Leon's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 14 Apr 2026 01:22:05 -0700 60 Leon's bookshelf: all 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Birth of Britain (A History of the English Speaking Peoples #1)]]> 43981392 The first volume of the Nobel Prize–winning prime minister’s breathtaking history of Britain explores the birth of a great nation and world power.
 
In the “wilderness” years after Winston S. Churchill unflinchingly guided his country through World War II, he turned his masterful hand to an exhaustive history of the country he loved above all else. And the world discovered that this brilliant military strategist was an equally brilliant storyteller. In 1953, the great man was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for “his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”
 
In this first of four volumes exploring the history of the United Kingdom, The Birth of Britain begins with Caesar’s invasion in 55 BC, and continues through the establishment of the constitutional monarchy, the parliamentary system, and the people who played lead roles in creating democracy in England. The History of the English-Speaking Peoples series remains one of the most compelling and vivid collections of history ever written.
 
“This history will endure; not only because Sir Winston has written it, but also because of its own inherent virtues―its narrative power, its fine judgment of war and politics, of soldiers and statesmen, and even more because it reflects a tradition of what Englishmen in the hey-day of their empire thought and felt about their country’s past.” —The Daily Telegraph]]> 343 Winston S. Churchill 0795330413 Leon 3
This was one of a set of books my wife bought me for our first wedding anniversary. I read the second volume first. I had read somewhere that it was the best place to start.

Having since read the first, I know what I am getting into. Churchill's prose is engaging. In many ways it could have been written yesterday rather than seventy years ago.

This is probably not best understood as history. It is more a framing of a certain view of the world. A set of tropes that are useful when talking to people about their Englishness, or Britishness, or whatever that means to them. We all delude ourselves in one way or another. Churchill's delusions here are probably less harmful than most.

The complaints about it are fair. There is the problem of Whig history — the idea that modern liberal values were simply waiting to be awakened in twelfth and thirteenth century people. Churchill focuses on great men rather than structural or economic causes. He has a strong notion of Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism. That we are somehow profoundly different, and better, than the rest. I am somewhat sympathetic to this. It is probably good for a nation to define itself by the best version of what it can be.

Churchill notes in the preface that publication was delayed first by the war, and then by his own history of it. He writes of looking forward to the institutions being built in his time: "nor does it prevent the erection of structures like United Europe or other similar groupings which may all find their place in the world organisation we have set on." It is funny. The leaders who most aspire to Churchillian virtue seem to be the ones most hostile to the alliances and supranational structures he longed for.

I did not enjoy this as much as the second volume. I am torn between three and five stars. It feels like a three. But there is a chance I will read it again, and if I do I will probably upgrade. Not that Winston will care.

=============================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written]]> 4.49 1956 The Birth of Britain (A History of the English Speaking Peoples #1)
author: Winston S. Churchill
name: Leon
average rating: 4.49
book published: 1956
rating: 3
read at: 2026/04/13
date added: 2026/04/14
shelves:
review:
The Birth of Britain — Winston Churchill

This was one of a set of books my wife bought me for our first wedding anniversary. I read the second volume first. I had read somewhere that it was the best place to start.

Having since read the first, I know what I am getting into. Churchill's prose is engaging. In many ways it could have been written yesterday rather than seventy years ago.

This is probably not best understood as history. It is more a framing of a certain view of the world. A set of tropes that are useful when talking to people about their Englishness, or Britishness, or whatever that means to them. We all delude ourselves in one way or another. Churchill's delusions here are probably less harmful than most.

The complaints about it are fair. There is the problem of Whig history — the idea that modern liberal values were simply waiting to be awakened in twelfth and thirteenth century people. Churchill focuses on great men rather than structural or economic causes. He has a strong notion of Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism. That we are somehow profoundly different, and better, than the rest. I am somewhat sympathetic to this. It is probably good for a nation to define itself by the best version of what it can be.

Churchill notes in the preface that publication was delayed first by the war, and then by his own history of it. He writes of looking forward to the institutions being built in his time: "nor does it prevent the erection of structures like United Europe or other similar groupings which may all find their place in the world organisation we have set on." It is funny. The leaders who most aspire to Churchillian virtue seem to be the ones most hostile to the alliances and supranational structures he longed for.

I did not enjoy this as much as the second volume. I am torn between three and five stars. It feels like a three. But there is a chance I will read it again, and if I do I will probably upgrade. Not that Winston will care.

=============================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written
]]> <![CDATA[Shikake: The Japanese Art of Shaping Behavior Through Design]]> 56157911

As Matsumura shows, a shikake—or “device” in Japanese—is a design that exerts influence on us through subtle nudging, rather than direct command; it encourages a particular behavior without telling its (often unwitting) user the primary purpose of that behavior. For


• Footprints in a store guide shoppers and keep them socially distant

• A basketball hoop placed over a trash can entices children to tidy up their rooms

• A symbol of a shrine in a public square encourages respectfulness

• A staircase painted to look like piano keys prompts exercise through play


Combining traditional Japanese aesthetics with the lessons of behavioral economics, Matsumura reveals how to identify the hidden design cues that already shape our world, and how shikakes can help us confront some of the most pressing challenges of our era, from pandemics to declining civic engagement to climate change and beyond. Mind-bending yet elegant, Shikake presents a tool kit for anyone who wants to create their own mindful designs, for the delight and betterment of us all.]]> 182 Naohiro Matsumura 1631497839 Leon 4 Naohiro Matsumura

Shikake is a Japanese word meaning device or contrivance. Naohiro Matsumura, a professor at Osaka University, has spent fifteen years cataloguing examples of it in the wild. The book is his attempt to turn those observations into a framework.

The central idea is simple. Design your environment to make the right behaviour the path of least resistance. A basketball hoop over a bin makes throwing rubbish away feel like a game. Piano keys painted onto stairs make walking preferable to taking the escalator. Nobody is told what to do. The design does the work.

This has obvious parallels with the concept of nudge. Matsumura argues shikake is distinct. That argument is not entirely convincing. But the distinction matters less than the underlying principle, which is sound.

The book draws a connection that feels important right now. These tools shape behaviour. The question worth asking is which behaviours we want to shape, and whether we will be proud of the answer.

The criticism that this should have been an article is fair and also beside the point. The ideas are well structured. I will return to this book when certain types of problems arise that I need to solve.

=============================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written]]> 3.09 Shikake: The Japanese Art of Shaping Behavior Through Design
author: Naohiro Matsumura
name: Leon
average rating: 3.09
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2026/03/29
date added: 2026/04/14
shelves:
review:
Shikake: The Japanese Art of Shaping Behavior Through Design
Naohiro Matsumura

Shikake is a Japanese word meaning device or contrivance. Naohiro Matsumura, a professor at Osaka University, has spent fifteen years cataloguing examples of it in the wild. The book is his attempt to turn those observations into a framework.

The central idea is simple. Design your environment to make the right behaviour the path of least resistance. A basketball hoop over a bin makes throwing rubbish away feel like a game. Piano keys painted onto stairs make walking preferable to taking the escalator. Nobody is told what to do. The design does the work.

This has obvious parallels with the concept of nudge. Matsumura argues shikake is distinct. That argument is not entirely convincing. But the distinction matters less than the underlying principle, which is sound.

The book draws a connection that feels important right now. These tools shape behaviour. The question worth asking is which behaviours we want to shape, and whether we will be proud of the answer.

The criticism that this should have been an article is fair and also beside the point. The ideas are well structured. I will return to this book when certain types of problems arise that I need to solve.

=============================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written
]]> Soul Music (Discworld, #16) 20253737 'This is a story about sex and drugs and Music With Rocks In.
Well…
…one out of three ain’t bad.'

Being sixteen is always difficult, even more so when there’s a Death in the family. After all, it's hard to grow up normally when Grandfather rides a white horse and wields a scythe. Especially if he decides to take a well-earned moment to uncover the meaning of life and discover himself in the process, so that you have to take over the family business, and everyone mistakes you for the Tooth Fairy.

And especially when you have to face the new and addictive music that has entered Discworld.

It's lawless. It changes people. It's got a beat and you can dance to it.

It's called Music With Rocks In.

And it won't fade away.]]> 387 Terry Pratchett Leon 5
I am on a periodic Discworld reread. This time I am reading in publication order rather than by the thematic groupings I used before. It changes everything. You see Sir Terry more clearly as a human being, working things out in real time.

Soul Music was published in 1994. I had just started university and knew everything. Reading it now, that feels like useful context.

Death takes a leave of absence. Music-with-rocks-in arrives in Ankh-Morpork. The two forces are more connected than they first appear. What holds the novel together is Susan Sto Helit, Death's granddaughter, who steps into the void he leaves behind.

Susan is one of my favourite minor characters in the canon. This book makes me wonder whether Pratchett was thinking of his daughter Rhianna when he wrote her. If so, he was somewhat harsh. "There was something frankly unlovable about the child." The name passage is even better. "Susan... it wasn't a good name, was it? It wasn't a truly bad name, it wasn't like poor Iodine in the fourth form, or Nigella, a name which means 'oops, we wanted a boy'. But it was dull. Susan."

The punning is world-class, even by his standards. Imp y Celyn means bud of the holly in Welsh. I had forgotten that entirely. "You're not Elvish, are you?" lands differently once you know it. "Said Death, gratefully" is the kind of thing you read twice just to confirm it is as good as you thought.

The fourth-wall breaking feels more muted here than in the earlier books. There are a couple of moments, but they are restrained. It reads like growing confidence. By 1994, he knew what Discworld was. He no longer needed to wink at the reader to reassure them.

Rereading this now, I find myself thinking fondly of the person I was when I first read it. That is part of the magic of books you return to.

=============================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written
]]> 4.38 1994 Soul Music (Discworld, #16)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Leon
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2026/03/18
date added: 2026/04/14
shelves:
review:
Soul Music — Terry Pratchett (1994)

I am on a periodic Discworld reread. This time I am reading in publication order rather than by the thematic groupings I used before. It changes everything. You see Sir Terry more clearly as a human being, working things out in real time.

Soul Music was published in 1994. I had just started university and knew everything. Reading it now, that feels like useful context.

Death takes a leave of absence. Music-with-rocks-in arrives in Ankh-Morpork. The two forces are more connected than they first appear. What holds the novel together is Susan Sto Helit, Death's granddaughter, who steps into the void he leaves behind.

Susan is one of my favourite minor characters in the canon. This book makes me wonder whether Pratchett was thinking of his daughter Rhianna when he wrote her. If so, he was somewhat harsh. "There was something frankly unlovable about the child." The name passage is even better. "Susan... it wasn't a good name, was it? It wasn't a truly bad name, it wasn't like poor Iodine in the fourth form, or Nigella, a name which means 'oops, we wanted a boy'. But it was dull. Susan."

The punning is world-class, even by his standards. Imp y Celyn means bud of the holly in Welsh. I had forgotten that entirely. "You're not Elvish, are you?" lands differently once you know it. "Said Death, gratefully" is the kind of thing you read twice just to confirm it is as good as you thought.

The fourth-wall breaking feels more muted here than in the earlier books. There are a couple of moments, but they are restrained. It reads like growing confidence. By 1994, he knew what Discworld was. He no longer needed to wink at the reader to reassure them.

Rereading this now, I find myself thinking fondly of the person I was when I first read it. That is part of the magic of books you return to.

=============================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written

]]> <![CDATA[A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness]]> 236251581 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, a panoptic exploration of consciousness—what it is, who has it, and why—and a meditation on the essence of our humanity

When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: it feels like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, when we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives—scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic—to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life.

When neuroscientists began studying consciousness in the early 1990s, they sought to explain how and why three pounds of spongy gray matter could generate a subjective point of view—assuming that the brain is the source of our perceived reality. Pollan takes us to the cutting edge of the field, where scientists are entertaining more radical (and less materialist) theories of consciousness. He introduces us to “plant neurobiologists” searching for the first flicker of consciousness in plants, scientists striving to engineer feelings into AI, and psychologists and novelists seeking to capture the felt experience of our slippery stream of consciousness.

In Pollan’s dazzling exploration of consciousness, he discovers a world far deeper and stranger than our everyday reality. Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes us into the laboratories of our own minds, ultimately showing us how we might make better use of the gift of awareness to more meaningfully connect with the world and our deepest selves.]]> 301 Michael Pollan 0141996501 Leon 3
I practice meditation. Contemplation on the nature of self is, right now, weirdly uninteresting to me. That puts me at an odd angle to this book.

Pollan surveys the biological basis of consciousness with characteristic thoroughness. He is a skilled journalist. The problem is the subject. Too much of this territory feels like a smoke-addled sixth form debate on the nature of reality.

I struggled to get my head around it. My reading may have fallen short of what the book demands.
It reminded me of Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained. I finished that book without feeling that my knowledge or understanding of the world had grown at all. The experience here was similar.

=============================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written]]> 4.50 2026 A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness
author: Michael Pollan
name: Leon
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2026
rating: 3
read at: 2026/03/20
date added: 2026/04/14
shelves:
review:
A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness — Michael Pollan

I practice meditation. Contemplation on the nature of self is, right now, weirdly uninteresting to me. That puts me at an odd angle to this book.

Pollan surveys the biological basis of consciousness with characteristic thoroughness. He is a skilled journalist. The problem is the subject. Too much of this territory feels like a smoke-addled sixth form debate on the nature of reality.

I struggled to get my head around it. My reading may have fallen short of what the book demands.
It reminded me of Daniel Dennett's Consciousness Explained. I finished that book without feeling that my knowledge or understanding of the world had grown at all. The experience here was similar.

=============================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written
]]> <![CDATA[Sleeper Beach (Titanium Noir, #2)]]> 202330671 From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Karla's Choice, comes a thrilling new detective novel.

On the shore of a rundown holiday town, a young woman washes up dead. Martha Erskine, the matriarch of a local dynasty, suspects a member of her own family might be involved in the murder, and calls in Cal to investigate.

Cal Sounder is a detective first and a Titan second, but it's not easy to make that work. It's hard to be an ordinary guy when you're fundamentally not ordinary anymore. Cal has recently taken a dose of T7, a rare drug that is usually the preserve of the rich, making its users - called the Titans - younger and bigger each time they take it, so that as they age the bodies of the ultra-wealthy become as immense as their bank accounts.

As Cal digs into the crime, he finds this forgotten town is simmering with wage disputes, strikes, and political conflict, and no one is quite who they say they are - not even the victim. As Cal second-guesses everyone he meets, he is forced to confront his own identity and ask himself who he wants to be from the far side of the mirror of power, age and greed.

Sleeper Beach is a hugely original, powerful and action-packed novel from the acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway.]]> 256 Nick Harkaway 147215889X Leon 4
Nick Harkaway is the son of John le Carré. Talent, it seems, runs in the family.

This is the second book in the Titanium Noir series. It follows detective Cal Sounder, now a Titan himself, into a faded coastal town built around a crime and a dying workforce. The reveal is slow. The style is noir. It is really fun to read.

You do not need to pay attention to every word. But you can. And if you do, you will enjoy it more.

The Titans are physically enormous. The visual effects required to put them on screen would have been prohibitively expensive ten or twenty years ago. Now they would not be. It would be interesting to see what this looks like on screen.

As the series develops, Harkaway moves further into science fiction territory. He considers the social, economic and technological implications of the Titan process. What does it mean to freeze a segment of humanity in biological amber while the rest of the world ages and decays around them?

I have been reading a great deal recently to learn. This review series exists partly for that reason. It is good, sometimes, just to relax. Sleeper Beach is a well-written, engaging book by an author I admire. There is real value in that too.


=============================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written]]> 3.90 2025 Sleeper Beach (Titanium Noir, #2)
author: Nick Harkaway
name: Leon
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2026/03/14
date added: 2026/04/14
shelves:
review:
Sleeper Beach Nick Harkaway, 2025

Nick Harkaway is the son of John le Carré. Talent, it seems, runs in the family.

This is the second book in the Titanium Noir series. It follows detective Cal Sounder, now a Titan himself, into a faded coastal town built around a crime and a dying workforce. The reveal is slow. The style is noir. It is really fun to read.

You do not need to pay attention to every word. But you can. And if you do, you will enjoy it more.

The Titans are physically enormous. The visual effects required to put them on screen would have been prohibitively expensive ten or twenty years ago. Now they would not be. It would be interesting to see what this looks like on screen.

As the series develops, Harkaway moves further into science fiction territory. He considers the social, economic and technological implications of the Titan process. What does it mean to freeze a segment of humanity in biological amber while the rest of the world ages and decays around them?

I have been reading a great deal recently to learn. This review series exists partly for that reason. It is good, sometimes, just to relax. Sleeper Beach is a well-written, engaging book by an author I admire. There is real value in that too.


=============================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written
]]> <![CDATA[The Way of Excellence: A Guide to True Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World]]> 242081615 'A powerful alternative to burnout culture and digital distraction' CHARLES DUHIGG, author of the bestsellers The Power of Habit and Supercommunicators

Are the conveniences and distractions of modern life undermining your personal growth and ability to realise your true potential?

Each of us has an innate drive for progress and growth. It's why we feel alive and fulfilled when we channel that drive into meaningful goals, be it starting a business, writing a book, learning an instrument, studying a craft or training for a marathon. Excellence is not a destination so much as an energising process of growth and becoming - one that yields our best performances and, every bit as important, our best selves. Except too often the hustle of our demanding, distracting and fad-driven lives works against us, leaving us frustrated, unfulfilled and unable to focus on what really matters.

Performance coach and international bestselling author Brad Stulberg offers a fascinating new theory of excellence and why our pursuit of it is integral to personal growth, satisfaction and lasting well-being. First exploring the new science of why we are hardwired for excellence and what true excellence really is, he then outlines the core mindsets, habits and practices to help us cultivate excellence in ourselves and others.

