Vegetarian, European, Stoic, Humanist, Developer, hard sci-fi fan, observer of frogs and stars, AFOL, patched back together and replumbed by the NHS...
Interests include astronomy, books, open source software development, LEGO, Linux, Nintendo, JRPGs, hard science-fiction, Stoicism, and anything technical and shiny.
This link opens in a pop-up window
Night Watch is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the 29th book in …
Samual Vimes is one of my favourite Discworld characters and so this book was particularly good value. A great read, but difficult to review without spoilers!
Night Watch is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the 29th book in his Discworld series, and the …
An illustrated storybook.
I ended up reading three Terry Pratchett books at the same time. This was my next Discworld book to re-read, but it was only available as a dead tree. I didn't fancy risking such a fine volume in the bath, so I also started the "Night Watch" on the Kindle. And then I began perusing "A Slip of the Keyboard", hoping to find the details of a half-remembered anecdote...
A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella …
A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A …
In my teenage years, I loved to explore second-hand bookshops with their seemingly random piles of previously loved books making it hard to squeeze between the overloaded bookcases. One winter, I bought a 1902 edition of "The Pickwick Papers" in two pocket-sized volumes. It was my introduction to Dickens, and I loved the crisp, browned pages and old-fashioned fonts, the humour, and the author's fantastic powers of description.
"The Pickwick Papers" firmly cemented the idea that Dickens was Christmas into my brain, and books like "Great Expectations" and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" only reinforced the sentiment. I don't know when I first read "A Christmas Carol", but it was many decades ago, and I've basked in its glories most years since. It's my favourite of Dicken's Christmas ghost tales and an essential part of my festivities.
The most impressive aspect of this book is the imagery. Dickens's descriptions of …
In my teenage years, I loved to explore second-hand bookshops with their seemingly random piles of previously loved books making it hard to squeeze between the overloaded bookcases. One winter, I bought a 1902 edition of "The Pickwick Papers" in two pocket-sized volumes. It was my introduction to Dickens, and I loved the crisp, browned pages and old-fashioned fonts, the humour, and the author's fantastic powers of description.
"The Pickwick Papers" firmly cemented the idea that Dickens was Christmas into my brain, and books like "Great Expectations" and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" only reinforced the sentiment. I don't know when I first read "A Christmas Carol", but it was many decades ago, and I've basked in its glories most years since. It's my favourite of Dicken's Christmas ghost tales and an essential part of my festivities.
The most impressive aspect of this book is the imagery. Dickens's descriptions of a door knocker morphing into Marley's face, ghosts sweeping through the air trailing chains of safes and strong boxes, or the flight across a roaring sea are incredible achievements of imagination. It is easy to be blasé with our experience of computer graphics and sophisticated special effects, but Dickens's imagery is simply stunning.
Recommended to be read at Christmas... slowly... by candlelight... with a glass of Edradour 10-year-old at close hand.
The average human lifespan is absurdly, outrageously, insultingly brief: if you live to 80, you …
I read this in 2022, but plan to read "The Antidote" and then read "Four Thousand Weeks" (which was written nine years later) again.
I read "The Daily Stoic" every year, but I have a love-hate relationship with it. Tim Ferris once described Stoicism as a "personal operating system", but to me, it is more like a toolbox of techniques for attaining your good life, and this is a good reminder of the tools available.
"The Daily Stoic" has 366 sections, each starting with a quote from a Stoic philosopher and then some commentary putting the sage's advice into a more modern, often American, context. This works well and provides a structured overview of Stoic thinking. The quotes are mainly from the best-known late-Stoic figureheads - Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus.
While most of the quotes come from works intended for publication, Marcus Aurelius's contributions are from his journal, which was not intended for publication - he often entertains contradictory views or approaches at different times. So cherry-picking quotes for a book like this …
I read "The Daily Stoic" every year, but I have a love-hate relationship with it. Tim Ferris once described Stoicism as a "personal operating system", but to me, it is more like a toolbox of techniques for attaining your good life, and this is a good reminder of the tools available.
"The Daily Stoic" has 366 sections, each starting with a quote from a Stoic philosopher and then some commentary putting the sage's advice into a more modern, often American, context. This works well and provides a structured overview of Stoic thinking. The quotes are mainly from the best-known late-Stoic figureheads - Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus.
While most of the quotes come from works intended for publication, Marcus Aurelius's contributions are from his journal, which was not intended for publication - he often entertains contradictory views or approaches at different times. So cherry-picking quotes for a book like this can be problematic.
The modern context provided is heavily skewed to recent American examples and often has an unspoken assumption that the reader is well-off, which can be rather grating.
If you have a basic understanding of Stoic philosophy, this book is a great daily reminder of tools and exercises that can help your everyday life. However, if you are new to Stoicism, then there are better books for learning about the basics and gaining an overview of how the philosophy can help you - for example, "A Guide to the Good Life" by William B. Irvine.
Perusing Rambling Readers is getting expensive. This is the second book I've bought this week after seeing reviews on Rambling Readers.
I recently read "Four Thousand Weeks" and was surprised that, although many of Burkeman's conclusions aligned with Stoic teaching, I remember no explicit mention of Stoicism in the text. It will be interesting to read this book and then go back and read "Four Thousand Weeks" again and see what changed in the nine years in-between.
If Agatha Christie ran Unix cons
The BSD North conference draws some of the smartest …
I saw Marcus mention this book below in the feed and was immediately intrigued. I had not heard of it or the author before, but the plot's premise immediately appealed. I feared that the author only had a superficial understanding of the open-source movement, and I'd be grinding my teeth in pedantic frustration instead of enjoying the plot. However, a quick scan through the reviews suggests the author knows his stuff. Copy purchased and added to my tsundoku pile.
Night Watch is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the 29th book in …
Continuing my re-read of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, I've reached the "Night Watch", the 29th novel and part of the "City Watch" series. I last read this book twenty years ago and remember nothing about it. However, the "City Watch" subseries is up there with the "Witches" as my favourites, so I know this will be an enjoyable book.
Winner of the 2001 Carnegie MedalOne rat, popping up here and there, squeaking loudly, and taking a bath in the …
Winner of the 2001 Carnegie MedalOne rat, popping up here and there, squeaking loudly, and …
Soon after "The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents" was first published, I read it to my daughter. She so much enjoyed the characters that she dressed up as Sardines (one of the ensemble cast of rats) for her school's World Book Day celebration. She emailed Terry Pratchett to tell him how much she had enjoyed the book and was thrilled to get a lovely reply.
Re-reading "The Amazing Maurice", I'm surprised by just how dark a book it is, given the nine-year-old plus demographic. For example, there are no holds barred when it comes to the short and uncomfortable lives that rodents sometimes lead, and a couple of plot points rely on how cruel humans can be to their squeaky neighbours.
The book includes a thought-provoking exploration of different kinds of consciousness and self-awareness, and there is much pleasure to be gained from the large cast of characters - …
Soon after "The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents" was first published, I read it to my daughter. She so much enjoyed the characters that she dressed up as Sardines (one of the ensemble cast of rats) for her school's World Book Day celebration. She emailed Terry Pratchett to tell him how much she had enjoyed the book and was thrilled to get a lovely reply.
Re-reading "The Amazing Maurice", I'm surprised by just how dark a book it is, given the nine-year-old plus demographic. For example, there are no holds barred when it comes to the short and uncomfortable lives that rodents sometimes lead, and a couple of plot points rely on how cruel humans can be to their squeaky neighbours.
The book includes a thought-provoking exploration of different kinds of consciousness and self-awareness, and there is much pleasure to be gained from the large cast of characters - rodent, feline, and the occasional human.
