Reviews and Comments

It's a history of football tactics, but as Wilson shows, that isn't a subject divorced from a history of the society and culture football exists in. Tactical changes didn't come about in a vacuum, but we're driven by a range of forces that drove innovation. This is a good book, though possibly hampered by being targeted at a British audience, so there's a lot of plodding through stagnation away from the more interesting stories elsewhere. There's also a series of annoying little editing errors throughout that make it confusing at points and even introduce the hybrid player Ronaldo Koeman later on.

There's four or more different books going on here: a history of Liddesdale and the Borders, a memoir/travelogue of moving to and exploring this area, a treatise on interpretation of Ptolemy's geography, and a speculation on the possible historic basis of some Arthurian history.
The problem is that they don't come together into a coherent whole, so the book is more a series of digressions. Just when something is getting interesting, it ends for something else to come in instead.
It's a shame because the section at the heart of the book with tales of the reiver families of the border is interesting and I wanted more of it.

(More a 3.5, but I'm in a good mood, so rounding up) Some really interesting parts to this, but it's a bit short and could do with some more depth and a bit more historical context. It also ends rather abruptly, and I think would benefit from a more general concluding chapter to draw things together.

Enjoyed this. The characters were interesting and in a story with a familiar romantic shape but a very different setting. I've not read any stories in this universe before so there was a lot to get used yo, but it was presented well through the characters. Felt a bit hurried at some points and occasional clumsy jumps between characters that had me backtracking to see who was ssying what, but makes me want to see more of this world.

A 4.5, but I'm feeling generous today so rounding up. A series of journeys across old tracks and ways across the world. Lyrically described and with a deep connection to the land and the wild, he gives us a sense of the long history behind these journeys and how they survive to the present.

Picked this up because of the title and a quote I'd seen elsewhere, but it turned out to be not my cup of tea. There are some interesting points in there, but you have to get through a lot of repetition to get to them, and then get to them again and again. Interesting at Novella length because there's an experimentation in there and a challenge that would tire out if it was tried at a longer length, but it's ultimately quite nihilistic. Some people will love this, but it wasn't for me.

Really interesting story in a fascinating world. Perhaps a bit too much going on at times as it's a world where everything is so strange and different it can be hard to keep up with what's happening and why. It's also solely told amongst the elite, and that leaves open a lot of questions about how this world works on the ground, but maybe the rest of the trilogy will cover that.

I've had this sitting on my Kindle for a while, but I'm glad I waited in a way as it was the perfect choice for my last book of the year. Somewhere between a simple love story (but see Blue's thoughts on Romeo and Juliet) and the saving of the entire universe, it fits so much in such a small space and creates so many thoughts and images. A wonderful book, heartily recommended.

This is not an easy read, but it's a brilliant one. Machado's fragmentary style is a fascinating way of showing the effects of an abusive relationship on her psyche and her life, how 'the woman in the dream house' became part of her life and then broke it apart. It moves in to the very small, with detailed examination of events in her relationship, and also moves out to the wider issue of abusive relationships in the queer community.

I liked this book, but it feels somewhat incomplete. May has a wonderful ability to describe her feelings and the pressures of the world upon her and there are some great descriptive passages in this. However, there's a lot of tension, resentment and misunderstanding in the section about her life and ASD diagnosis which doesn't really get resolved. Like her plan to walk the South West Coast Path, I ended up feeling frustrated at things not being resolved by the end, despite the quality of the writing.

It's a classic for a reason. It's not an easy read, but it's one of the most thought-provoking pieces of SF I've read. Ideas and scenes that will occupy my mind for a long time.