Eye-opening, informative and empowering, The Way of Excellence will give you a new perspective on prioritising excellence and building a more fulfilling life around it.]]> 279 Brad Stulberg 1788709810 Leon 4 I am not sure how this book ended up on my reading list. When I found it, I had a bit of a negative emotional reaction. That was probably telling in itself.
I do not read much self-help. Two things made this one relevant in 2026: the noise of digital life, and the question of what human beings actually offer in the age of large language models.
Stulberg's argument is simple. We have an innate drive for progress and growth. Excellence is less a destination and more a process of becoming. Modern life gives us too many opportunities to chase something that feels like excellence but is a pale imitation. Doomscrolling is the obvious example. Our nervous systems cannot easily tell the difference.
He makes a useful distinction. Excellence combines mastery and mattering. You need both. Competence without meaning is hollow. Meaning without competence is frustrating.
Is this an article that became a book? Perhaps. But the timing is good. As AI helps knowledge workers reach 85% of any output without effort, the remaining 15% is the only territory that matters. Stulberg does not frame it this way, but the implication is hard to miss. He argues that we perform best when we feel our way forward, experiencing an intimate and involved absorption with our activity. That is precisely what prompting a model does not give you.
The first section covers the philosophy. The second, titled Mindsets, Habits, and Practice, is where the book earns its keep. It works through sixteen qualities in sequence:
Care, Goals, Consistency, Trade-offs, Focus, Discipline, Renewal, Confidence, Patience, Routine, Gumption, Curiosity, Failure, Community, Joy, Completion.
Gumption is the one that sticks. It is an underused word for an undervalued quality.
One passage stayed with me. An attitude of nonchalance, Stulberg writes, is like going through life wrapped in bubble wrap. You protect yourself from scratches. You never grow into who you are meant to be.
That is a good line. The book has several of them.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written]]> 4.44 The Way of Excellence: A Guide to True Greatness and Deep Satisfaction in a Chaotic World
author: Brad Stulberg
name: Leon
average rating: 4.44
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2026/03/11
date added: 2026/04/14
shelves:
review:
The Way of Excellence — Brad Stulberg
I am not sure how this book ended up on my reading list. When I found it, I had a bit of a negative emotional reaction. That was probably telling in itself.
I do not read much self-help. Two things made this one relevant in 2026: the noise of digital life, and the question of what human beings actually offer in the age of large language models.
Stulberg's argument is simple. We have an innate drive for progress and growth. Excellence is less a destination and more a process of becoming. Modern life gives us too many opportunities to chase something that feels like excellence but is a pale imitation. Doomscrolling is the obvious example. Our nervous systems cannot easily tell the difference.
He makes a useful distinction. Excellence combines mastery and mattering. You need both. Competence without meaning is hollow. Meaning without competence is frustrating.
Is this an article that became a book? Perhaps. But the timing is good. As AI helps knowledge workers reach 85% of any output without effort, the remaining 15% is the only territory that matters. Stulberg does not frame it this way, but the implication is hard to miss. He argues that we perform best when we feel our way forward, experiencing an intimate and involved absorption with our activity. That is precisely what prompting a model does not give you.
The first section covers the philosophy. The second, titled Mindsets, Habits, and Practice, is where the book earns its keep. It works through sixteen qualities in sequence:
Care, Goals, Consistency, Trade-offs, Focus, Discipline, Renewal, Confidence, Patience, Routine, Gumption, Curiosity, Failure, Community, Joy, Completion.
Gumption is the one that sticks. It is an underused word for an undervalued quality.
One passage stayed with me. An attitude of nonchalance, Stulberg writes, is like going through life wrapped in bubble wrap. You protect yourself from scratches. You never grow into who you are meant to be.
That is a good line. The book has several of them.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written
]]> <![CDATA[This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race]]> 54144853 WINNER OF THE FT & McKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2021The instant New York Times bestsellerA Financial Times and The Times Book of the Year'A terrifying exposé' The Times'Part John le Carré . . . Spellbinding' New YorkerWe plug in anything we can to the internet. We can control our entire lives, economy and grid via a remote web control. But over the past decade, as this transformation took place, we never paused to think that we were also creating the world's largest attack surface. And that the same nation that maintains the greatest cyber advantage on earth could also be among its most vulnerable.Filled with spies, hackers, arms dealers and a few unsung heroes, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends is an astonishing and gripping feat of journalism. Drawing on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews, Nicole Perlroth lifts the curtain on a market in shadow, revealing the urgent threat faced by us all if we cannot bring the global cyber arms race to heel.]]> 505 Nicole Perlroth 1526629836 Leon 4
The book unselfconsciously surfaces some of the core questions of 2026. She writes about people wrestling with the ethics of helping "other" countries' governments hack successfully. I am not American. What is ethical for me?

The Cold War parallel is not original, but it is apt. Right now rhymes loudly with the 1960s and 1970s.
The misreading of Dune is amusing rather than annoying. It does raise the Gell-Mann amnesia question. Some investigation into the infosec community's reception is reassuring. The main criticisms are that the book focuses too heavily on Europe and the United States. Every book has to focus on something.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written]]> 4.40 2021 This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race
author: Nicole Perlroth
name: Leon
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2026/03/07
date added: 2026/03/21
shelves:
review:
Perlroth has written a gripping history of the cyber weapons trade. The research is thorough. The stories are well woven together. It reads like journalism, because it is journalism.

The book unselfconsciously surfaces some of the core questions of 2026. She writes about people wrestling with the ethics of helping "other" countries' governments hack successfully. I am not American. What is ethical for me?

The Cold War parallel is not original, but it is apt. Right now rhymes loudly with the 1960s and 1970s.
The misreading of Dune is amusing rather than annoying. It does raise the Gell-Mann amnesia question. Some investigation into the infosec community's reception is reassuring. The main criticisms are that the book focuses too heavily on Europe and the United States. Every book has to focus on something.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written
]]> Earth 19181179 TIME IS RUNNING OUTDecades from now, an artificial black hole has fallen into the Earth's core. As scientists frantically work to prevent the ultimate disaster, they discover that the entire planet could be destroyed within a year.But while they look for an answer, some claim that the only way to save Earth is to let its human inhabitants become to reset the evolutionary clock and start over.Earth is the Hugo and Locus Award-nominated novel that, with countless accurate predictions, earned David Brin his reputation as a visionary futurologist. ]]> 756 David Brin 1405514418 Leon 4 Written in 1990 and set in 2038, Earth is broad and ambitious. It contains a lot and executes well. Reading it reminded me of watching The X-Files. It stands up well, but it is also very much of its time. And gosh, it was a stylish time.

What Brin Was Worried About

The preoccupations of 1990 are visible in every chapter. A world ozone conference in Patagonia. Overpopulation as a civilisational crisis. These felt like the defining problems of the age. They carry the same energy as "atomics" in the Foundation series. Urgent and central at the time of writing. Something else entirely, in retrospect.

Space had given up on itself. One passage stopped me cold. The new rule for harder times was simple: space had to pay for itself with near-term rewards. I remember reading that the first time. I felt disappointed that even in this science fiction world, we had abandoned the stars.

South Africa is a racist state which oppresses the white minority. That must have seemed, in 1991, like a plausible outcome worth exploring. It speaks to a particular moment of uncertainty about what came after apartheid.

About Accurate

Some of the predictions feel lazy and unimpressive. Then you remember this was written 35 years ago.

Refugees come up constantly. The idea of people fleeing the spoiled south for the far north of the Soviet Union. Refugee movements as one of the defining dynamics of the new age. That landed.
People try to escape to New Zealand in the case of ecological disaster. That also landed.

There is a section where a protagonist appears to be using a swarm of agents to carry out a research task. She frets about how quickly the tokens are being used up. Brin wrote that in 1990. It is more prescient than most things written about AI last year.

Then there is Emily Post. An agent that gives you advice on how to be less offensive in online debate. Brin saw the problem of internet discourse coming, and imagined the solution.

I want Emily Post.

The novel's grasp of internet debate, of personalised filtering, of a media-centric global information network: about accurate.

The Helvetian War

Switzerland is the enemy. The shadowy bankers finally face a reckoning. A war pitting most of the earth against one small, wealthy, secretive nation.

Someone in a group chat I am part of recently said: if the world went to war with Switzerland, I might bet on Switzerland. All it actually took in our timeline to defeat the Swiss banking model was America saying: no, actually.

Interestingly, Switzerland plays an outsized role in the Kim Stanley Robinson Mars series, written just a couple of years later. This time they are the heroes.

Is This A Nihilist Book?

There is a question sitting underneath Earth. Humanity ruined the world. All we can do is slow the damage. Is that a fundamentally nihilist perspective?

Brin does not seem to think so. There is an implicit faith in institutions throughout the book. Supra-national bodies. Something like the UN arriving at sober answers. That faith feels more dated now than the token-burning research agent.

Around page 433, the novel becomes The Three Body Problem. The scope expands. The canvas widens beyond the ecological and political into something stranger.

The Infatuation Problem,/b>

There is a passage in the book that is a contemplation on the nature of infatuation. Why people constantly seek novelty. Why change feels like progress even when it is not.
That passage feels timely in the era of AI. It also made me reflect on my own desire to change and improve. Perhaps the ancients would look down on me. Ah well.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written

]]> 4.03 1990 Earth
author: David Brin
name: Leon
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2026/02/28
date added: 2026/03/21
shelves:
review:
Every decade imagines tomorrow differently. The 1990s feel recent to me. I first read Earth in my early 20s, not so long after it was published. Reading it again proved otherwise.
Written in 1990 and set in 2038, Earth is broad and ambitious. It contains a lot and executes well. Reading it reminded me of watching The X-Files. It stands up well, but it is also very much of its time. And gosh, it was a stylish time.

What Brin Was Worried About

The preoccupations of 1990 are visible in every chapter. A world ozone conference in Patagonia. Overpopulation as a civilisational crisis. These felt like the defining problems of the age. They carry the same energy as "atomics" in the Foundation series. Urgent and central at the time of writing. Something else entirely, in retrospect.

Space had given up on itself. One passage stopped me cold. The new rule for harder times was simple: space had to pay for itself with near-term rewards. I remember reading that the first time. I felt disappointed that even in this science fiction world, we had abandoned the stars.

South Africa is a racist state which oppresses the white minority. That must have seemed, in 1991, like a plausible outcome worth exploring. It speaks to a particular moment of uncertainty about what came after apartheid.

About Accurate

Some of the predictions feel lazy and unimpressive. Then you remember this was written 35 years ago.

Refugees come up constantly. The idea of people fleeing the spoiled south for the far north of the Soviet Union. Refugee movements as one of the defining dynamics of the new age. That landed.
People try to escape to New Zealand in the case of ecological disaster. That also landed.

There is a section where a protagonist appears to be using a swarm of agents to carry out a research task. She frets about how quickly the tokens are being used up. Brin wrote that in 1990. It is more prescient than most things written about AI last year.

Then there is Emily Post. An agent that gives you advice on how to be less offensive in online debate. Brin saw the problem of internet discourse coming, and imagined the solution.

I want Emily Post.

The novel's grasp of internet debate, of personalised filtering, of a media-centric global information network: about accurate.

The Helvetian War

Switzerland is the enemy. The shadowy bankers finally face a reckoning. A war pitting most of the earth against one small, wealthy, secretive nation.

Someone in a group chat I am part of recently said: if the world went to war with Switzerland, I might bet on Switzerland. All it actually took in our timeline to defeat the Swiss banking model was America saying: no, actually.

Interestingly, Switzerland plays an outsized role in the Kim Stanley Robinson Mars series, written just a couple of years later. This time they are the heroes.

Is This A Nihilist Book?

There is a question sitting underneath Earth. Humanity ruined the world. All we can do is slow the damage. Is that a fundamentally nihilist perspective?

Brin does not seem to think so. There is an implicit faith in institutions throughout the book. Supra-national bodies. Something like the UN arriving at sober answers. That faith feels more dated now than the token-burning research agent.

Around page 433, the novel becomes The Three Body Problem. The scope expands. The canvas widens beyond the ecological and political into something stranger.

The Infatuation Problem,/b>

There is a passage in the book that is a contemplation on the nature of infatuation. Why people constantly seek novelty. Why change feels like progress even when it is not.
That passage feels timely in the era of AI. It also made me reflect on my own desire to change and improve. Perhaps the ancients would look down on me. Ah well.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written


]]> <![CDATA[Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love]]> 240045313 'Fantastic. A variety of useful insights and examples that converge into one story that underlies remarkable success in nearly any field' JAMES CLEAR, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ATOMIC HABITS

'Schools never teach a how to find work you love class. Bill Gurley clearly maps the path with sharp insights and real tools. Strongly recommended' TONY FADELL, IPOD INVENTOR, IPHONE CO-INVENTOR, NEST FOUNDER, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF BUILD

'Wicked smart and original, Bill pulls apart success stories and reverse engineers them for us. Thank you, Bill!' JEFF BEZOS, FOUNDER OF AMAZON
_________

You spend an estimated 80,000 hours of your life at work. Shouldn’t that time be spent doing something you love?

Bill Gurley has spent the past two decades working with people who have climbed to the top in fields ranging from technology to hospitality to entertainment?and who have thrived in their chosen profession. Yet, as Gurley’s new research with the Wharton School of Business reveals, 6 in 10 of us eventually regret our career choices.
So, what’s the secret? How do you avoid the trap of career regret? Is there a formula to finding your dream job?

Now, in Runnin’ Down a Dream, Gurley breaks down the components of balancing joy with success, identifying six key principles that will set you up for a flourishing, purpose-filled career,




Chase your curiosityHone your craftGo where the action isGive back generously
Through his own captivating, straight-talking advice Gurley brings these components of success to life, and reveals stories of a handful of iconic individuals who epitomize them.

Whether starting out or looking to make a change, this book will inspire you to step off the conveyer belt, find the things that make you insatiably curious, and turn those fascinations into a thriving career?where the work doesn’t feel like work at all.

Praise for Runnin’ Down a

‘This inspiring book is an invitation to shift into ‘discover mode,’ where curiosity replaces fear and real growth begins. Jonathan Haidt, bestselling author of The Anxious Generation

‘This brilliantly useful book is the antidote to entitlement. Everyone should read it’ Annie Duke, bestselling author of Thinking in Bets, How to Decide, and Quit

‘This book might save you from a career you’ll regret.’ Adam Grant, bestselling author of Hidden Potential and Think Again, and host of the podcast

‘A great book for a young person who won’t settle for putting their passion to one side. This book shows how to actually pursue that passion as a career’ Greg Lukianoff, bestselling co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind
]]> 264 Bill Gurley 1529949971 Leon 0 currently-reading 4.60 Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love
author: Bill Gurley
name: Leon
average rating: 4.60
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/03/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference]]> 230509090 From two of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, what you need to know about AI—and how to defend yourself against bogus AI claims and products

Confused about AI and worried about what it means for your future and the future of the world? You’re not alone. AI is everywhere—and few things are surrounded by so much hype, misinformation, and misunderstanding. In AI Snake Oil, computer scientists Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor cut through the confusion to give you an essential understanding of how AI works and why it often doesn’t, where it might be useful or harmful, and when you should suspect that companies are using AI hype to sell AI snake oil—products that don’t work, and probably never will.

While acknowledging the potential of some AI, such as ChatGPT, AI Snake Oil uncovers rampant misleading claims about the capabilities of AI and describes the serious harms AI is already causing in how it’s being built, marketed, and used in areas such as education, medicine, hiring, banking, insurance, and criminal justice. The book explains the crucial differences between types of AI, why organizations are falling for AI snake oil, why AI can’t fix social media, why AI isn’t an existential risk, and why we should be far more worried about what people will do with AI than about anything AI will do on its own. The book also warns of the dangers of a world where AI continues to be controlled by largely unaccountable big tech companies.

By revealing AI’s limits and real risks, AI Snake Oil will help you make better decisions about whether and how to use AI at work and home.]]> 374 Arvind Narayanan 0691277923 Leon 4
Most products claiming to forecast human behaviour are scientifically unsound, and the hype around them is dangerous.

The authors are thoughtful and the book is well written. They engage seriously with the literature, including Philip Tetlock's work on forecasting, and something is genuinely added to your understanding. But the core thesis could have been made in a long essay.

Some of the broader conclusions feel muddier and less well defined than the central argument, and somewhat hysterically argued. The discussion of Google Flu Trends reads more like an example of Goodhart's Law than a specific indictment of AI. The replication crisis sections feel borrowed rather than original.

Where the book earns its keep is in the clarity of its central claim. Do not make consequential decisions based on AI prediction. That is worth saying plainly, and they say it well. Their scepticism about AGI as a meaningful concept is a reasonable bonus conclusion.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written
]]> 4.22 2024 AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference
author: Arvind Narayanan
name: Leon
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2026/02/11
date added: 2026/02/19
shelves:
review:
AI Snake Oil makes one important argument. Predictive AI does not work.

Most products claiming to forecast human behaviour are scientifically unsound, and the hype around them is dangerous.

The authors are thoughtful and the book is well written. They engage seriously with the literature, including Philip Tetlock's work on forecasting, and something is genuinely added to your understanding. But the core thesis could have been made in a long essay.

Some of the broader conclusions feel muddier and less well defined than the central argument, and somewhat hysterically argued. The discussion of Google Flu Trends reads more like an example of Goodhart's Law than a specific indictment of AI. The replication crisis sections feel borrowed rather than original.

Where the book earns its keep is in the clarity of its central claim. Do not make consequential decisions based on AI prediction. That is worth saying plainly, and they say it well. Their scepticism about AGI as a meaningful concept is a reasonable bonus conclusion.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written

]]> Men at Arms (Discworld, #15) 8704926 'What's so hard about pulling a sword out of a stone? The real work's already been done. You ought to make yourself useful and find the man who put the sword in the stone in the first place.'

