You can tell I’m on holiday, I’ve had time in the last five days to sit around reading. These are the books I’ve read recently:
Greg Egan’s Distress
: weird, interesting, thought provoking SF. You can tell Egan is a geek and a scientist. The opening scene (literally seen through the eyes of the narrator) is quite something. What if there is a Theory of Everything - what impact would that have on our universe?
Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal: the most fun I’ve had with a Discworld novel in years. I’d gone off the Discworld series some time ago when Pratchett started churning out 3 or 4 books a year. The quality seemed to go down somewhat. Going Postal is great fun though. When a story starts with the hanging of it’s principal character, you know it’s going to be pretty dark. Good to see Lord Vetinari again. “Hello, tyrant remember?”
John Grisham’s The Broker: typical Grisham intrigue in the Washington power-elite. I can see this being a movie with Richard Gere some time soon…
And this Autumn’s best selling novelty book Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit?. Disappointing. My politics are left of centre, but this book is a relentless parade of far-left anti-capitalist rhetoric. Honestly, it’s like reading Rik Mayall’s dialogue from the Young Ones.
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell: Outstanding. A beautifully written, well explained treatise on how it’s the little things that make the difference. With examples pulled from medicine, crime, TV and fashion Gladwell makes it clear that you just need to change one or two things to “tip” people or events over the edge to realise large scale change. Fascinating.
You’re a Mac user - are you aware of Tinderbox? It’s a wonderfully powerful tool (with a very steep learning curve!), which can be used for all manner of things… including tracking reading.
(I’m still trying to find the time to play properly with my copy!)