Continue readingLa Habanera dances in the streets
And like every night
Pedro Comacho sells peanuts
Outside the Tropicana Club
Review articles
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter — Mario Vargas Llosa
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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This review is about books, ethics, society, Timothy Garton Ash. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment
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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