The City Watch needs MEN! But what it's got includes Corporal Carrot (technically a dwarf), Lance-constable Cuddy (really a dwarf), Lance-constable Detritus (a troll), Lance-constable Angua (a woman... most of the time) and Corporal Nobbs (disqualified from the human race for shoving).

And they need all the help they can get, because someone in Ankh-Morpork has been getting dangerous ideas - about crowns and legendary swords, and destiny.

And the problem with destiny is, of course, that she is not always careful where she points her finger. One minute you might be minding your own business on a normal if not spectacular career path, the next you might be in the frame for the big job, like saving the world...]]> 363 Terry Pratchett Leon 5
But that judgement is wrong. This is unexciting in the same way a Glenfiddich 15 year old is unexciting. There are no sharp edges. It all just works. There is a reason you go back to it time after time.

This is the flawless long middle period. Pratchett is not still getting into his stride. He is not figuring out the limits of the stories this universe can tell. He is not railing against the injustice of mortality. What is good about this book is what is good about all the books. That sounds like faint praise. It is not.
Vimes is preparing to leave the Watch. He is about to marry Sybil Ramkin, the richest woman in Ankh-Morpork. Carrot is already hugely central. The Watch is expanding with new recruits who reflect the city's "ethnic makeup." A dwarf. A troll. A woman who is a woman most of the time. This is a passing of the torch that does not quite happen.

The gonne is interesting. This is Pratchett's first foray into how technology changes society. A single firearm arrives in Ankh-Morpork. It has agency. It seduces its wielders. When I was reading these books as they came out, I loved it when a new part of the industrial revolution saga appeared. They are still interesting to me. But somehow they do not feel as special now. His timeless observations on ethics and morality and human nature feel more important. His observations on culture and history and economics seem a little less so.

This book introduces Vimes economics. "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars."

This passage has become a standard on the internet. It is good to see Sir Terry invoked so frequently. It is also interesting to consider context. This book was published in 1993. Since then, cheap imports and improved manufacturing processes mean that cheap boots have got a lot cheaper. Fancy expensive boots have become much more expensive. Maybe if he were writing now, he would come up with the Vimes theory of housing.

The clowns subplot deserves attention. "It's his real nose." The idea that, for a clown, the way they paint their faces and their costume noses represents their real identity. More than the humdrum human face beneath it. This is really nicely done. It shows a level of mastery that this is a detail he just casually throws into the novel, rather than making it the big reveal. He trusts the reader to notice.

The dogs subplot offers a mirror for humanity. The need to belong in tension with the need to be true to yourself. Big Fido and Gaspode. A werewolf is part human, part wolf. Like a dog. But also, in addition to the symbolism and opportunity for exploration of the human condition, you get the idea that Pratchett rather just likes dogs.

Vetinari gets what he wants by pushing in the opposite direction. It is lovely to see his absurd level of confidence and his inability to ever put a foot wrong. We would all like to imagine that the shadowy characters with control over our lives are as competent as him.

The Watch members are lovely, well observed characters. You have worked or studied with people like this. Pratchett cherishes all his characters. That is why they are so well observed.

There are fewer fourth wall breaks here than in earlier books. "A bit like British Rail." He is growing more confident. But you get the sense he does not quite yet know he is "Terry Pratchett." Maybe he never really knew. That might explain why his work ethic remained strong. He never suffered from audience capture. He never lost his authentic voice.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written
]]> 4.64 1993 Men at Arms (Discworld, #15)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Leon
average rating: 4.64
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at: 2026/02/07
date added: 2026/02/10
shelves:
review:
Men at Arms is the fifteenth Discworld novel. It is the second book about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. It is also, on first reading, perhaps the least exciting of the books in publish order so far.

But that judgement is wrong. This is unexciting in the same way a Glenfiddich 15 year old is unexciting. There are no sharp edges. It all just works. There is a reason you go back to it time after time.

This is the flawless long middle period. Pratchett is not still getting into his stride. He is not figuring out the limits of the stories this universe can tell. He is not railing against the injustice of mortality. What is good about this book is what is good about all the books. That sounds like faint praise. It is not.
Vimes is preparing to leave the Watch. He is about to marry Sybil Ramkin, the richest woman in Ankh-Morpork. Carrot is already hugely central. The Watch is expanding with new recruits who reflect the city's "ethnic makeup." A dwarf. A troll. A woman who is a woman most of the time. This is a passing of the torch that does not quite happen.

The gonne is interesting. This is Pratchett's first foray into how technology changes society. A single firearm arrives in Ankh-Morpork. It has agency. It seduces its wielders. When I was reading these books as they came out, I loved it when a new part of the industrial revolution saga appeared. They are still interesting to me. But somehow they do not feel as special now. His timeless observations on ethics and morality and human nature feel more important. His observations on culture and history and economics seem a little less so.

This book introduces Vimes economics. "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars."

This passage has become a standard on the internet. It is good to see Sir Terry invoked so frequently. It is also interesting to consider context. This book was published in 1993. Since then, cheap imports and improved manufacturing processes mean that cheap boots have got a lot cheaper. Fancy expensive boots have become much more expensive. Maybe if he were writing now, he would come up with the Vimes theory of housing.

The clowns subplot deserves attention. "It's his real nose." The idea that, for a clown, the way they paint their faces and their costume noses represents their real identity. More than the humdrum human face beneath it. This is really nicely done. It shows a level of mastery that this is a detail he just casually throws into the novel, rather than making it the big reveal. He trusts the reader to notice.

The dogs subplot offers a mirror for humanity. The need to belong in tension with the need to be true to yourself. Big Fido and Gaspode. A werewolf is part human, part wolf. Like a dog. But also, in addition to the symbolism and opportunity for exploration of the human condition, you get the idea that Pratchett rather just likes dogs.

Vetinari gets what he wants by pushing in the opposite direction. It is lovely to see his absurd level of confidence and his inability to ever put a foot wrong. We would all like to imagine that the shadowy characters with control over our lives are as competent as him.

The Watch members are lovely, well observed characters. You have worked or studied with people like this. Pratchett cherishes all his characters. That is why they are so well observed.

There are fewer fourth wall breaks here than in earlier books. "A bit like British Rail." He is growing more confident. But you get the sense he does not quite yet know he is "Terry Pratchett." Maybe he never really knew. That might explain why his work ethic remained strong. He never suffered from audience capture. He never lost his authentic voice.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I am trying to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me bury each book more deeply in my mental machinery.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written

]]> Napoleon the Great 30375037 From Andrew Roberts, author of the Sunday Times bestseller The Storm of War, this is the definitive modern biography of Napoleon

It has become all too common for Napoleon Bonaparte's biographers to approach him as a figure to be reviled, bent on world domination, practically a proto-Hitler. Here, after years of study extending even to visits paid to St Helena and 53 of Napoleon's 56 battlefields, Andrew Roberts has created a true portrait of the mind, the life, and the military and above all political genius of a fundamentally constructive ruler. This is the Napoleon, Roberts reminds us, whose peacetime activity produced countless indispensable civic innovations - and whose Napoleonic Code provided the blueprint for civil law systems still in use around the world today.

It is one of the greatest lives in world history, which here has found its ideal biographer. The sheer enjoyment which this book will give anyone who loves history is enormous.

]]> 884 Andrew Roberts Leon 4 Blind Spot

Continental European history is a blind spot for me. I know American history reasonably well. British history gets covered. But the mechanics of European power politics between 1789 and 1815 remained fuzzy.

Andrew Roberts positions this biography as different from other Napoleon histories. I cannot judge that claim. I lack the reference frame. This might be a feature rather than a bug. I approached the book without the baggage of previous Napoleon narratives.

What struck me was not whether Roberts got Napoleon right. It was how many contemporary problems Napoleon grappled with first.

Great Man vs. Systems

We talk about Great Man theory of history versus the broad brush of social and economic change. Both were happening at the same time. Napoleon could not have had his trajectory if he were not in a time of such change. Revolutionary France created the conditions. By the same token, he clearly had some level of specific genius.

His rise was rapid and precocious. Not as rare then as it might be now. The revolutionary period accelerated everything. Careers that would have taken decades compressed into years. Something about the time as well as the person.

He was incredibly focused on the details. Not all details. The details that matter. For Napoleon, speed was key. This put me in mind of the quote about armchair generals discussing tactics and strategy while professionals consider logistics.

When discussing the possible invasion of Britain, Napoleon wrote that it seemed impossible to gain the necessary promptness of execution. John Boyd would later formalize this as the OODA loop. At some level, the one with the fastest clock speed wins. Napoleon understood this instinctively.

Nation-State Building

This was the era when the nation state was being created. If the concept of Germany did not exist, we would be required to invent it. Napoleon was not just fighting wars. He was building institutions.
The département–arrondissement–commune system is still in place today. There is something about a period of intentional institution building that seems relevant. We stumble into most of our governance structures. They evolve. They accrete. Napoleon built them deliberately.

The linguistic shifts matter too. Monsieur and Madame replaced citoyen and citoyenne. The importance to French people of saying bonjour madame in a shop now resonates more clearly. In the same way that man came into African American vernacular as an overt way of not saying boy, monsieur is explicitly not saying citoyen.

Words carry political weight. Revolutionary France tried to erase the old social markers. Napoleon brought them back. Not because he loved aristocracy. Because people needed the familiar structures to make sense of their world.

The pre-revolutionary French economy, especially in areas like Lyons, had been dependent on luxury goods. Lyons was the centre of the European silk industry. Plus ça change. France still sells luxury. The underlying economic structure persists across regime changes.

The Continental System

Napoleon lost militarily rather than politically. This surprised me. I had assumed his downfall came from overreach or domestic opposition. It came from the battlefield. His opponents adopted his techniques and beat him with them.

But the military failure stemmed from an economic failure. The Continental System. Napoleon could not invade Britain after Trafalgar. The Royal Navy controlled the seas. So he turned to economic warfare.

The Berlin Decree of 1806 forbade all European nations from trading with Britain. If Napoleon controlled the ports of Europe, he could prevent British products from landing. Britain depended on European trade. Cutting off that trade would ruin the British economy and force it to sue for peace.

This required total compliance. Every European port had to stay closed. One defector undermined the system. Napoleon could not enforce the blockade. He lacked naval power. He controlled only the ports. Britain controlled the water between them.

Smuggling exploded. Local populations actively resisted. Even Napoleon's own customs officials took bribes to turn a blind eye. The system hurt France more than Britain. Industries collapsed across Europe. Southern France suffered. Port cities like Marseille and Bordeaux saw trade vanish.
Russia withdrew from the system in 1810. Napoleon could not tolerate this. Russian defection would cascade. Other nations would follow. The whole structure would collapse. So he invaded Russia in 1812 with hundreds of thousands of men.

The invasion was a disaster. The Continental System's failure triggered Napoleon's ultimate military defeat. He could not solve the coordination problem at scale. You cannot force alignment without consent.

Medium Powers in 2026

Mark Carney gave a speech at Davos two weeks ago. He argued that the rules-based international order has experienced a rupture. Great powers have market size and military capacity to dictate terms. Medium powers do not.

His crucial line: when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. If we are not at the table, we are on the menu.

His solution: medium powers must band together. Build strategic autonomy. Reduce vulnerability to great power leverage. Stop performing sovereignty while accepting subordination.

The parallel to Napoleon is almost exact. Napoleon faced the coordination problem from the other side. He was the hegemon trying to force alignment. Carney represents the medium powers trying to coordinate against hegemons. Both require solving the same problem. Collective action at scale. Both vulnerable to the same failure mode. Defection.

Napoleon tried to use economic integration as a weapon. Tariffs as leverage. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. This is Carney's description of what great powers do today. Trump threatens tariffs. China uses market access for coercion. The tactics have not changed.

Napoleon learned that you cannot enforce compliance at that scale. The British had alternatives. They found new markets. British exports rose during the Continental System despite Napoleon's blockade. The Empire filled the commercial vacuum.

Medium powers today face the inverse problem. How do you coordinate when great powers can pick you off one by one? How do you build collective power without a central enforcer?

Napoleon had central enforcement capacity. He had the largest army in Europe. It was not enough. The system required willing participation. When that collapsed, military force could not substitute.
What We Build vs. What We Inherit

There is a tension in the book between Napoleon as builder and Napoleon as destroyer. He codified French law. He built administrative systems that persist. He also burned Moscow. He conscripted hundreds of thousands to die in foreign fields.

Roberts does not resolve this tension. Perhaps it cannot be resolved. Great state builders are often terrible for the people who live through their state building. The institutions that survive might justify the cost. Or they might not.

We still live in nation states. We still think in terms of national interest and territorial sovereignty. Napoleon did not invent these concepts. He crystallized them. Made them the organizing principle of European politics.

Whether this was good depends on your timeframe. In the short term, it meant endless war. Millions dead. Economies shattered. In the long term, it meant stable borders and clear jurisdictions. The département system works. French administrative law provides a model.

The question is whether you could have gotten the institutions without the wars. Probably not. Institutional change requires crisis. Napoleon provided the crisis. The institutions emerged from the wreckage.

Speed and Failure

Napoleon understood that speed matters. Faster decision cycles win. Better logistics win. The details that matter win. He lost anyway.

His opponents learned. They adopted his organizational methods. They improved their logistics. They coordinated against him. The speed advantage disappeared.

This is the pattern. Military innovation gives temporary advantage. The advantage dissipates as others copy the innovation. Then you need the next innovation. Napoleon ran out of innovations before he ran out of enemies.

The Continental System was his attempt at a different kind of innovation. Economic warfare instead of military conquest. It failed because economic systems are harder to control than armies. Markets route around damage. People smuggle. Officials take bribes.

You can command an army. You cannot command an economy. Not at that scale. Not without consent.

What I Learned

Napoleon's concerns about the press and bankers were not paranoia. They were accurate threat assessment. Information flows and capital flows determine political outcomes. He could not control either.

Institution building matters. The structures Napoleon built outlasted his empire. The département system still functions. The legal codes still apply.

Alignment problems at scale are hard. Napoleon tried to solve one and failed. We are trying to solve similar problems today. The tactics change. The underlying dynamics do not.

Military genius can lose militarily. Napoleon was among the greatest battlefield commanders in history. His opponents beat him anyway. They learned his methods. They coordinated. They waited him out.

The medium powers today face the same challenge. How do you build collective power? How do you maintain alignment? How do you avoid defection?

Napoleon tried to answer these questions from the hegemon's perspective. He failed. Carney is trying to answer them from the medium power perspective. We will see if he succeeds.

Roberts wrote a comprehensive biography. I came to it knowing almost nothing about Napoleon. I left understanding why these questions still matter. Not because Napoleon was a genius. Because the problems he faced have not been solved.

We still struggle with coordination at scale. We still face tensions between institutional building and human cost. We still try to use economic integration as both weapon and shield.

Napoleon lost. The institutions survived. Whether that counts as success depends on what you value.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me remember each book more clearly, and if it has lessons to teach - learn them.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.]]> 4.49 2014 Napoleon the Great
author: Andrew Roberts
name: Leon
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2026/02/01
date added: 2026/02/01
shelves:
review:
Blind Spot

Continental European history is a blind spot for me. I know American history reasonably well. British history gets covered. But the mechanics of European power politics between 1789 and 1815 remained fuzzy.

Andrew Roberts positions this biography as different from other Napoleon histories. I cannot judge that claim. I lack the reference frame. This might be a feature rather than a bug. I approached the book without the baggage of previous Napoleon narratives.

What struck me was not whether Roberts got Napoleon right. It was how many contemporary problems Napoleon grappled with first.

Great Man vs. Systems

We talk about Great Man theory of history versus the broad brush of social and economic change. Both were happening at the same time. Napoleon could not have had his trajectory if he were not in a time of such change. Revolutionary France created the conditions. By the same token, he clearly had some level of specific genius.

His rise was rapid and precocious. Not as rare then as it might be now. The revolutionary period accelerated everything. Careers that would have taken decades compressed into years. Something about the time as well as the person.

He was incredibly focused on the details. Not all details. The details that matter. For Napoleon, speed was key. This put me in mind of the quote about armchair generals discussing tactics and strategy while professionals consider logistics.

When discussing the possible invasion of Britain, Napoleon wrote that it seemed impossible to gain the necessary promptness of execution. John Boyd would later formalize this as the OODA loop. At some level, the one with the fastest clock speed wins. Napoleon understood this instinctively.

Nation-State Building

This was the era when the nation state was being created. If the concept of Germany did not exist, we would be required to invent it. Napoleon was not just fighting wars. He was building institutions.
The département–arrondissement–commune system is still in place today. There is something about a period of intentional institution building that seems relevant. We stumble into most of our governance structures. They evolve. They accrete. Napoleon built them deliberately.

The linguistic shifts matter too. Monsieur and Madame replaced citoyen and citoyenne. The importance to French people of saying bonjour madame in a shop now resonates more clearly. In the same way that man came into African American vernacular as an overt way of not saying boy, monsieur is explicitly not saying citoyen.

Words carry political weight. Revolutionary France tried to erase the old social markers. Napoleon brought them back. Not because he loved aristocracy. Because people needed the familiar structures to make sense of their world.

The pre-revolutionary French economy, especially in areas like Lyons, had been dependent on luxury goods. Lyons was the centre of the European silk industry. Plus ça change. France still sells luxury. The underlying economic structure persists across regime changes.

The Continental System

Napoleon lost militarily rather than politically. This surprised me. I had assumed his downfall came from overreach or domestic opposition. It came from the battlefield. His opponents adopted his techniques and beat him with them.

