listened to) in that … Continue reading

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Who’s Afraid of Artificial Intelligence?

What follows is a review of Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares: If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies – it was going to be part of my monthly book blog but the review got so long I felt it should have … Continue reading

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What I Read In September

William Boyd Stars and Bars A rare mis-step by a usually reliable author who ventures into slapstick comedy of the uptight-Englishman-in-America variety. If it’s satire about America you’re after, Dickens did it first (and better) in Martin Chuzzlewit, which — … Continue reading

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What I Read In February

Max Telford: The Tree Of Life Many years ago when the world was young I tried to explain, in popular science form, how scientists organise the natural world, all the better to understand the pattern of creation. The result was … Continue reading

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My Top Reads Of 2024

This year I read 64 books, the first time since records began (2014) that the number has exceeded my age in years (I am 62). The total might be inflated, though, as some of the books have been duologues or … Continue reading

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Life, Death and Tolkien

My recent post on Tolkien got me thinking about some more current issues. There are others who are better guides to Tolkien’s moral philosophy than I. However, the person who finally convinced me, many years ago, that capital punishment was … Continue reading

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