This is a collection of evocative, affecting, poetic, imaginative short stories. (Extremely short: microfiction, I think it’s called.) Some are slices of life, some are magical, some are funny, but they are all beautiful and satisfying to read.
Review articles
The Pink Jumpsuit – Emma Neale
This review is about books, Emma Neale, New Zealand, short stories. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
Reservoir 13 — Jon McGregor
This wonderful novel opens on New Year’s Day, and a girl has gone missing: the whole village has turned out to search for her. It seems that we are in for a missing person mystery, or possibly a whodunit. As days go by we meet some of the inhabitants of the village and learn about their own stories. There is also a lot about the mundane happenings of village life, and a lot about the natural world of plants and animals too as the days turn to weeks and months.
Continue readingThe Imaginary Museum — Ben Eastham
This is an essential essay on contemporary art. The author takes us on a tour through a fictional contemporary art museum containing real artworks. He talks a bit about the works, offering insights that allow us to appreciate them more. It’s like wandering through a good art gallery, having a wide-ranging discussion with a hugely knowledgeable but somewhat cynical friend.
Continue reading300 Arguments – Sarah Manguso
Think of this as a short book composed entirely of what I hoped would be a long book’s quotable passages
That’s one of the “arguments”, which neatly describes the book. It’s easy to review a book like this: all I have to do is quote a few of the aphorisms.
Continue readingThe Stanley Parable
This is the best computer game ever. And it’s much more than just a game.
The Stanley Parable is a unique and brilliant game which is not a game. No guns, fast cars or abstract puzzles: the entire game is just wandering around a deserted office building.
Continue readingMystery & Manners – Flannery O’Connor
Flannery O’Conner was a 20th-century American writer who* I discovered through a cryptic reference in the computer game The Trolley Problem. This book is a posthumous compilation of her non-fiction writing, including some lectures she gave about writing (one of my favourite topics). Her writing is full of dry, arch humour:
Continue readingA Children’s Bible – Lydia Millet
One of the blurbs describe this as a “funny dystopia” and I can see why, though I feel that would be a misleading way to describe the book. The setup is not dystopian – it seems to be the present day, with a large group of families taking an extended holiday in a country house. Maybe the children would consider it a dystopia though – the adults seem to be various combinations of stupid, selfish and feckless. They seem a bit cartoonish and unrealistic to me, but maybe I’m just lucky to have mostly avoided such people in my life.
Continue readingThe Trolley Problem
The Trolley Problem is a famous ethical dilemma asking whether we should cause something bad to happen in order to prevent something worse. If a runaway trolley is about to run over 5 people, is it morally right to divert it to another track where it will kill only one person? Lots has been written on the trolley problem, including many books. And now there is also a computer game featuring this and many other classic ethical problems.
The Gift of the Gab – David Crystal
This is a pretty good guide to effective public speaking – its centrepiece is a very detailed analysis of Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” speech from 2008. Actually I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would – somehow I was expecting something less prosaic from the author of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, “the most exciting, readable and comprehensive book on language ever written”. Still, this book does have lots of good advice and some useful tips if you are giving speeches or making presentations. But if you’re not, maybe just dip into The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language instead.
War and Peace — Leo Tolstoy
The War is Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812, which disrupts the Peace of Russian high society in Moscow, Petersburg and various country estates. We follow several aristocratic families as the war begins, gets worse, turns around and finally ends. Lots of characters, but mostly in the upper classes so everything is viewed through that lens.
Continue readingThe Anomaly – Hervé Le Tellier
This speculative fiction is set in the present day just as we know it now. One day, an inexplicable and apparently impossible event happens; this novel is about how this affects the people involved, but also governments, media and everyone else. I thought it was all handled plausibly, which is essential in this kind of story. I could nitpick a few plot points, and especially the response to the final twist, but still I enjoyed this book. I could definitely see a sequel or even a multi-season TV show.
Continue readingThe Situation is Hopeless, But Not Serious – Paul Watzlawick
The situation is hopeless – but not serious.
I just love this phrase. It does seem true to me that it applies to many situations in life, big and small. Sometimes yes, the situation you are faced with is hopeless. But often, it doesn’t really matter that much. I find it helpful to remember that.
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This review is about books, life, Paul Watzlawick, psychology. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
How Free Are You? — Ted Honderich
Science tells us that determinism (or near-determinism) is very likely to be true. Yet we feel as if we have free will. How can these be reconciled?
Continue readingHow to Lie with Statistics – Darrell Huff
This book explains the many ways that people can misuse statistics to mislead you. Maybe a more descriptive title would be, “How to Tell When People are Lying to You with Statistics”. It’s a bit like being shown how a magician does a trick – except that at least with the magic trick, you already know you’re being fooled.
Continue readingMaking Money – Terry Pratchett
Brilliant. This book took me some time to finish: many times I found myself re-reading sentences just because they were so clever and funny. I had several chuckles on each page, to the amusement of my family.
Continue readingThe Night of All Souls – Philippa Swan
Several different narratives, two interwoven tales of deception and intrigue, and a few good tips on landscape architecture. Maybe overcooked in parts but overall a fun read.