But the military failure stemmed from an economic failure. The Continental System. Napoleon could not invade Britain after Trafalgar. The Royal Navy controlled the seas. So he turned to economic warfare.

The Berlin Decree of 1806 forbade all European nations from trading with Britain. If Napoleon controlled the ports of Europe, he could prevent British products from landing. Britain depended on European trade. Cutting off that trade would ruin the British economy and force it to sue for peace.

This required total compliance. Every European port had to stay closed. One defector undermined the system. Napoleon could not enforce the blockade. He lacked naval power. He controlled only the ports. Britain controlled the water between them.

Smuggling exploded. Local populations actively resisted. Even Napoleon's own customs officials took bribes to turn a blind eye. The system hurt France more than Britain. Industries collapsed across Europe. Southern France suffered. Port cities like Marseille and Bordeaux saw trade vanish.
Russia withdrew from the system in 1810. Napoleon could not tolerate this. Russian defection would cascade. Other nations would follow. The whole structure would collapse. So he invaded Russia in 1812 with hundreds of thousands of men.

The invasion was a disaster. The Continental System's failure triggered Napoleon's ultimate military defeat. He could not solve the coordination problem at scale. You cannot force alignment without consent.

Medium Powers in 2026

Mark Carney gave a speech at Davos two weeks ago. He argued that the rules-based international order has experienced a rupture. Great powers have market size and military capacity to dictate terms. Medium powers do not.

His crucial line: when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. If we are not at the table, we are on the menu.

His solution: medium powers must band together. Build strategic autonomy. Reduce vulnerability to great power leverage. Stop performing sovereignty while accepting subordination.

The parallel to Napoleon is almost exact. Napoleon faced the coordination problem from the other side. He was the hegemon trying to force alignment. Carney represents the medium powers trying to coordinate against hegemons. Both require solving the same problem. Collective action at scale. Both vulnerable to the same failure mode. Defection.

Napoleon tried to use economic integration as a weapon. Tariffs as leverage. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited. This is Carney's description of what great powers do today. Trump threatens tariffs. China uses market access for coercion. The tactics have not changed.

Napoleon learned that you cannot enforce compliance at that scale. The British had alternatives. They found new markets. British exports rose during the Continental System despite Napoleon's blockade. The Empire filled the commercial vacuum.

Medium powers today face the inverse problem. How do you coordinate when great powers can pick you off one by one? How do you build collective power without a central enforcer?

Napoleon had central enforcement capacity. He had the largest army in Europe. It was not enough. The system required willing participation. When that collapsed, military force could not substitute.
What We Build vs. What We Inherit

There is a tension in the book between Napoleon as builder and Napoleon as destroyer. He codified French law. He built administrative systems that persist. He also burned Moscow. He conscripted hundreds of thousands to die in foreign fields.

Roberts does not resolve this tension. Perhaps it cannot be resolved. Great state builders are often terrible for the people who live through their state building. The institutions that survive might justify the cost. Or they might not.

We still live in nation states. We still think in terms of national interest and territorial sovereignty. Napoleon did not invent these concepts. He crystallized them. Made them the organizing principle of European politics.

Whether this was good depends on your timeframe. In the short term, it meant endless war. Millions dead. Economies shattered. In the long term, it meant stable borders and clear jurisdictions. The département system works. French administrative law provides a model.

The question is whether you could have gotten the institutions without the wars. Probably not. Institutional change requires crisis. Napoleon provided the crisis. The institutions emerged from the wreckage.

Speed and Failure

Napoleon understood that speed matters. Faster decision cycles win. Better logistics win. The details that matter win. He lost anyway.

His opponents learned. They adopted his organizational methods. They improved their logistics. They coordinated against him. The speed advantage disappeared.

This is the pattern. Military innovation gives temporary advantage. The advantage dissipates as others copy the innovation. Then you need the next innovation. Napoleon ran out of innovations before he ran out of enemies.

The Continental System was his attempt at a different kind of innovation. Economic warfare instead of military conquest. It failed because economic systems are harder to control than armies. Markets route around damage. People smuggle. Officials take bribes.

You can command an army. You cannot command an economy. Not at that scale. Not without consent.

What I Learned

Napoleon's concerns about the press and bankers were not paranoia. They were accurate threat assessment. Information flows and capital flows determine political outcomes. He could not control either.

Institution building matters. The structures Napoleon built outlasted his empire. The département system still functions. The legal codes still apply.

Alignment problems at scale are hard. Napoleon tried to solve one and failed. We are trying to solve similar problems today. The tactics change. The underlying dynamics do not.

Military genius can lose militarily. Napoleon was among the greatest battlefield commanders in history. His opponents beat him anyway. They learned his methods. They coordinated. They waited him out.

The medium powers today face the same challenge. How do you build collective power? How do you maintain alignment? How do you avoid defection?

Napoleon tried to answer these questions from the hegemon's perspective. He failed. Carney is trying to answer them from the medium power perspective. We will see if he succeeds.

Roberts wrote a comprehensive biography. I came to it knowing almost nothing about Napoleon. I left understanding why these questions still matter. Not because Napoleon was a genius. Because the problems he faced have not been solved.

We still struggle with coordination at scale. We still face tensions between institutional building and human cost. We still try to use economic integration as both weapon and shield.

Napoleon lost. The institutions survived. Whether that counts as success depends on what you value.

=========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me remember each book more clearly, and if it has lessons to teach - learn them.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.
]]> <![CDATA[Titanium Noir (Titanium Noir #1)]]> 63185176
But Titans are Cal’s specialty. In fact, his ex-girlfriend, Athena, is a Titan. And not just any Titan—she’s Stefan’s daughter, heir to the Tonfamecasca empire. As Cal digs deeper into the murder investigation, he begins to unweave the complicated threads of what should have been a straightforward case, and it soon becomes clear he’s on the trail of a crime whose roots run deep into the dark heart of the world.

A virtuosic mash-up of Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler by way of Marvel—the story of a detective investigating the murder of a Titan, one of society’s most powerful, medically-enhanced elites, Titanium Noir is a tightly woven, intricate tale of murder, betrayal, and vengeance.]]> 264 Nick Harkaway 1472156919 Leon 4
This is a fun, super engaging procedural. It sits in a sci-fi setting but does not fully commit to being sci-fi. It does not so much explore the consequences of the changes as use them as a background for a crime noir story.

Or maybe that is not quite true.

A Graham Greene quote leapt into my mind a couple of times while reading this. "At the heart of every novelist is a shard of glass."

What I love about sci-fi is when it explores the consequences of some change. When I first started reading this, I had a sense that it was very stylish but was not really science fiction in that sense. As it went on, I was right that it was very stylish. But Nick Harkaway really did consider a lot of the implications quite deeply.

The world works like this. A drug has been created which gives the people who take it effective immortality, at the price of becoming physically huge. Access to the drug is controlled by one man, its inventor.

The book paints a wonderful picture of the world, with a slightly surreal edge. This is a novel from the world rather than set in the world.

Harkaway actually looks into some detail at how people engage with the titans. Especially the hangers-on who really wish they were titans. He also explores their physicality. What it is like to be bigger and stronger than everyone around you. I found the descriptions of how the titans live really engaging. They are bigger than normal people. At some stage they stop being able to engage in normal ways.

The one thing the book does not explore is how the creator of this drug was able to maintain complete control over it. No governments stopped him. No one has created an alternative. Perhaps that comes in a future story. Or perhaps that is the one conceit we have to accept in order to be allowed to explore the other ideas.

I quite enjoyed it. Appreciated the recommendation. Intend to read the sequel.

===========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me remember each book more clearly, and if it has lessons to teach - learn them.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.
]]> 4.35 2023 Titanium Noir (Titanium Noir #1)
author: Nick Harkaway
name: Leon
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2026/01/13
date added: 2026/02/01
shelves:
review:
Written by John le Carré's son. Recommended by Rory Stewart on The Rest is Politics.

This is a fun, super engaging procedural. It sits in a sci-fi setting but does not fully commit to being sci-fi. It does not so much explore the consequences of the changes as use them as a background for a crime noir story.

Or maybe that is not quite true.

A Graham Greene quote leapt into my mind a couple of times while reading this. "At the heart of every novelist is a shard of glass."

What I love about sci-fi is when it explores the consequences of some change. When I first started reading this, I had a sense that it was very stylish but was not really science fiction in that sense. As it went on, I was right that it was very stylish. But Nick Harkaway really did consider a lot of the implications quite deeply.

The world works like this. A drug has been created which gives the people who take it effective immortality, at the price of becoming physically huge. Access to the drug is controlled by one man, its inventor.

The book paints a wonderful picture of the world, with a slightly surreal edge. This is a novel from the world rather than set in the world.

Harkaway actually looks into some detail at how people engage with the titans. Especially the hangers-on who really wish they were titans. He also explores their physicality. What it is like to be bigger and stronger than everyone around you. I found the descriptions of how the titans live really engaging. They are bigger than normal people. At some stage they stop being able to engage in normal ways.

The one thing the book does not explore is how the creator of this drug was able to maintain complete control over it. No governments stopped him. No one has created an alternative. Perhaps that comes in a future story. Or perhaps that is the one conceit we have to accept in order to be allowed to explore the other ideas.

I quite enjoyed it. Appreciated the recommendation. Intend to read the sequel.

===========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me remember each book more clearly, and if it has lessons to teach - learn them.

My rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.

]]> <![CDATA[The All New Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate]]> 23392815 the definitive, international bestselling book on political debate and messaging, George Lakoff returns with new strategies about how to frame today’s essential issues.

Called the “father of framing” by The New York Times, Lakoff explains how framing is about ideas—ideas that come before policy, ideas that make sense of facts, ideas that are proactive not reactive, positive not negative, ideas that need to be communicated out loud every day in public.

The ALL NEW Don’t Think of an Elephant! picks up where the original book left off—delving deeper into how framing works, how framing has evolved in the past decade, how to speak to people who harbor elements of both progressive and conservative worldviews, how to counter propaganda and slogans, and more.

In this updated and expanded edition, Lakoff, urges progressives to go beyond the typical laundry list of facts, policies, and programs and present a clear moral vision to the country—one that is traditionally American and can become a guidepost for developing compassionate, effective policy that upholds citizens’ well-being and freedom.]]> 189 George Lakoff 1603585958 Leon 3
I try to forget where books were recommended, but I think this came from a particularly smart associate, whose thinking is usually interesting and illuminating.

Summary

George Lakoff's core claim is that politics is won and lost through framing. Frames are the mental structures that shape how people interpret facts. Metaphors, narratives, moral intuitions. If you accept your opponent's frame, you typically lose even when your data is better.

Hence the title. Telling someone "don't think of an elephant" makes them think of an elephant. Repeating an opponent's language reinforces their worldview.

Lakoff argues US conservatives built long-term advantage through message discipline and institutional investment. Think tanks, media outlets, spokesperson training. They use frames that map to deep moral models. "Tax relief" presumes taxes are an affliction. They make values feel obvious. Policy details trail behind.

His prescription for progressives is to start from values-first language, then policy. Build and repeat your own frames rather than rebutting conservative ones. Treat communication as infrastructure. Consistent phrases, narratives, and training over years.

The organisation paradox

Lakoff talks about how united and organized conservatives have been. Progressives have not. Yet consider the 2016 election. It was Donald Trump who won the Republican nomination, not Jeb Bush. It was Hillary Clinton who won the Democratic nomination, not Bernie Sanders.

One could argue that a lack of control defines the conservatives just as much as unity does. These two things do not necessarily have to be in opposition. But there is something worth drilling into here.

What the book offers

The Strict Father versus Nurturing Family framework is genuinely useful. It explains why the same person can hold seemingly contradictory positions. It explains why facts alone do not change minds.
Lakoff gives good examples of how progressives should be talking. I like the framing of taxation as a multi-generational compact. The greatest generation and boomers paid for the interstates. We are paying for what comes next. This is values-first language in action.

The binary trap

Lakoff holds a fundamental view that there are two political postures. Progressive and conservative. Anything in the middle is just a mix of the two.

I can see how this is true for him. He works in politics. For those of us who do not, the framework feels incomplete. Most people are not walking around with coherent political philosophies. They have intuitions about specific problems.

Lakoff falls into his own traps

For a book about framing, Lakoff accepts several frames he should reject.

He accepts the framing that Islamic fundamentalists hate America. They really do not care about America as such. They care about what they see as the pollution of Islamic ideals in the Muslim world. America is a symbol, not the point.

He writes that "overpopulation threatens stability." This was written before the right adopted overpopulation as a frame. It has aged poorly.

On gay marriage, he writes that "most gay activists want full-blown marriage." This ignores the debate inside the gay community at the time. He identifies as progressive but misses that progress often comes from individuals wanting to fix specific issues. This is why progressives tend to win in the long term, even if they lose most battles.

Then there is the Axelrod example. "David Axelrod sent a memo to Organizing for America's email list, roughly 13 million supporters strong, asking them to speak to their friends and neighbors in support of the president's plans. He said there were twenty-four things to remember, but just to make it 'easier,' he divided the list of facts into three groups of eight!"

This is not an arcane framing problem. This is basic communications failure. Basic marketing. You cannot expect people to remember more than three to seven facts. The Minto Pyramid principle exists for a reason.

Asymmetric warfare

There is an insight Lakoff misses. Conservatives and progressives fight asymmetric wars.
Some progressives are not content unless they win everything, in the right way. Conservatives have a long term goal of moving the ball forward. They are happy with what they get.

This might explain more than the Strict Father framework does. It might explain why conservatives win battles while progressives win wars.

The third way

The Strict Father versus Nurturing Family dichotomy creates a problem. How should a nurturing family deal with 9/11? How should it deal with criminal gangs?

There is a third way. Protectiveness. It does not require protecting the criminals. It does not require moderating our response to terrorists. It is neither strict father punishment nor naive nurturing.
Lakoff does not explore this space.

The fundamental weakness

There is a quote that reveals the fundamental weakness of the argument.
"Militant versus moderate advocacy. Militants are loud, aggressive, and punitive, and sometimes use strict father means to nurturant ends."
There it is. Strict father means for nurturant ends. The binary collapses. We are all yin and yang. Both sides of the coin.
The framework is useful. But it is not the whole story.

===========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me better learn whatever lessons each book has to teach. I want to still be able to function if Skynet shuts off our access to our prosthetic brains.

As always - the rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.]]> 4.13 2004 The All New Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate
author: George Lakoff
name: Leon
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2026/01/08
date added: 2026/01/08
shelves:
review:
Continuing my journey of figuring out the tension between idealism, clear eyed machiavellianism and how humans can use the tools they have to make the world better.

I try to forget where books were recommended, but I think this came from a particularly smart associate, whose thinking is usually interesting and illuminating.

Summary

George Lakoff's core claim is that politics is won and lost through framing. Frames are the mental structures that shape how people interpret facts. Metaphors, narratives, moral intuitions. If you accept your opponent's frame, you typically lose even when your data is better.

Hence the title. Telling someone "don't think of an elephant" makes them think of an elephant. Repeating an opponent's language reinforces their worldview.

Lakoff argues US conservatives built long-term advantage through message discipline and institutional investment. Think tanks, media outlets, spokesperson training. They use frames that map to deep moral models. "Tax relief" presumes taxes are an affliction. They make values feel obvious. Policy details trail behind.

His prescription for progressives is to start from values-first language, then policy. Build and repeat your own frames rather than rebutting conservative ones. Treat communication as infrastructure. Consistent phrases, narratives, and training over years.

The organisation paradox

Lakoff talks about how united and organized conservatives have been. Progressives have not. Yet consider the 2016 election. It was Donald Trump who won the Republican nomination, not Jeb Bush. It was Hillary Clinton who won the Democratic nomination, not Bernie Sanders.

One could argue that a lack of control defines the conservatives just as much as unity does. These two things do not necessarily have to be in opposition. But there is something worth drilling into here.

What the book offers

The Strict Father versus Nurturing Family framework is genuinely useful. It explains why the same person can hold seemingly contradictory positions. It explains why facts alone do not change minds.
Lakoff gives good examples of how progressives should be talking. I like the framing of taxation as a multi-generational compact. The greatest generation and boomers paid for the interstates. We are paying for what comes next. This is values-first language in action.

The binary trap

Lakoff holds a fundamental view that there are two political postures. Progressive and conservative. Anything in the middle is just a mix of the two.

I can see how this is true for him. He works in politics. For those of us who do not, the framework feels incomplete. Most people are not walking around with coherent political philosophies. They have intuitions about specific problems.

Lakoff falls into his own traps

For a book about framing, Lakoff accepts several frames he should reject.

He accepts the framing that Islamic fundamentalists hate America. They really do not care about America as such. They care about what they see as the pollution of Islamic ideals in the Muslim world. America is a symbol, not the point.

He writes that "overpopulation threatens stability." This was written before the right adopted overpopulation as a frame. It has aged poorly.

On gay marriage, he writes that "most gay activists want full-blown marriage." This ignores the debate inside the gay community at the time. He identifies as progressive but misses that progress often comes from individuals wanting to fix specific issues. This is why progressives tend to win in the long term, even if they lose most battles.

Then there is the Axelrod example. "David Axelrod sent a memo to Organizing for America's email list, roughly 13 million supporters strong, asking them to speak to their friends and neighbors in support of the president's plans. He said there were twenty-four things to remember, but just to make it 'easier,' he divided the list of facts into three groups of eight!"

This is not an arcane framing problem. This is basic communications failure. Basic marketing. You cannot expect people to remember more than three to seven facts. The Minto Pyramid principle exists for a reason.

Asymmetric warfare

There is an insight Lakoff misses. Conservatives and progressives fight asymmetric wars.
Some progressives are not content unless they win everything, in the right way. Conservatives have a long term goal of moving the ball forward. They are happy with what they get.

