The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
This wise and wistful book narrates many episodes in the life of an old woman living with her young granddaughter Sophia on a remote Finnish island. The relationship between the two is sweet, yet unsentimental. Sophia’s father lives with them … Continue reading
Blood on My Hands — Keren Ann
How To Live. What To Do. — Josh Cohen
A diverting combination of self-help book, literary discussion and psychoanalysis primer. The premise is a bit twee: throughout the books are case notes of famous fictional characters, as if they had gone in for psychoanalysis. These case notes cover a … Continue reading
Tweetomatic
I will have to update my Tweet Copier plugin to work with X. Watch this space.
Definitely Maybe – Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
Malianov, an astrophysicist, keeps getting distracted as he is working towards a breakthrough in his current project. He receives mysterious visitors, and his scientist friends are behaving very strangely. Slowly, disturbing signs emerge that there is some sort of conspiracy … Continue reading
How To Make Mistakes On Purpose – Laurie Rosenwald
This title pretty much says it all: sometimes making mistakes can be just what you need. This book is fun to read, with a somewhat chaotic layout and style. The overall message is of course that you shouldn’t just always … Continue reading
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Noise – Kahneman, Sibony & Sunstein
Human judgement is not infallible – no matter how unbiased we are, our judgement will be affected by unrelated thoughts, whether we are tired or hungry, and a hundred other things. This is “noise”. This book catalogues the different kinds … Continue reading
Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries? — Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner is absolutely brilliant on puzzles and mathematical topics, but when he moves to other topics as he does in this collection, he writes as just a smart, opinionated and slightly old-fashioned commentator. The title essay is about the … Continue reading
Philosophy & Terry Pratchett
If you like Terry Pratchett then you will probably get a lot out of this book. If you also like philosophy then it’s an absolute shoo-in. I have read a few of Terry Pratchett’ novels and enjoyed them all immensely. … Continue reading