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This review is about books, Edith Wharton, novels, Philippa Swan. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
A Mathematician Plays the Market – John Allen Paulos
Back in the dot-com bubble of 20-odd years ago, WorldCom was one of the many companies that crashed and burned, taking investors’ money with it. John Allen Paulos was one of these investors, obsessively throwing good money after bad, long after the point when he should have cut and run. In this book he tries to explain why he succumbed to the madness of crowds like that, and in the process explains a lot about how the stock market works. He also discusses lots of interesting mathematical details, and also the benefits and pitfalls of various investment approaches.
Continue readingHuman Croquet – Kate Atkinson
This story has a dizzying start: it takes “begin at the beginning” to the extreme, and starts off at the Big Bang with an apparently omniscient narrator. Soon it settles down into a family saga where the narrative moves between a present and various times in the past. The characters are lively and well-drawn but mostly pretty stereotyped. And there is a good amount of mysterious goings-on and dramatic irony.
Continue readingAngrynomics – Lonergan and Blyth
People are always angry about something. These days they are either angry about vaccination, or angry about people who are angry about vaccination. But until recently, they were angry about things like worsening financial inequality, immigration, and lack of action on climate change. These things are affected by economic policies and events, and this book puts forth analyses and ideas to address some of the anger.
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This review is about books, economics, Eric Lonergan, Mark Blyth, society. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
Pond – Claire-Louise Bennett
Continue reading“I only wish you could just spend five minutes beneath my skin and feel what it’s like. Feel the savage swarming magic I feel.”
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter — Mario Vargas Llosa
Continue readingLa Habanera dances in the streets
And like every night
Pedro Comacho sells peanuts
Outside the Tropicana Club
This review is about books, Mario Vargas Llosa, novels, Yello. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
No One Is Talking About This — Patricia Lockwood
The first half of the book is dizzying — stupid — hilarious — it’s a series of seemingly random impressions, vignettes, observations and ideas of a narrator who is an Internet celebrity and is steeped in Internet culture.
Continue readingX + Y — Eugenia Cheng
It seems to me that the world is set up in such a way as to give men an unfair advantage. (Lucky me.) And not just because they are men — more because the world is set up so that certain kinds of behaviour are favoured, and those behaviours are more common in men than in women. There are behaviours that are thought of as typically masculine or feminine, but talking about them in those terms just reinforces the stereotypes that we should try to abolish. As soon as we say “men are like this”, someone else will reasonably say “not all men!” and we end up with an argument instead of progress.
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This review is about books, Eugenia Cheng, mathematics, society. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
At the Existentialist Cafe — Susan Bakewell
This is an excellent and wide-ranging description of the genesis of existentialism. It includes descriptions of all the major figures you have heard of, like Sartre, de Beauvoir and Camus, and further back to the likes of Heidegger and Nietzsche and many many more. After reading this I feel I have a much better idea of these people as people, rather than abstract ideas or buzzwords. Although mostly, I would rather just know their ideas since it seems they weren’t all the nicest people. It’s interesting to read about the long and fraught relationships that (maybe) helped shape their thought.
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This review is about books, existentialism, philosophy, Susan Bakewell. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
The Deficit Myth — Stephanie Kelton
Why can’t the government just print more money?
That’s a pretty obvious question, and I feel it’s not often answered satisfactorily. This book discusses the way money works from the viewpoint of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which seems to make a lot of sense. As I understand it, here’s how things should work.
Continue readingFree Speech — Timothy Garton Ash
This is a considered and level-headed approach to free speech. Ash avoids the platitudes and black-and-white dogmatism of the more extreme woke and anti-woke thinking. Instead, he tries to go back to first principles: about what is good and bad about free speech and what happens when it gets pushed too far in various directions. He discusses what the rules concerning free speech should be, and also the laws (they aren’t necessarily the same). In the end he distills it down to ten principles:
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Lolita — Vladimir Nabokov
This is the fictional autobiography of one Humbert Humbert, written in his jail cell near the end of his life. He is very erudite and quite engaging despite being unhealthily obsessed with young girls. He falls in love with the title character (his landlady’s young daughter) and ends up taking her on an extended road trip across the USA. They purport to be father and daughter but are actually lovers. At the beginning Lolita seems reasonably willing to go along with everything, but Humbert gradually reveals how controlling he is and how unhappy Lolita really is. He slowly loses his grip and eventually loses Lolita, and commits the crime that finally lands him in jail. The writing throughout is clever, inventive and endlessly rewarding to read, despite the bleak and tawdry subject matter.
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This review is about books, novels, Patricia Lockwood, Vladimir Nabokov. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
The Big Shift — Deirdre Kent
This slim volume sets out some pretty radical proposals for fixing New Zealand’s monetary and financial systems. These systems are not working as well as they should, and Kent’s ideas could improve society and help deal with climate change. I can’t see them happening anytime soon, but the future is a very long time…
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This review is about books, Deirdre Kent, economics, New Zealand. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
Rain — Kirsty Gunn
Did you ever read a book or watch a film where you could just tell that something awful was going to happen? You dreaded the turn of every page in anticipation of the imminent horror. And yet you just had to keep reading, to find out what actually happens.
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This review is about books, Kirsty Gunn, New Zealand, novels. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
Hello World — Hannah Fry
“Algorithms” will save the world, or possibly destroy it. This book is a good survey of how computerised algorithms are used and misused, and how they can be harnessed so their power can be used for good rather than evil.
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