This might explain more than the Strict Father framework does. It might explain why conservatives win battles while progressives win wars.

The third way

The Strict Father versus Nurturing Family dichotomy creates a problem. How should a nurturing family deal with 9/11? How should it deal with criminal gangs?

There is a third way. Protectiveness. It does not require protecting the criminals. It does not require moderating our response to terrorists. It is neither strict father punishment nor naive nurturing.
Lakoff does not explore this space.

The fundamental weakness

There is a quote that reveals the fundamental weakness of the argument.
"Militant versus moderate advocacy. Militants are loud, aggressive, and punitive, and sometimes use strict father means to nurturant ends."
There it is. Strict father means for nurturant ends. The binary collapses. We are all yin and yang. Both sides of the coin.
The framework is useful. But it is not the whole story.

===========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me better learn whatever lessons each book has to teach. I want to still be able to function if Skynet shuts off our access to our prosthetic brains.

As always - the rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.
]]> <![CDATA[Lords and Ladies (Discworld, #14)]]> 11295643 Librarian note: This a previously-published edition of ASIN B00354YA2C.

The fairies are back – but this time they don’t just want your teeth…

It's Midsummer Night – no time for dreaming. Because sometimes, when there's more than one reality at play, too much dreaming can make the walls between them come tumbling down.

Unfortunately there's usually a damned good reason for there being walls between them in the first place – to keep things out. Things who want to make mischief and play havoc with the natural order.

Granny Weatherwax and her tiny coven of witches are up against real elves. And they’re spectacularly nasty creatures. Even in a world of dwarves, wizards, trolls, Morris dancers – and the odd orang-utan – this is going to cause trouble…]]> 337 Terry Pratchett Leon 5
This is another Witches novel. It is also my favourite kind of Pratchett.

The book carries a rare warning. Pratchett notes that this one requires prior knowledge of the characters. It follows directly from Witches Abroad. Some context helps.

There is something ethereal here. By his fourteenth Discworld novel, Pratchett had developed the confidence to move beyond the profane and the cynical. He could now write something almost spiritual. Something sincere.

The fourth wall breaks are present as expected. At one point he observes that office managers are universally early risers. They always leave reproachful notes on desks. This happens everywhere in the multiverse. Even on cold planets awash with liquid methane.

But there is a personal dimension I had not noticed before. Rhianna Pratchett was fifteen when this book came out. Her father dedicated many of his novels to her. She has said there is a bit of her in most of his younger female characters. Reading this again, I suspect he was writing it for her. A daughter trying to figure out her place in the world.

I first read this as an adolescent. It was given to me by my stepmother, and I hear her gleeful cackle echoed in those of Gytha Ogg. Part of me is jealous that Rhianna had Terry Pratchett to help her navigate the world. Then I realise that I do too. Through these books.

The elves are the most purely evil villains in the entire series. Pratchett offers them no redemption here. Later books give them a chance. In Lords and Ladies they are vile. Entirely vile.
Granny Weatherwax describes them with contempt. They have glamour. They have beauty. They have grace. She spits the word "style." These are not virtues in her eyes. They are weapons.

I read this book around the time I was choosing which subjects to study. We specialise very early in the UK. In retrospect, I wonder if some of my fascination with physics comes from this. Or perhaps we were both drinking from the same cultural well. Pratchett plays with parallel universes and the multiverse throughout. His version of Schrödinger's cat can exist in three states: alive, dead, or bloody furious.

Lords and Ladies is darker than earlier Witches books. But it earns that darkness. It has weight.

===========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me better learn whatever lessons each book has to teach. I want to still be able to function if Skynet shuts off our access.

As always - the rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.
]]> 4.48 1992 Lords and Ladies (Discworld, #14)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Leon
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2026/01/07
date added: 2026/01/07
shelves:
review:
Lords and Ladies, Terry Pratchett, first published in 1992. The 14th in the series.

This is another Witches novel. It is also my favourite kind of Pratchett.

The book carries a rare warning. Pratchett notes that this one requires prior knowledge of the characters. It follows directly from Witches Abroad. Some context helps.

There is something ethereal here. By his fourteenth Discworld novel, Pratchett had developed the confidence to move beyond the profane and the cynical. He could now write something almost spiritual. Something sincere.

The fourth wall breaks are present as expected. At one point he observes that office managers are universally early risers. They always leave reproachful notes on desks. This happens everywhere in the multiverse. Even on cold planets awash with liquid methane.

But there is a personal dimension I had not noticed before. Rhianna Pratchett was fifteen when this book came out. Her father dedicated many of his novels to her. She has said there is a bit of her in most of his younger female characters. Reading this again, I suspect he was writing it for her. A daughter trying to figure out her place in the world.

I first read this as an adolescent. It was given to me by my stepmother, and I hear her gleeful cackle echoed in those of Gytha Ogg. Part of me is jealous that Rhianna had Terry Pratchett to help her navigate the world. Then I realise that I do too. Through these books.

The elves are the most purely evil villains in the entire series. Pratchett offers them no redemption here. Later books give them a chance. In Lords and Ladies they are vile. Entirely vile.
Granny Weatherwax describes them with contempt. They have glamour. They have beauty. They have grace. She spits the word "style." These are not virtues in her eyes. They are weapons.

I read this book around the time I was choosing which subjects to study. We specialise very early in the UK. In retrospect, I wonder if some of my fascination with physics comes from this. Or perhaps we were both drinking from the same cultural well. Pratchett plays with parallel universes and the multiverse throughout. His version of Schrödinger's cat can exist in three states: alive, dead, or bloody furious.

Lords and Ladies is darker than earlier Witches books. But it earns that darkness. It has weight.

===========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me better learn whatever lessons each book has to teach. I want to still be able to function if Skynet shuts off our access.

As always - the rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.

]]> <![CDATA[The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom]]> 43794067 THIRD Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. FIRST Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones. Pericles, Prince of Tyre A classic work of political theory and practise, this book makes available an account of the modern Machiavellians, a remarkable group who have been influential in Europe and practically unknown in the United Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels and Vilfredo Pareto. In addition, there is a long section on Machiavelli himself. James Burnham contends that the writings of these men hold the key both to the truth about politics and to the preservation of political liberty. Praise for James 'The stoic, detached, empirical, hard-boiled, penetrating, realist mind of James Burnham is something to behold, to admire, to emulate' - National Review 'James Burnham was an astonishing writer. Subtle, passionate, and irritatingly well-read' - New Criterion 'The immense significance of Burnham’s approach is potential. We can ignore it only at the risk of being disarmed by the future course of events' - Irving Kristol James Burnham was an American popular political theorist. Burnham was a radical activist in the 1930s and an important factional leader of the American Trotskyist movement. In later years, as his thinking developed, he left Marxism and turned to conservatism, serving as a public intellectual of the conservative movement. He also wrote regularly for the conservative publication National Review on a variety of topics.]]> 293 James Burnham Leon 4
What The Book Is

This is evidently a classic work of political theory, first published in 1943. Burnham introduces American readers to the modern Machiavellians. These are Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels and Vilfredo Pareto. They were influential in Europe but largely unknown in the United States. The book treats politics as a science rather than a moral project.

The Counter-Churchill

This is an amoral reading of history. It makes a clear headed counterpoint to Churchill.

Churchill told stories. The Machiavellians strip stories away. Churchill dealt in myths of national destiny. The Machiavellians dissect myths as tools of power.

Science and Its Limits

Reading this reminded me of my youth learning science in a Catholic school. We were taught about the limitations of each type of thinking. Science is great at answering the questions it is good at answering. Faith is likewise.

Burnham leans into Machiavelli as a political scientist. In his formulation, much as Adam Smith talks about man as an economic animal, Machiavelli talks about man as a political animal. Both recognise the limitations of their models.

Mosca: The Mechanics of Rule

Mosca gives us two axes for understanding governance.

The first axis is aristocratic versus democratic. This describes how the ruling class fills itself. Does power pass through inheritance or through some form of selection?

The second axis is autocratic versus liberal. This describes where the ruling class draws its legitimacy. Does authority flow downward from the ruler or upward from the ruled?

Mosca stresses the importance of pluralism. There should be many different roads by which social importance could be acquired.

Pareto: Residues and Derivations

Pareto's insight is blunt. People are full of shit. Look at what they do, not what they say.

He distinguishes between residues and derivations. Residues are the underlying drives that actually motivate behaviour. Derivations are the rationalisations people construct after the fact.

Pareto talks at length about movement into and out of the ruling classes. He calls this the circulation of elites. The terms ruling class and elite seem interchangeable throughout.

Closing Thoughts

There is a tension I keep returning to. On one side sits the Machiavellian perspective. See the world as it is. On the other sits a more values based perspective. Advocate for what should be. Churchill and Billy Bragg occupy this second camp.

If you have not read this type of work before, this seems like a good place to start. In my mental model it sits alongside The Dictator's Handbook and The True Believer. These books help give clarity and understanding. But one also needs to know what one is for. Without meaning this is just cynicism.

With that said, I really like Burnham's framing. He argues that these clear eyed thinkers are the true defenders of freedom. It is the true believers who cause so much pain and hardship. They put their ideas above people.

One point he draws out has really helped my thinking. The importance of pluralism. What stops the powerful from causing harm is not their own moral superiority. It is other powerful people standing behind them and making sure they are not able to do too much.]]> 4.35 1943 The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom
author: James Burnham
name: Leon
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1943
rating: 4
read at: 2026/01/03
date added: 2026/01/04
shelves:
review:
I cannot remember how this got on my reading list. I often enjoy these discoveries best. When I do not know who recommended a book or why, I come to it without expectations.

What The Book Is

This is evidently a classic work of political theory, first published in 1943. Burnham introduces American readers to the modern Machiavellians. These are Gaetano Mosca, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels and Vilfredo Pareto. They were influential in Europe but largely unknown in the United States. The book treats politics as a science rather than a moral project.

The Counter-Churchill

This is an amoral reading of history. It makes a clear headed counterpoint to Churchill.

Churchill told stories. The Machiavellians strip stories away. Churchill dealt in myths of national destiny. The Machiavellians dissect myths as tools of power.

Science and Its Limits

Reading this reminded me of my youth learning science in a Catholic school. We were taught about the limitations of each type of thinking. Science is great at answering the questions it is good at answering. Faith is likewise.

Burnham leans into Machiavelli as a political scientist. In his formulation, much as Adam Smith talks about man as an economic animal, Machiavelli talks about man as a political animal. Both recognise the limitations of their models.

Mosca: The Mechanics of Rule

Mosca gives us two axes for understanding governance.

The first axis is aristocratic versus democratic. This describes how the ruling class fills itself. Does power pass through inheritance or through some form of selection?

The second axis is autocratic versus liberal. This describes where the ruling class draws its legitimacy. Does authority flow downward from the ruler or upward from the ruled?

Mosca stresses the importance of pluralism. There should be many different roads by which social importance could be acquired.

Pareto: Residues and Derivations

Pareto's insight is blunt. People are full of shit. Look at what they do, not what they say.

He distinguishes between residues and derivations. Residues are the underlying drives that actually motivate behaviour. Derivations are the rationalisations people construct after the fact.

Pareto talks at length about movement into and out of the ruling classes. He calls this the circulation of elites. The terms ruling class and elite seem interchangeable throughout.

Closing Thoughts

There is a tension I keep returning to. On one side sits the Machiavellian perspective. See the world as it is. On the other sits a more values based perspective. Advocate for what should be. Churchill and Billy Bragg occupy this second camp.

If you have not read this type of work before, this seems like a good place to start. In my mental model it sits alongside The Dictator's Handbook and The True Believer. These books help give clarity and understanding. But one also needs to know what one is for. Without meaning this is just cynicism.

With that said, I really like Burnham's framing. He argues that these clear eyed thinkers are the true defenders of freedom. It is the true believers who cause so much pain and hardship. They put their ideas above people.

One point he draws out has really helped my thinking. The importance of pluralism. What stops the powerful from causing harm is not their own moral superiority. It is other powerful people standing behind them and making sure they are not able to do too much.
]]> <![CDATA[The New World (A History of the English Speaking Peoples #2)]]> 44026081 The second volume of the Nobel Prize–winning prime minister’s breathtaking history of Britain continues with the growth of monarchy and religious conflict.
 
In the “wilderness” years after Winston S. Churchill unflinchingly guided his country through World War II, he turned his masterful hand to an exhaustive history of the country he loved above all else. And the world discovered that this brilliant military strategist was an equally brilliant storyteller. In 1953, the great man was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for “his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”
 
This second of four volumes exploring the history of this great nation explores the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the power struggles of the Tudor and Stuart families, the growth of the monarchy, the Protestant Reformation, England’s Civil War, and the discovery of the Americas. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples remains one of the most compelling and vivid works of history ever written.
 
“This history will endure; not only because Sir Winston has written it, but also because of its own inherent virtues―its narrative power, its fine judgment of war and politics, of soldiers and statesmen, and even more because it reflects a tradition of what Englishmen in the hey-day of their empire thought and felt about their country’s past.” —The Daily Telegraph
 ]]> 411 Winston S. Churchill 0795330448 Leon 4
My wife bought me a set of these books as a first wedding anniversary present. I always meant to read them. I never got round to it.

The man who wrote "history will be kind to me, for I intend to write it" deserves to have his history read. So here we are.

I started with book 2 on the basis that it seemed interesting, and would give me a better chance of completing the set. Having read this, however, I don't think I needed to fear, and I am confident all four volumes will be completed before the year is out.

The Contradictory Churchill

Winston Churchill carries a great fascination for me, as he does for many of my countrymen. He is a somewhat contradictory figure. Even by the standards of his day he was something of a racist. He was a staunch imperialist. He made many poor decisions.
He did, however, make one very important good decision. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that his principled standing against the evil of the Nazis changed the course of history.
I also find it fascinating that this arch-imperialist did a deal with the USA to defeat the Nazis which also gave away the British Empire. I am certain he must have known, at some level, this would happen.

The Prose

The prose is more accessible than I feared. I should not be surprised that Churchill writes in such an engaging way. The quality of the prose is one of the best things about this book.
It is adorable that he starts by explaining that the 16th century is the years that begin with 15. I should find this less confusing than his readers did.

I had not known of Erasmus and his contribution to the intellectual life of the United Kingdom. With that said, I suspect that you should not take this review as authoritative. Nor Churchill's view of the world.

Why Read This Now

We live in an era of dramatic change. It seems that the resurgent nationalist right is doing a better job of telling stories and framing the narrative.

Part of my interest in this book is that it offers a clear, positive narrative about what it means to be English, British and a member of the English Speaking Peoples. This is also a job that Billy Bragg's Progressive Patriot is trying to perform, if in a very different way.

The left needs better stories. Churchill, for all his faults, knew how to tell one.

Limitations

Ireland is really only touched on lightly. It is used as an example of the vileness and brutality of Oliver Cromwell. This is not a complete picture.

Churchill was writing a particular kind of history for a particular purpose. He wanted to bind the English-speaking world together. He succeeded in that aim. Whether that binding still holds is a question for our generation to answer.

===========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me remember the lessons each book has to teach.

As always - the rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.]]> 4.46 1956 The New World (A History of the English Speaking Peoples #2)
author: Winston S. Churchill
name: Leon
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1956
rating: 4
read at: 2026/01/02
date added: 2026/01/02
shelves:
review:
Winston Churchill: History of the English-Speaking Peoples Volume II: The New World

My wife bought me a set of these books as a first wedding anniversary present. I always meant to read them. I never got round to it.

The man who wrote "history will be kind to me, for I intend to write it" deserves to have his history read. So here we are.

I started with book 2 on the basis that it seemed interesting, and would give me a better chance of completing the set. Having read this, however, I don't think I needed to fear, and I am confident all four volumes will be completed before the year is out.

The Contradictory Churchill

Winston Churchill carries a great fascination for me, as he does for many of my countrymen. He is a somewhat contradictory figure. Even by the standards of his day he was something of a racist. He was a staunch imperialist. He made many poor decisions.
He did, however, make one very important good decision. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that his principled standing against the evil of the Nazis changed the course of history.
I also find it fascinating that this arch-imperialist did a deal with the USA to defeat the Nazis which also gave away the British Empire. I am certain he must have known, at some level, this would happen.

The Prose

The prose is more accessible than I feared. I should not be surprised that Churchill writes in such an engaging way. The quality of the prose is one of the best things about this book.
It is adorable that he starts by explaining that the 16th century is the years that begin with 15. I should find this less confusing than his readers did.

I had not known of Erasmus and his contribution to the intellectual life of the United Kingdom. With that said, I suspect that you should not take this review as authoritative. Nor Churchill's view of the world.

Why Read This Now

We live in an era of dramatic change. It seems that the resurgent nationalist right is doing a better job of telling stories and framing the narrative.

Part of my interest in this book is that it offers a clear, positive narrative about what it means to be English, British and a member of the English Speaking Peoples. This is also a job that Billy Bragg's Progressive Patriot is trying to perform, if in a very different way.

The left needs better stories. Churchill, for all his faults, knew how to tell one.

Limitations

Ireland is really only touched on lightly. It is used as an example of the vileness and brutality of Oliver Cromwell. This is not a complete picture.

Churchill was writing a particular kind of history for a particular purpose. He wanted to bind the English-speaking world together. He succeeded in that aim. Whether that binding still holds is a question for our generation to answer.

===========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read.

In this age of LLMs, it seems like appreciation rather than creation is the uniquely human act. I also have a sense that some sort of book report will help me remember the lessons each book has to teach.

As always - the rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.
]]> Small Gods (Discworld, #13) 34484
And the Word was: "Hey, you!"

For Brutha the novice is the Chosen One. He wants peace and justice and brotherly love.

