Not being one to slavishly follow fads Iāve given a big swerve to anything to do with GoT on the telly box.
Teenage Mutant insisted I at least try the first book which I did. Am currently on book 3 A Storm Of Swords. Great literature it aināt but the bite size chapters keep the interest and the wide scope of the narrative is impressive.
Am also reading The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan - as recommended by Goat here on Sotonians - a very good read.
āWeapons of Math Destructionā by Cathy OāNeil. Itās pretty scary. How your data is increasingly important as a commodity and itās misuse. Written by a data scientist and number theorist from Harvard itās really eye-opening how social media sites and others collects data and then monetise it. The complete lack of morality is placed at the people who write the algorithms.
McNamee chooses his words carefully. āThe people who run Facebook and Google are good people, whose well-intentioned strategies have led to horrific unintended consequences,ā he says. āThe problem is that there is nothing the companies can do to address the harm unless they abandon their current advertising models.ā
Just finished āThe Great Game: On Secret Service In High Asiaā by Peter Hopkirk.
A look at the machinations of Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia in central Asia, tales of the first Afghan war and the battle for control of the various Khanates bordering Britainās Indian Empire. Interesting stuff. Lots of detailed accounts from British and Russian officers and adventurers.
Just moved on to Robert Fiskās āThe Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest of The Middle Eastā for something a little more up to date.
Lee Childās new novel is not yet published. So Dan Brown would be the perfect beach book. Unfortunately here it is only in Hardback, not an āAirport Editionā - The Hardback weight b asically screwed up our entire carry-on limits on the flights Sunday as we now have to take a laptop and were always taking our entire collection of Camera Kit and Lenses.
I was browsing in Krakow Duty Free no less and there it was. Just like you I thought āI liked the Martianāā¦
It already caused me grief because when I went to check in for my rebooked flight after the delay, my carry-on baggage was 1kkg too much and I ended up having to row with the Station Manager to keep the bloody thing!
And no spoilers - Wonāt open mine until Sunday at the earliest and then only if Gulf Airās Entertanment system is shit! 24th December on the Beach is the plan
I read Inferno(itās shit). I much preferred Craces digested read. Anyone that hasnāt read Inferno and plans to, donāt read below.
Seven kilometres out into the azure waters of the Adriatic, the Provost ā the head of a top-secret organisation called the Cornsortium, which specialised in contriving idiotic plotlines ā stood at the prow of his 237m yacht, the Mendacium. I may have finally taken on a plotline too stupid even for me, he thought.
Dr Elizabeth Sinskey, CEO of the World Health Organisation, combed her Medusa-like grey hair and thought unnecessarily of the glucocorticoid treatment that had destroyed her reproductive system. Her mind then switched to that fateful meeting she had had with Bertand Zobrist. āThe population of the world is growing too fast,ā the billionaire geneticist had said urgently. āIf we are not careful, there will soon be eight billion Dan Brown readers. We must have a cull.ā
āSo letās get this straight. Zobrist left a trail of pointless clues to where the virus wasnāt, so the whole book has been a total waste of time?ā Sinskeyās mouth stretched into a knowing but sad smile. āThatās about it. But at the end of the day, you will still have four billion readers, so you canāt complain.ā
Not reading, but listening to an audio book. Tim Shipmanās Fall Out, the necessary sequel to All Out War. Itās epic, almost 30 hours in length. Itās mostly an examination of the May triumvirate, and how they got it so wrong. Iām up to the part where sheās trying to woo Trump.
The honey moon period, eh?
Excellent so far. Driving up to Liverpool tonight so will have heard considerably more.
As mentioned in another thread, just finished the first two Hannibal Lecter books āRed Dragonā & āThe Silence of the Lambsā in quick succession.
Both excellent, easy to read, tension builders.
If youāve seen the movies then you will definitley enjoy them, the plots are basically the same but with all the extra background information you would expect. in Red Dragon particularly there are 3-4 chapters purely on the title characterās childhood and upbrining that molded him into the beast in the book.
What I like most about the books is that they are reffered to as the Hannibal Lecter books, despite the fact that in the first two books he is barely in them which builds you up to the 3rd book where he is the main protagonist. Itās clever writing by Thomas Harris and works well.