In his own words
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The Fire and the Darkness
Review: Dresden. Kurt Vonnegut made the name part of popular consciousness with the publication of Slaughterhouse Five. But for historians this is a minefield that most choose not to navigate. How to balance the remembrance with politics and the war. Like with Hiroshima, it’s difficult to discuss or write about without taking a side or…
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Burning Chrome
Review: This is one of my rare re-reads and it was by design, not something that I read and halfway through figured that I had actually read this before. I did that with a few, remember that 25 years of this reading journal was read through a vodka filter. I first discovered William Gibson when…
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The Sea
Review: This book, perhaps of all the (eight so far) Booker Prize winners I have read is the One True Winner. An outstanding piece of modern literature and a joy to read. So what is it about? In this case, I’m at a loss, it’s sort of about life, and dealing with illness, and grieving,…
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Weimar Germany, Promise and Tragedy
Review: A surprisingly engaging yet still scholarly history of Weimar Republic Germany. A rare bird indeed in the history book genre. You either get the tiktok quick read version or the omg did we need a whole chapter on the development of tweed trousers one. This was engaging from the first paragraph and while it…
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Analog SF Magazine January/February 2024
Review: My first Analog magazine for 2024. This was the best one I have read yet, with lots and lots of great content in both fiction and science fact, and in a couple of instances a blend of both. We meet an asteroid algae farmer harvesting oxygen for sale on the open market in A…
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Analog SF Magazine Nov/Dec 2023
Review: You might be saying to yourself, a magazine? But this is a book review blog! Yes, but this is quite different. Analog is a digest style magazine that has roots going back to the pulp magazine heyday in the early 20th century. I have bought individual issues before but always wanted to subscribe and…
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Why Evolution is True
Review: This was excellent. Science communication at its finest, meaning lots of information but presented in such a way as to be easy to understand for a layman like me. Very often I find that people are not as confused by evolution as they are resistant to it at a deep emotional level. This book…
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Not Under 40
Review: I really enjoyed this, and I wasn’t confident that I would when starting out. This was one of the last books published by Willa Cather and it was later in her life, in 1936. So many times I find that the early stuff and the late stuff from any author is not as good…
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Great Uncle Harry
Review: This was excellent, a really engaging and enjoyable read. Imagine finding out about a great uncle that you had no idea really existed and then resolving to find out who this man was and what his life was like. Michael Palin did exactly that with his Great Uncle Harry. Researched his life from his…
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The Poems of Hesiod
Review: First book done for 2024 and this was a great one to ring in the new year with. I’ve read Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Lucretius but Hesiod for one reason or another had escaped. It was better to come upon this late as it it uses a lot of references to the other works. Having…