He also wants the Inquisition to stop torturing him now, please...]]> 389 Terry Pratchett 0552152978 Leon 5
SPOILERS

This book sits outside the main Discworld cycles. It is mostly standalone. The Time Monk Lu Tze has a minor role, but this feels incidental rather than foundational.

The god Om is incarnated as a tortoise. He can speak inside the head of his one true follower, Brutha. The Omnian religion has become perverted in the pursuit of power. Its leader, Vorbis, is the main villain.

Vorbis seems a very Vetinari-like character. He shares the Patrician's cynicism and mastery of human motivation. But he lacks Vetinari's self-knowledge and self-control. This makes him dangerous in a different way, and of course ultimately leads to his demise.

Brutha has a perfect photographic memory. Pratchett uses this for more than plot convenience. The invading Omnians exploit his gift to navigate a labyrinth. Later, Brutha memorises the Great Library of Ephebe without understanding what he reads. He becomes a vessel for knowledge he cannot access.

This connects to the book's central theme. If Witches Abroad argued that people matter more than narrative, Small Gods argues that people matter more than books. The Great Library is about to be burned by Vorbis. There is a chance to stop him. But Brutha believes that getting everyone away is more important than saving the collection.

The library survives inside Brutha's head. Books matter. But they are not worth a life.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It is a great story well told. I loved Brutha in particular. Yet I felt no sadness that he does not appear in future books. His story was fully told. There was no more development to be had. Pratchett taught us the lesson he wished Brutha to teach.

===========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read (and OK - I started a couple of days early, thought it would be good to get in the habit).

In this age of LLMs, I want to focus on the human understanding of the books I read.

As always - the rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.]]> 4.32 1992 Small Gods (Discworld, #13)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Leon
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2025/12/29
date added: 2025/12/30
shelves:
review:
Terry Pratchett. Small Gods. 13th Discworld Novel. Published in 1992.

SPOILERS

This book sits outside the main Discworld cycles. It is mostly standalone. The Time Monk Lu Tze has a minor role, but this feels incidental rather than foundational.

The god Om is incarnated as a tortoise. He can speak inside the head of his one true follower, Brutha. The Omnian religion has become perverted in the pursuit of power. Its leader, Vorbis, is the main villain.

Vorbis seems a very Vetinari-like character. He shares the Patrician's cynicism and mastery of human motivation. But he lacks Vetinari's self-knowledge and self-control. This makes him dangerous in a different way, and of course ultimately leads to his demise.

Brutha has a perfect photographic memory. Pratchett uses this for more than plot convenience. The invading Omnians exploit his gift to navigate a labyrinth. Later, Brutha memorises the Great Library of Ephebe without understanding what he reads. He becomes a vessel for knowledge he cannot access.

This connects to the book's central theme. If Witches Abroad argued that people matter more than narrative, Small Gods argues that people matter more than books. The Great Library is about to be burned by Vorbis. There is a chance to stop him. But Brutha believes that getting everyone away is more important than saving the collection.

The library survives inside Brutha's head. Books matter. But they are not worth a life.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It is a great story well told. I loved Brutha in particular. Yet I felt no sadness that he does not appear in future books. His story was fully told. There was no more development to be had. Pratchett taught us the lesson he wished Brutha to teach.

===========================================================================

For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read (and OK - I started a couple of days early, thought it would be good to get in the habit).

In this age of LLMs, I want to focus on the human understanding of the books I read.

As always - the rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.
]]> <![CDATA[Witches Abroad (Discworld, #12)]]> 11295655 Fairy godmothers develop a very deep understanding about human nature, which makes the good ones kind and the bad ones powerful.

Inheriting a fairy godmother role seemed an easy job... After all, how difficult could it be to make sure that a servant girl doesn't marry a prince?

Quite hard, actually, even for the witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. That's the problem with real life – it tends to get in the way of a good story, and a good story is hard to resist.

Servant girls have to marry the prince, whether they want to or not. You can't fight a Happy Ending, especially when it comes with glass slippers and a rival Fairy Godmother who has made Destiny an offer it can't refuse.]]> 305 Terry Pratchett Leon 5
As always - the rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.

12th Discworld Novel. Published in 1991.
SPOILERS
The three Witches of Lancre travel to Genua. There they encounter voodoo and Esme Weatherwax's sister.
Reading these books in publication order is fascinating. There is a kind of George Clooney quality to the series. Call it an extended attractive middle age. It runs from roughly the 3rd or 4th novel to nearly the last. Yet one senses the evolution throughout.
There are more fourth wall references here than I remember in later books. I think they vanish almost entirely by the end.
One topic stands out: the nature of narrative. Pratchett writes about this often. Indeed, the company which owns his works is called Narrativium. This book lays down the dark side. Weatherwax expands her model of ethics. "Evil is treating people like things" becomes "you should not treat people like they were characters."]]> 4.52 1991 Witches Abroad (Discworld, #12)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Leon
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at: 2025/12/27
date added: 2025/12/27
shelves:
review:
For 2026 I've decided to do a write up on every book I read. In this age of LLMs, I want to focus on the human understanding of the books I read.

As always - the rating system is as follows:
***** - I'll read it again
**** - You should read it
*** - I'm glad I read it
** - I wish I hadn't read it
* - I wish it hadn't been written.

12th Discworld Novel. Published in 1991.
SPOILERS
The three Witches of Lancre travel to Genua. There they encounter voodoo and Esme Weatherwax's sister.
Reading these books in publication order is fascinating. There is a kind of George Clooney quality to the series. Call it an extended attractive middle age. It runs from roughly the 3rd or 4th novel to nearly the last. Yet one senses the evolution throughout.
There are more fourth wall references here than I remember in later books. I think they vanish almost entirely by the end.
One topic stands out: the nature of narrative. Pratchett writes about this often. Indeed, the company which owns his works is called Narrativium. This book lays down the dark side. Weatherwax expands her model of ethics. "Evil is treating people like things" becomes "you should not treat people like they were characters."
]]> Reaper Man (Discworld, #11) 11295656 'Death has to happen. That’s what bein' alive is all about. You're alive, and then you're dead. It can't just stop happening.'

But it can. And it has.

Death is missing – presumed gone.

Which leads to the kind of chaos you always get when an important public service is withdrawn. If Death doesn't come for you, then what are you supposed to do in the meantime?

You can't have the undead wandering about like lost souls - there's no telling what might happen!

Particularly when they discover that life really is only for the living...]]> 305 Terry Pratchett Leon 5 4.46 1991 Reaper Man (Discworld, #11)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Leon
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at: 2025/12/22
date added: 2025/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change]]> 62122504 368 W. David Marx 0593296710 Leon 5 3.90 2022 Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change
author: W. David Marx
name: Leon
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/12/16
date added: 2025/12/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Moving Pictures (Discworld, #10)]]> 11432140 'Holy Wood is a different sort of place. People act differently here. Everywhere else the most important things are gods or money or cattle. Here, the most important thing is to be important.'

Alchemists have always thought that they can change reality, shape it to their own purpose. Imagine then the damage that could be wrought on the Discworld if they get their hands on the ultimate alchemy: the invention of motion pictures, the greatest making of illusions. It may be a triumph of universe-shaking proportions. It's either that or they're about to unlock the dark secret of the Holy Wood hills - by mistake...]]> 421 Terry Pratchett Leon 5 4.24 1990 Moving Pictures (Discworld, #10)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Leon
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at: 2025/12/11
date added: 2025/12/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents]]> 25647824 If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, or abandonment. You may recall your childhood as a time when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of responsibility in an effort to compensate for your parent’s behavior. These wounds can be healed, and you can move forward in your life.

In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect, and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents’ emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you’ll learn how to create positive, new relationships so you can build a better life.

Discover the four types of difficult parents:

The emotional parent instills feelings of instability and anxiety The driven parent stays busy trying to perfect everything and everyone The passive parent avoids dealing with anything upsetting The rejecting parent is withdrawn, dismissive, and derogatory

 

]]> 222 Lindsay C. Gibson Leon 2 4.51 2015 Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents
author: Lindsay C. Gibson
name: Leon
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2025/12/08
date added: 2025/12/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy: 1945-1975]]> 39756971
Many writers treat the war as a US tragedy, yet Hastings sees it as overwhelmingly that of the Vietnamese people, of whom forty died for every American. US blunders and atrocities were matched by those committed by their enemies. While all the world has seen the image of a screaming, naked girl seared by napalm, it forgets countless eviscerations, beheadings and murders carried out by the communists. The people of both former Vietnams paid a bitter price for the Northerners’ victory in privation and oppression. Here is testimony from Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bargirls and Hanoi students alongside that of infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, Huey pilots from Arkansas.

No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings’ readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the 21st century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record.]]> 1143 Max Hastings 000813300X Leon 4 4.46 2018 Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy: 1945-1975
author: Max Hastings
name: Leon
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/12/08
date added: 2025/12/08
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]]> <![CDATA[What Have I Done? My Autobiography]]> 229137651 Ben Elton has done everything and worked with everybody. Now, in this frank, forthright, and hugely entertaining book, he tells the whole story.

Discover the truth behind iconic hits like The Young Ones, Blackadder, and We Will Rock You. Relive the pioneering stand-up of Saturday Live that birthed a comedy revolution. From being the BBC’s youngest-ever sitcom writer to his most recent, critically acclaimed stand-up tour, Ben reveals unique insights into his groundbreaking work.

He talks honestly about his relationships with brilliant friends, inspiring contemporaries, and occasional foes. His life off-screen has been just as challenging and funny as it has been on, and he unpacks it all with wit, insight, and of course, a ‘little bit of politics’.

For decades, Ben’s been making people laugh, think, and getting on plenty of wicks - these are the uncensored stories.]]> 549 Ben Elton 1035059975 Leon 4 4.08 2026 What Have I Done? My Autobiography
author: Ben Elton
name: Leon
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2026
rating: 4
read at: 2025/11/30
date added: 2025/11/30
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]]> Eric (Discworld, #9) 19041293 Eric calls up a demon to grant him three wishes - but what he gets is the Discworld's most incompetent wizard...

Eric is the Discworld's only demonology hacker. The trouble is, he's not very good at it. All he wants is the usual three wishes: to be immortal, rule the world and have the most beautiful woman fall madly in love with him. The usual stuff.

But what he gets is Rincewind, the Disc's most incompetent wizard, and Rincewind's Luggage (the world's most dangerous travel accessory) into the bargain.

Terry Pratchett's hilarious take on the Faust legend stars many of the Discworld's most popular characters in an outrageous adventure that will leave Eric wishing once more - this time, quite fervently, that he'd never been born.]]> 149 Terry Pratchett Leon 5 4.15 1990 Eric (Discworld, #9)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Leon
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at: 2025/11/29
date added: 2025/11/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Illuminate: Ignite Change Through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies and Symbols]]> 28582290 'Change can be fear-filled in prospect but fearsome in effect. With Illuminate, Duarte and Sanchez light our path through that crucial transition dazzlingly' ROBERT B. CIALDINI, author of Influence

To envision the future is one thing, getting others to go there with you is another. By harnessing the power of persuasive communication you can turn your idea into a movement.

In Illuminate, acclaimed author Nancy Duarte and communications expert Patti Sanchez equip you with the same communication tools that great leaders like Steve Jobs, Howard Schultz, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used to move people.

In this visual and accessible communication guidebook, Duarte and Sanchez lay out a plan to help you lead people through the five stages of transformation using speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols and inspire those around you to support and execute your vision.

'Great leaders aren't measured by their volume but by their ability to be truly heard. To motivate others, leaders must listen and communicate empathetically. With Illuminate, everyone can learn to lead - even without being loud'
SUSAN CAIN, AUTHOR OF QUIET AND COFOUNDER OF QUIET REVOLUTION

'Leading people through change is hard to do, especially for leaders who don't communicate well. But Illuminate makes it easy with a clear road map and comprehensive communication tool kit that will help any leader learn how to inspire and activate people'
BETH COMSTOCK, VICE CHAIR OF GE

]]> 422 Nancy Duarte Leon 0 currently-reading 3.79 2016 Illuminate: Ignite Change Through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies and Symbols
author: Nancy Duarte
name: Leon
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/11/26
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre]]> 33412616
Divided into four sections, "Status", "Spontaneity", "Narrative Skills" and "Masks and Trance", arranged more or less in the order a group might approach them, the book sets out the specific approaches which Johnstone has himself found most useful and most stimulating. The result is a fascinating exploration of the nature of spontaneous creativity.

"If teachers were honoured in the British theatre along-side directors, designers and playwrights, Keith Johnstone would be as familiar a name as are those of . . . Jocelyn Herbert, Edward Bond and other young talents who were drawn to the great lodestone of the Royal Court Theatre in the late 1950s. As head of the script department, Johnstone played a crucial part in the development of the 'writers' theatre . . . " Irving Wardle]]> 204 Keith Johnstone 1350017973 Leon 5 4.07 1979 Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre
author: Keith Johnstone
name: Leon
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at: 2025/11/11
date added: 2025/11/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Enlightened Capitalists: Cautionary Tales of Business Pioneers Who Tried to Do Well by Doing Good – Historical Lessons on Profit, Virtue, and Corporate Failure]]> 43497211
Today’s business leaders are increasingly pressured by citizens, consumers, and government officials to address urgent social and environmental issues. Although some corporate executives remain deaf to such calls, over the last two centuries, a handful of business leaders in America and Britain have attempted to create business organizations that were both profitable and socially responsible.

In The Enlightened Capitalists, James O’Toole tells the largely forgotten stories of men and women who adopted forward-thinking business practices designed to serve the needs of their employees, customers, communities, and the natural environment. They wanted to prove that executives didn’t have to make trade-offs between profit and virtue.

Combining a wealth of research and vivid storytelling, O’Toole brings life to historical figures like William Lever, the inventor of bar soap who created the most profitable company in Britain and used his money to greatly improve the lives of his workers and their families. Eventually, he lost control of the company to creditors who promptly terminated the enlightened practices he had initiated—the fate of many idealistic capitalists.

As a new generation attempts to address social problems through enlightened organizational leadership, O’Toole explores a major question being posed today in Britain and Are virtuous corporate practices compatible with shareholder capitalism? ]]> 712 James O'Toole 0062880268 Leon 4 4.09 The Enlightened Capitalists: Cautionary Tales of Business Pioneers Who Tried to Do Well by Doing Good – Historical Lessons on Profit, Virtue, and Corporate Failure
author: James O'Toole
name: Leon
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/11/03
date added: 2025/11/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Trading Game: A Confession]]> 174290783
'If you were gonna rob a bank, and you saw the vault door there, left open, what would you do? Would you wait around?

Ever since he was a kid, kicking broken footballs on the streets of East London in the shadow of Canary Wharf's skyscrapers, Gary wanted something better. Something a whole lot bigger.

Then he won a competition run by a 'The Trading Game'. The a golden ticket to a new life, as the youngest trader in the whole city. A place where you could make more money than you'd ever imagined. Where your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths, yet they start to feel like family. Where soon you're the bank's most profitable trader, dealing in nearly a trillion dollars. A day . Where you dream of numbers in your sleep - and then stop sleeping at all.

But what happens when winning starts to feel like losing? When the easiest way to make money is to bet on millions becoming poorer and poorer - and, as the economy starts slipping off a precipice, your own sanity starts slipping with it? You want to stop, but you can't. Because nobody ever leaves .

Would you stick, or quit? Even if it meant risking everything?]]> 405 Gary Stevenson 1802062742 Leon 4 4.34 2024 The Trading Game: A Confession
author: Gary Stevenson
name: Leon
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/10/18
date added: 2025/10/18
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]]> <![CDATA[System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, #7)]]> 75319056
Herkesin favori ölümcül GüvBirim’i geri döndü.

BarishEstranza, tehlikedeki bir koloniye kurtarma gemileri ve ek GüvBirimler gönderiyor. Eli boş dönmemeye kararlı. Hatta ele geçireceği o “şey” koca bir insan kolonisi olsa bile… Sonuçta bedava işgücü de makul bir teselli ikramiyesi sayılır.

Ancak Katilbot için işler pek de yolunda gitmiyor; normal parametrelerinin dışına çıkmış durumda. GAT ve Preservation ekibi, kolonistleri korumak adına çırpınsa da ağır silahlı “ikna” güçleri karşısında çaresiz. Tek umutları, Katilbot’un kendi içindeki sorunu çözmesi. Hem de bir an önce.

Evet, bu plan… kesinlikle işe yaramayacak!

“Katilbot’a bayılıyorum.” – Ann Leckie

“Daha önce hiçbir kitabın ana karakterine böylesine bağlanmamıştım.” – Patrick Rothfuss]]> 248 Martha Wells 1250826985 Leon 5 4.39 2023 System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, #7)
author: Martha Wells
name: Leon
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/10/11
date added: 2025/10/11
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]]> The Wandering Earth 32332537
Here is the first collection of his short fiction: eleven stories, including five Chinese Galaxy Award-winners, form a blazingly original ode to planet earth, its pasts and its futures.]]> 484 Liu Cixin Leon 4 4.21 2000 The Wandering Earth
author: Liu Cixin
name: Leon
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/13
date added: 2025/10/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, #6)]]> 53413743 No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall.

When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people-who knew?)

Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!

Again!


A standalone adventure in the New York Times and USA Today-bestselling, Hugo and Nebula Award- winning series! ]]> 172 Martha Wells 1250765382 Leon 5 4.45 2021 Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, #6)
author: Martha Wells
name: Leon
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/10/03
date added: 2025/10/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5)]]> 52680842
It worries about the fragile human crew who've grown to trust it, but only where no one can see.

It tells itself that they're only a professional obligation, but when they're captured and an old friend from the past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.

Drastic action it is, then.]]> 346 Martha Wells Leon 4 4.58 2020 Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5)
author: Martha Wells
name: Leon
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/09/29
date added: 2025/09/29
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]]> The Screwtape Letters 8130077
C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the unique vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below.” At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the wordly-wise devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging account of temptation—and triumph over it—ever written. ]]> 222 C.S. Lewis Leon 0 4.36 1942 The Screwtape Letters
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Leon
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1942
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/09/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4)]]> 35519109
Having traveled the width of the galaxy to unearth details of its own murderous transgressions, as well as those of the GrayCris Corporation, Murderbot is heading home to help Dr. Mensah—its former owner (protector? friend?)—submit evidence that could prevent GrayCris from destroying more colonists in its never-ending quest for profit.

But who’s going to believe a SecUnit gone rogue?

And what will become of it when it’s caught?]]> 172 Martha Wells Leon 5 4.37 2018 Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4)
author: Martha Wells
name: Leon
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/09/20
date added: 2025/09/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)]]> 36153880 Who knew being a heartless killing machine would present so many moral dilemmas?

Sci-fi’s favorite antisocial A.I. is back on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah's SecUnit is.

And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.]]> 158 Martha Wells 1250185432 Leon 5 4.41 2018 Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3)
author: Martha Wells
name: Leon
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/09/19
date added: 2025/09/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect]]> 203232918 Essential lessons in hospitality for every business, from the former co-owner of legendary restaurant Eleven Madison Park.

Will Guidara was twenty-six when he took the helm of Eleven Madison Park, a struggling New York City two-star brasserie that had never quite lived up to its majestic room. Eleven years later, EMP was named the best restaurant in the world.

How did Guidara pull off this unprecedented transformation? Radical reinvention, a true partnership between the kitchen and the dining room—and memorable, over-the-top, bespoke hospitality. Guidara’s team surprised a family who had never seen snow with a magical sledding trip to Central Park after their dinner; they filled a private dining room with sand, complete with mai-tais and beach chairs, to console a couple with a cancelled vacation. And his hospitality extended beyond those dining at the restaurant to his own team, who learned to deliver praise and criticism with intention; why the answer to some of the most pernicious business dilemmas is to give more—not less; and the magic that can happen when a busser starts thinking like an owner.

Today, every business can choose to be a hospitality business—and we can all transform ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences. Featuring sparkling stories of his journey through restaurants, with the industry’s most famous players like Daniel Boulud and Danny Meyer, Guidara urges us all to find the magic in what we do—for ourselves, the people we work with, and the people we serve.]]> 270 Will Guidara 1529937388 Leon 3 4.55 2022 Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
author: Will Guidara
name: Leon
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/09/15
date added: 2025/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)]]> 36223859
Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A” stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue.

What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks…]]> 149 Martha Wells Leon 5 4.40 2018 Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)
author: Martha Wells
name: Leon
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/09/15
date added: 2025/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future]]> 223736214 As the defining conflict of the twenty-first century approaches, Breakneck offers a riveting, firsthand investigation of China’s seismic progress—and what it means for America.

Technology analyst Dan Wang—“an indispensable voice on China” (Evan Osnos) for close to a decade—has been living through the country’s astonishing, messy progress. In this time, building big has fueled China’s economic ascent. But social engineering has led to unbearable costs, including the traumas of zero-COVID and the cruel legacies of the one-child policy. In Breakneck, Wang traverses dazzling metropolises and factory complexes, blending political, economic, and philosophical analysis with reportage to reveal how the Communist Party’s darkening ambitions have shaken its people.

Wang unveils a new framework for understanding China, one that sheds new light on its competition with America. While China is an engineering state, relentlessly pursuing megaprojects, the US has stalled. America has transformed into a lawyerly society, reflexively blocking everything, good and bad. As Breakneck reveals, only by understanding the remarkable strengths and the appalling weaknesses of the engineering state can America reignite its sense of restless ambition.]]> 288 Dan Wang 1324106034 Leon 4 4.08 2025 Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future
author: Dan Wang
name: Leon
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/09/14
date added: 2025/09/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Smashing the Liquor Machine: A Global History of Prohibition]]> 58433158 749 Mark Lawrence Schrad 0190841591 Leon 4 4.00 2021 Smashing the Liquor Machine: A Global History of Prohibition
author: Mark Lawrence Schrad
name: Leon
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/09/06
date added: 2025/09/06
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]]> <![CDATA[All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)]]> 33396171 ASIN B01MYZ8X5C moved to the more recent edition

A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.]]> 156 Martha Wells Leon 4 4.27 2017 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)
author: Martha Wells
name: Leon
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/08/30
date added: 2025/08/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, #6; Witches #2)]]> 60618259 An alternative cover edition for this ASIN can be found here.

'Destiny is important, see, but people go wrong when they think it controls them. It's the other way around.'

Three witches - Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick - have gathered on a lonely heath. A king has been cruelly murdered, his throne usurped by his ambitious cousin. An infant heir and the crown of the kingdom, both missing...

Witches don't have these kind of dynastic problems themselves – in fact, they don’t have leaders.

Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders the witches don't have. But even she found that meddling in royal politics was a lot more complicated than certain playwrights would have you believe...]]> 328 Terry Pratchett Leon 5 4.37 1988 Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, #6; Witches #2)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Leon
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 2025/08/04
date added: 2025/08/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials)]]> 6571744
In the new edition of this highly acclaimed bestseller, Robert Cialdini—New York Times bestselling author of Pre-Suasion and the seminal expert in the fields of influence and persuasion—explains the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business and everyday settings. Using memorable stories and relatable examples, Cialdini makes this crucially important subject surprisingly easy. With Cialdini as a guide, you don’t have to be a scientist to learn how to use this science.

You’ll learn Cialdini’s Universal Principles of Influence, including new research and new uses so you can become an even more skilled persuader—and just as importantly, you’ll learn how to defend yourself against unethical influence attempts. You may think you know these principles, but without understanding their intricacies, you may be ceding their power to someone else.

Cialdini’s Principles of

ReciprocationCommitment and ConsistencySocial Proof Liking AuthorityScarcityUnity, the newest principle for this editionUnderstanding and applying the principles ethically is cost-free and deceptively easy. Backed by Dr. Cialdini’s 35 years of evidence-based, peer-reviewed scientific research—including a three-year field study on what leads people to change—Influence is a comprehensive guide to using these principles to move others in your direction.]]> 334 Robert B. Cialdini Leon 0 currently-reading 4.26 1984 Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials)
author: Robert B. Cialdini
name: Leon
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/09
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Attention All Shipping A Journey Round the Shipping Forecast]]> 11585386

The hilarious bestselling travel book that journeys round areas made famous by Radio 4's Shipping Forecast'One of those simple yet brilliant ideas' Daily Mail'Engaging and often very funny' Sunday Times'A wonderfully eccentric study' ObserverThe Shipping Forecast is a curious piece of broadcasting; at once impenetrably baffling yet at the same time reassuringly familiar, most of us have grown up with this sonorous gazetteer firmly planted in our subconscious. But where are these places, and what secrets do they conceal? Charlie Connelly sets off on a journey round the forecast to find out, unearthing the history and culture behind one of Britain's best-loved broadcasting institutions.More than simply a hilarious travel book, Attention All Shipping ensures that the evocative stanzas of the shipping forecast will remain a mystery no more.A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK]]> 381 Charlie Connelly Leon 4 4.27 2004 Attention All Shipping A Journey Round the Shipping Forecast
author: Charlie Connelly
name: Leon
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2025/07/02
date added: 2025/07/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company]]> 217410142 *** THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *** 

* WINNER OF THE SABEW BEST IN BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS 2025 FOR BUSINESS REPORTING * 

What if the greatest business success story of the twenty-first century was hiding the West’s gravest mistake?

For two decades, Apple poured billions into China, training millions of workers and building the most advanced supply and manufacturing system in history. But those same investments transferred knowledge, skills and power, handing China the tools to challenge America’s dominance and putting Apple in the middle of a new Cold War between two superpowers.

Based on hundreds of exclusive interviews, Patrick McGee’s gripping exposé reveals Apple’s vulnerability for the first time – and shows how one company’s triumph inadvertently reshaped the global balance of power.

‘Devastatingly clear’  New York Times 

‘Scrupulously reported’  New Yorker  

‘Absolutely riveting’ Peter Frankopan  

‘Disturbing and enlightening’ Chris Miller 

'This is the best book about Apple ever written’ Ben Thompson,  Stratechery  ]]> 448 Patrick McGee 1398534382 Leon 5 4.55 2025 Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company
author: Patrick McGee
name: Leon
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/27
date added: 2025/06/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World]]> 31117855 871 Marc Raboy 0199313601 Leon 4 4.29 2016 Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World
author: Marc Raboy
name: Leon
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/19
date added: 2025/06/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The System Of The World (The Baroque Cycle, #3)]]> 19078142 Neal Stephenson follows his highly-praised historical novels, Quicksilver and The Confusion, with the extraordinary third and final volume of the Baroque Cycle.The year is 1714. Daniel Waterhouse has returned to England, where he joins forces with his friend Isaac Newton to hunt down a shadowy group attempting to blow up Natural Philosophers with 'Infernal Devices' - time bombs. As Daniel and Newton conspire, an increasingly vicious struggle is waged for England's who will take control when the ailing queen dies?Tories and Whigs clash as one faction jockeys to replace Queen Anne with 'The Pretender' James Stuart, and the other promotes the Hanoverian dynasty of Princess Caroline. Meanwhile, a long-simmering dispute between Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz comes to a head, with potentially cataclysmic consequences.Wildly inventive, brilliantly conceived, The System of the World is the final volume in Neal Stephenson's hugely ambitious and compelling saga. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters in a time of genius, discovery and change, the Baroque Cycle is a magnificent and unique achievement.]]> 1017 Neal Stephenson Leon 5 4.64 2004 The System Of The World (The Baroque Cycle, #3)
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Leon
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/10
date added: 2025/06/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It]]> 134167655 The average human lifespan is absurdly, outrageously, insultingly brief: if you live to 80, you have about four thousand weeks on earth. That’s a pretty good argument for spending less time on Twitter.

Of course, nobody needs telling that there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed by our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, the ceaseless struggle against distraction, and the sense that our attention spans are shrivelling. Yet we rarely make the conscious connection that these problems of time management only trouble us in the first place thanks to the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Four Thousand Weeks is a travelogue about this idea, combining first-person reportage and historical storytelling with excursions into philosophy, literature and psychology, and covering the past, present and future of our battles with time. It’s a book that goes beyond practical tips to transform the reader’s worldview.

Burkeman sets out on an unashamedly philosophical exploration of time and our relationship with it. Drawing on the insights of ancient philosophers, Benedictine monks, artists and authors, Scandinavian social reformers, renegade Buddhist technologists and many others, he sets out to realign our relationship with time – and in doing so, liberate us from its grasp.

]]> 288 Oliver Burkeman Leon 4 4.28 2021 Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It
author: Oliver Burkeman
name: Leon
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/26
date added: 2025/05/26
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]]> <![CDATA[The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Canto Classics)]]> 19210497 406 Elizabeth L. Eisenstein Leon 0 currently-reading 4.05 1983 The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Canto Classics)
author: Elizabeth L. Eisenstein
name: Leon
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/21
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Everything Is Predictable: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World]]> 144415429 291 Tom Chivers 1399604066 Leon 5 4.16 2024 Everything Is Predictable: How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains the World
author: Tom Chivers
name: Leon
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/18
date added: 2025/05/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World]]> 56021241 From Neanderthal string to 3D knitting, an “expansive” global history that highlights “how textiles truly changed the world” (Wall Street Journal) The story of humanity is the story of textiles—as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world. Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo’s David and the Taj Mahal. The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code.   Assiduously researched and deftly narrated, The Fabric of Civilization tells the story of the world’s most influential commodity.]]> 321 Virginia Postrel Leon 5 4.21 2020 The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World
author: Virginia Postrel
name: Leon
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/04
date added: 2025/05/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography]]> 36549872 The definitive account of the life and thought of the medieval Arab genius who wrote the MuqaddimaIbn Khaldun (1332–1406) is generally regarded as the greatest intellectual ever to have appeared in the Arab world--a genius who ranks as one of the world's great minds. Yet the author of the Muqaddima, the most important study of history ever produced in the Islamic world, is not as well known as he should be, and his ideas are widely misunderstood. In this groundbreaking intellectual biography, Robert Irwin provides an engaging and authoritative account of Ibn Khaldun's extraordinary life, times, writings, and ideas. Irwin tells how Ibn Khaldun, who lived in a world decimated by the Black Death, held a long series of posts in the tumultuous Islamic courts of North Africa and Muslim Spain, becoming a major political player as well as a teacher and writer. Closely examining the Muqaddima, a startlingly original analysis of the laws of history, and drawing on many other contemporary sources, Irwin shows how Ibn Khaldun's life and thought fit into historical and intellectual context, including medieval Islamic theology, philosophy, politics, literature, economics, law, and tribal life. Because Ibn Khaldun's ideas often seem to anticipate by centuries developments in many fields, he has often been depicted as more of a modern man than a medieval one, and Irwin's account of such misreadings provides new insights about the history of Orientalism.In contrast, Irwin presents an Ibn Khaldun who was a creature of his time—a devout Sufi mystic who was obsessed with the occult and futurology and who lived in an often-strange world quite different from our own.]]> 256 Robert Irwin 1400889545 Leon 4 3.72 2018 Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography
author: Robert Irwin
name: Leon
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
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]]> <![CDATA[How To Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen]]> 149108012 Brought to you by Penguin.

A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives - from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain

If you are going to care for someone, you must first understand them. If you're going to hire, marry, or befriend someone, you have to be able to see them. If you are going to work closely with someone, you have to be able to make them feel recognized and valued. As David Brooks observes, "The older I get, the more I come to the certainty that there is one skill at the center of any healthy family, company, classroom, community or the ability to see each other, to know other people, to make them feel valued, heard and understood."

And yet we humans don't do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us to do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us. If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person's story should you pay attention to?

Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience, and from the worlds of theatre, history, and education, to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps listeners become more understanding and considerate towards others; it helps listeners find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.

The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is a profoundly creative How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, seeking to understand and yearning to be understood.]]> 300 David Brooks 0241670292 Leon 5 4.20 2023 How To Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
author: David Brooks
name: Leon
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/09
date added: 2025/04/23
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]]> <![CDATA[King Dollar: The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency]]> 226925100 An award-winning economic journalist on why the US dollar is positioned to maintain global primacy—and what that means for America and the world
 
“Magisterial.”—Edward Chancellor, Reuters
 
Prophecies that the dollar will lose its status as the world’s dominant currency have echoed for decades—and are increasing in volume. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts claim that Bitcoin or other blockchain-based monetary units will replace the dollar. Foreign policy hawks warn that China’s renminbi poses a lethal threat to the greenback. And sound money zealots predict that mounting US debt and inflation will surely erode the dollar’s value to the point of irrelevancy.
 
Contra the doomsayers, Paul Blustein shows that the dollar’s standing atop the world’s currency pyramid is impregnable, barring catastrophic policy missteps by the US government. Recounting how the United States has wielded the dollar to impose devastating sanctions against adversaries, Blustein explains that although targets such as Russia have found ways to limit the damage, Washington’s financial weaponry will retain potency long into the future. His message, however, is that America must not be complacent about the dollar; the great power that its supremacy confers comes with commensurate responsibility.]]> 330 Paul Blustein 0300281242 Leon 0 4.62 King Dollar: The Past and Future of the World's Dominant Currency
author: Paul Blustein
name: Leon
average rating: 4.62
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Colour of Magic (Discworld, #1)]]> 11138378
If you’re new to the Discworld don’t worry, you’re not alone . . . Twoflower is the Discworld’s first tourist, he’s exceptionally naive and about to get himself into an array of dangerous and fantastical situations on his travels.

And if that didn’t sound fateful enough, it’s the spectacularly inept wizard, Rincewind who is charged with safely chaperoning Twoflower and his Luggage (a walking suitcase that has half a mind of its own and a homicidal attitude to anything threatening) during his visit.

Safe to say chaos ensues…

The Discworld novels can be read in any order but The Colour of Magic is the first Discworld book. It is also the starting point in the Wizards collection, followed by The Light Fantastic.]]> 293 Terry Pratchett Leon 5 https://contraptions.venkateshrao.com... and the fact that I find i'm struggling to regain my reading-for-pleasure mojo.

My plan this time is to read in publish order - let's see how that goes.

This is clearly the prototype - some themes (heading to Roundworld...Rincewind becoming Dr Rijnswind) are to be pretty much abandoned, others (female wizards) are dealt with quite differently in future books. This definitely feels - in a way that later books don't - of its era. One can smell the cigarette smoke and stale beer of early / mid 1980s English pubs. Revisiting the character of Rincewind I'm surprised how much I'm drawn to him - perhaps inspired by Venkat, on reflection I think he does deserve a place in the first rank of Pratchett heroes - alongside Vimes, Granny Weathewax, Tiffany Aching and Death.

I'm not sure I would recommend this to someone who doesn't love Discworld - equally, I enjoyed reading it, and surely shall again. ]]> 4.01 1983 The Colour of Magic (Discworld, #1)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Leon
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
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A few things inspired me to start my next full reread of Discworld. The tenth anniversary of Sir Terry's death, vgr's excellent essay https://contraptions.venkateshrao.com... and the fact that I find i'm struggling to regain my reading-for-pleasure mojo.

My plan this time is to read in publish order - let's see how that goes.

This is clearly the prototype - some themes (heading to Roundworld...Rincewind becoming Dr Rijnswind) are to be pretty much abandoned, others (female wizards) are dealt with quite differently in future books. This definitely feels - in a way that later books don't - of its era. One can smell the cigarette smoke and stale beer of early / mid 1980s English pubs. Revisiting the character of Rincewind I'm surprised how much I'm drawn to him - perhaps inspired by Venkat, on reflection I think he does deserve a place in the first rank of Pratchett heroes - alongside Vimes, Granny Weathewax, Tiffany Aching and Death.

I'm not sure I would recommend this to someone who doesn't love Discworld - equally, I enjoyed reading it, and surely shall again.
]]> How Music Works 18884572
Acting as historian and anthropologist, raconteur and social scientist, he searches for patterns—and shows how those patterns have affected his own work over the years with Talking Heads and his many collaborators, from Brian Eno to Caetano Veloso. Byrne sees music as part of a larger, almost Darwinian pattern of adaptations and responses to its cultural and physical context. His range is panoptic, taking us from Wagnerian opera houses to African villages, from his earliest high school reel-to-reel recordings to his latest work in a home music studio (and all the big studios in between).

Touching on the joy, the physics, and even the business of making music, 'How Music Works' is a brainy, irresistible adventure and an impassioned argument about music’s liberating, life-affirming power.]]> 348 David Byrne 0857862510 Leon 4 4.11 2014 How Music Works
author: David Byrne
name: Leon
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
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]]> Diffusion of Innovations 20042528 Everett Rogers's name has become "virtually synonymous with the study
of diffusion of innovations," according to Choice. The second and
third editions of Diffusion of Innovations became the standard
textbook and reference on diffusion studies. Now, in the fourth
edition, Rogers presents the culmination of more than thirty years of
research that will set a new standard for analysis and inquiry.

The fourth edition is (1) a revision of the theoretical framework and
the research evidence supporting this model of diffusion, and (2) a
new intellectual venture, in that new concepts and new theoretical
viewpoints are introduced. This edition differs from its predecessors
in that it takes a much more critical stance in its review and
synthesis of 5,000 diffusion publications. During the past thirty
years or so, diffusion research has grown to be widely recognized,
applied and admired, but it has also been subjected to both
constructive and destructive criticism. This criticism is due in large
part to the stereotyped and limited ways in which many diffusion
scholars have defined the scope and method of their field of study.
Rogers analyzes the limitations of previous diffusion studies,
showing, for example, that the convergence model, by which
participants create and share information to reach a mutual
understanding, more accurately describes diffusion in most cases than
the linear model.

Rogers provides an entirely new set of case examples, from the
Balinese Water Temple to Nintendo videogames, that beautifully
illustrate his expansive research, as well as a completely revised
bibliography covering all relevant diffusion scholarship in the past
decade. Most important, he discusses recent research and current
topics, including social marketing, forecasting the rate of adoption,
technology transfer, and more. This all-inclusive work will be
essential reading for scholars and students in the fields of
communications, marketing, geography, economic development, political
science, sociology, and other related fields for generations to come.]]> 538 Everett M. Rogers Leon 0 currently-reading 5.00 1982 Diffusion of Innovations
author: Everett M. Rogers
name: Leon
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, #1)]]> 823 Quicksilver is the story of Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and conflicted Puritan, pursuing knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe, in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight.

It is a chronicle of the breathtaking exploits of "Half-Cocked Jack" Shaftoe--London street urchin turned swashbuckling adventurer and legendary King of the Vagabonds--risking life and limb for fortune and love while slowly maddening from the pox.

And it is the tale of Eliza, rescued by Jack from a Turkish harem to become spy, confidante, and pawn of royals in order to reinvent Europe through the newborn power of finance.

A gloriously rich, entertaining, and endlessly inventive novel that brings a remarkable age and its momentous events to vivid life, Quicksilver is an extraordinary achievement from one of the most original and important literary talents of our time.

And it's just the beginning...

(back cover)

This P.S. edition includes 16 pages of supplementary materials.

Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover illustration from the Mary Evans Picture Library; painting of Great Fire of London on stepback]]> 927 Neal Stephenson Leon 5
WITH THAT SAID - such a dense, intoxicating book that I’m really not sure when I would pick it up again. Would have to be a time when I’m facing the luxury of boredom, or perhaps everything in my life is so weird this becomes normal.]]> 3.91 2003 Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, #1)
author: Neal Stephenson
name: Leon
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves:
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One of the strangest books I’ve ever read. I love Neal Stephenson but this is next level. Rated five on my scale of 5 - will read again, 4 - you should read it, 3 - glad I read it, 2 - wish I hadn’t read it, 1 - wish it hadn’t been written.

WITH THAT SAID - such a dense, intoxicating book that I’m really not sure when I would pick it up again. Would have to be a time when I’m facing the luxury of boredom, or perhaps everything in my life is so weird this becomes normal.
]]> Conclave 218452100
Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election.

They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals.

Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.]]> 288 Robert Harris Leon 4 4.48 2016 Conclave
author: Robert Harris
name: Leon
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck]]> 11851353 Why does fake news stick while the truth goes missing?Why do disproved urban legends persist? How do you keep letting newspapers and clickbait sites lure you in with their headlines? And why do you remember complicated stories but not complicated facts?Over ten years of study, Chip and Dan Heath have discovered how we latch on to information hooks. Packed full of case histories and incredible anecdotes, it how an Australian scientist convinced the world he'd discovered the cause of stomach ulcers by drinking a glass filled with bacteria- how a gifted sports reporter got people to watch a football match by showing them the outside of the stadium- how pitches like 'Jaws on a spaceship' (Alien) and 'Die Hard on a bus' (Speed) convince movie execs to invest gigantic sums even when they know nothing else about the projectAs entertaining as it is informative, this is a timely exploration of a fascinating human behaviour. At the same time, by demonstrating strategies like the 'Velcro Theory of Memory' and 'curiosity gaps', it offers superbly practical insights.Made to Stick uses cutting-edge insight to help you ensure that what you say is understood, remembered and, most importantly, acted upon.]]> 306 Chip Heath Leon 4 4.30 2006 Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck
author: Chip Heath
name: Leon
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
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]]> The Nineties: A Book 58445515 An instant New York Times bestseller!From the bestselling author of But What if We’re Wrong, a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about the sin of trying too hard, during the greatest shift in human consciousness of any decade in American history.It was long ago, but not as long as it The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. In the beginning, almost every name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines because you didn’t know who it was. By the end, exposing someone’s address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their new cell phone if they didn’t know who it was. The 90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we’re still groping to understand. Happily, Chuck Klosterman is more than up to the job. Beyond epiphenomena like "Cop Killer" and Titanic and Zima, there  were wholesale shifts in how society was the rise of the internet, pre-9/11 politics, and the paradoxical belief that nothing was more humiliating than trying too hard. Pop culture accelerated without the aid of a machine that remembered everything, generating an odd comfort in never being certain about anything. On a 90’s Thursday night, more people watched any random episode of Seinfeld than the finale of Game of Thrones. But nobody thought that was important; if you missed it, you simply missed it. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture, whether you found a home in it or defined yourself against it.   In The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman makes a home in all of the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan. In perhaps no other book ever written would a sentence like, “The video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was not more consequential than the reunification of Germany” make complete sense. Chuck Klosterman has written a multi-dimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian.]]> 384 Chuck Klosterman 0735217971 Leon 4 started off getting annoyed with it, then couldn’t put it down

If you’re of my generation you might find this a pleasurable if more than a little self indulgent look at the decade which defined us. Very US centric portrait of the only generation which will likely never produce a US president :-)]]> 3.96 2022 The Nineties: A Book
author: Chuck Klosterman
name: Leon
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
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started off getting annoyed with it, then couldn’t put it down

If you’re of my generation you might find this a pleasurable if more than a little self indulgent look at the decade which defined us. Very US centric portrait of the only generation which will likely never produce a US president :-)
]]> Autocracy, Inc. 183932735 224 Anne Applebaum 0241627893 Leon 4 4.16 2024 Autocracy, Inc.
author: Anne Applebaum
name: Leon
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/05
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Read after a rec on the Rest is Politics podcast. Found it very interesting- put me in mind of the Dictators Handbook.
]]> Inversions (Culture, #6) 222191721
In another palace, far across the mountains, sits the regicidal Protector General. His chief bodyguard also has enemies to worry about, with the threat of treachery and assassination never far away.

And beneath the surface of these feudal courts - behind the spies, murders, politics and intrigues - lies an entirely di­fferent kind of threat, an entity that nobody would ever suspect.]]> 385 Iain M. Banks Leon 5 4.26 1998 Inversions (Culture, #6)
author: Iain M. Banks
name: Leon
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt, #1)]]> 57175436 An alternative cover edition for this ASIN can be found here.


Empire in Black and Gold is the first novel in Adrian Tchaikovsky's critically acclaimed epic fantasy series, The Shadows of the Apt.

The days of peace are over . . .

The city states of the Lowlands have lived in peace and prosperity for decades: bastions of civilization and sophistication. That peace is about to end.

In far-off corners, an ancient Empire has been conquering city after city with its highly trained armies and sophisticated warmaking . . . And now it's set its sights on a new prize.

Only the ageing Stenwold Maker, spymaster, artificer and statesman, can see the threat. It falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of his people – as soon a tide will sweep down over the Lowlands and burn away everything in its path.

But first he must stop himself from becoming the Empire's latest victim.

Empire in Black and Gold is followed by the second book in the Shadows of the Apt series, Dragonfly Falling. ]]> 625 Adrian Tchaikovsky Leon 4 4.15 2008 Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt, #1)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Leon
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> <![CDATA[You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life]]> 11800163
Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each new thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.

One of the most beloved figures of the twentieth century, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt remains a role model for a life well lived. At the age of seventy-six, Roosevelt penned this simple guide to living a fuller life—a powerful volume of enduring commonsense ideas and heartfelt values. Offering her own philosophy on living, she takes readers on a path to compassion, confidence, maturity, civic stewardship, and more. Her keys to a fulfilling life?

Learning to Learn • Fear—the Great Enemy • The Uses of Time • The Difficult Art of Maturity • Readjustment is Endless • Learning to Be Useful• The Right to Be an Individual • How to Get the Best Out of People •Facing Responsibility • How Everyone Can Take Part in Politics • Learning to Be a Public Servant

A crucial precursor to better-living guides like Mark Nepo’s The Book of Awakening or Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, as well as political memoirs such as John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, the First Lady’s illuminating manual is a window into Eleanor Roosevelt herself and a trove of timeless wisdom that resonates in any era.]]> 228 Eleanor Roosevelt Leon 0 currently-reading 4.04 1960 You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life
author: Eleanor Roosevelt
name: Leon
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense]]> 39946092 Nassim Nicholas TalebWhy is Red Bull so popular – even though everyone hates the taste? Why do countdown boards on platforms take away the pain of train delays? And why do we prefer stripy toothpaste?Discover the alchemy behind original thinking, as TED Talk superstar and Ogilvy advertising legend Rory Sutherland reveals why abandoning logic and casting aside rationality is the best way to solve any problem. In his first book he blends cutting-edge behavioural science, jaw-dropping stories and a touch of branding magic on his mission to turn us all into idea alchemists. He shows how economists, businesses and governments have got it all we are not rational creatures who make logical decisions based on evidence. Instead, the big problems we face every day, whether as an individual or in society, could very well be solved by thinking less logically. To be brilliant, you have to be irrational.]]> 372 Rory Sutherland Leon 5 the book and audio book are quite different

Both are excellent. Not entirely original perhaps but a useful synthesis of ideas and interesting hearing from someone with skin in the game.]]> 4.28 2019 Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
author: Rory Sutherland
name: Leon
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves:
review:
the book and audio book are quite different

Both are excellent. Not entirely original perhaps but a useful synthesis of ideas and interesting hearing from someone with skin in the game.
]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories]]> 23480598 734 Christopher Booker Leon 0 currently-reading 3.91 2004 The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories
author: Christopher Booker
name: Leon
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/03
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[On Tyranny: The Book to Help You Understand Why Democracy Is Failing In 2025]]> 34312145 **NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**

History does not repeat, but it does instructIn the twentieth century, European democracies collapsed into fascism, Nazism and communism. These were movements in which a leader or a party claimed to give voice to the people, promised to protect them from global existential threats, and rejected reason in favour of myth. European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary people can find themselves in unimaginable circumstances.History can familiarise, and it can warn. Today, we are no wiser than twentieth century Europe, who saw democracy yield to totalitarianism.In just 128 pages, Timothy Snyder delves into the past to show us what could happen in the future if our political orders become imperilled. 'A sort of survival book, a sort of symptom-diagnosis manual in terms of losing your democracy and what tyranny and authoritarianism look like up close' Rachel Maddow, author of Blowout'These 128 pages are a brief primer in every important thing we might have learned from the history of the last century, and all that we appear to have forgotten' Observer]]> 130 Timothy Snyder Leon 0 4.21 2017 On Tyranny: The Book to Help You Understand Why Democracy Is Failing In 2025
author: Timothy Snyder
name: Leon
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/03
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]]> <![CDATA[No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention]]> 50964609 *** Shortlisted for the 2020 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year ***It's time to do things differently. Trust your team. Be radically honest. And never, ever try to please your boss.These are some of the ground rules if you work at Netflix. They are part of a unique cultural experiment that explains how the company has transformed itself at lightning speed from a DVD mail order service into a streaming superpower - with 190 million fervent subscribers and a market capitalisation that rivals the likes of Disney.Finally Reed Hastings, Netflix Chairman and CEO, is sharing the secrets that have revolutionised the entertainment and tech industries. With INSEAD business school professor Erin Meyer, he will explore his leadership philosophy - which begins by rejecting the accepted beliefs under which most companies operate - and how it plays out in practice at Netflix.From unlimited holidays to abolishing approvals, Netflix offers a fundamentally different way to run any organisation, one far more in tune with an ever-changing fast-paced world. For anyone interested in creativity, productivity and innovation, the Netflix culture is something close to a holy grail. This book will make it, and its creator, fully accessible for the first time.]]> 310 Reed Hastings Leon 3 4.46 2020 No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
author: Reed Hastings
name: Leon
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/02
date added: 2024/11/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Mating in Captivity: Sex, Lies and Domestic Bliss]]> 19384590
In Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel looks at the story of sex in committed couples. Modern romance promises it all - a lifetime of togetherness, intimacy and erotic desire. In reality, it's hard to want what you already have. Our quest for secure love conflicts with our pursuit of passion. And often, the very thing that got us to into our relationships - lust - is the one thing that goes missing from them.

Determined to reconcile the erotic and the domestic, Perel explains why democracy is a passion killer in the bedroom. Argues for playfulness, distance, and uncertainty. And shows what it takes to bring lust home. Smart, sexy and explosively original, Mating in Captivity is the monogamist's essential bedside read.
"]]> 276 Esther Perel 1444717618 Leon 0 currently-reading 4.36 2006 Mating in Captivity: Sex, Lies and Domestic Bliss
author: Esther Perel
name: Leon
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/31
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee]]> 31580342 **WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING****WINNER OF THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY***Book of the The Times, Sunday Times, New Statesman, Spectator, Evening Standard*'Outstanding . . . We still live in the society that was shaped by Clement Attlee' Robert Harris, Sunday Times'The best book in the field of British politics' Philip Collins, The Times'Easily the best single-volume, cradle-to-grave life of Clement Attlee yet written' Andrew RobertsClement Attlee was the Labour prime minister who presided over Britain's radical postwar government, delivering the end of the Empire in India, the foundation of the NHS and Britain's place in NATO. Called 'a sheep in sheep's clothing', his reputation has long been that of an unassuming character in the shadow of Churchill. But as John Bew's revelatory biography shows, Attlee was not only a hero of his age, but an emblem of it; and his life tells the story of how Britain changed over the twentieth century. Here, Bew pierces Attlee's reticence to examine the intellect and beliefs of Britain's greatest - and least appreciated - peacetime prime minister. This edition includes a new preface by the author in response to the 2017 general election.]]> 950 John Bew 1784299731 Leon 4 4.52 2016 Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee
author: John Bew
name: Leon
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/25
date added: 2024/10/25
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]]> Project Hail Mary 55313155 A lone astronaut.
An impossible mission.
An ally he never imagined.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it's up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery-and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he's got to do it all alone.

Or does he?

An irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could imagine it, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian -- while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.]]> 482 Andy Weir Leon 5 4.57 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Leon
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous]]> 209211397 What do you want, when no one is watching?
What do you want, when the lights are off?
What do you want, when you are anonymous?

When we talk about sex, we talk about womanhood and motherhood, infidelity and exploitation, consent and respect, fairness and egalitarianism, love and hate, pleasure and pain. And yet for many reasons – some complicated, some not – so many of us don't talk about it. Our deepest, most intimate fears and fantasies remain locked away inside of us, until someone comes along with the key. Here's the key. In this generation-defining book, Gillian Anderson collects and introduces the anonymous letters of hundreds of women from around the world (along with her own anonymous letter). Want reveals how women feel about sex when they have the freedom to be totally anonymous.]]> 392 Gillian Anderson 1526657899 Leon 0 currently-reading 3.48 2024 Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous
author: Gillian Anderson
name: Leon
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/29
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[The New California Wine: A Guide to the Producers and Wines Behind a Revolution in Taste]]> 17910782 A comprehensive guide to the must-know wines and producers of California's "new generation," and the story of the iconoclastic young winemakers who have changed the face of California viniculture in recent years.     The New California Wine is the untold story of the California wine the young, innovative producers who are rewriting the rules of contemporary winemaking; their quest to express the uniqueness of California terroir; and the continuing battle to move the state away from the overly-technocratic, reactionary practices of its recent past. Jon Bonné writes from the front lines of the California wine revolution, where he has access to the fascinating stories, philosophies, and techniques of top producers. Part narrative, part authoritative purchasing reference, The New California Wine is a necessary addition to any wine lover's bookshelf.]]> 538 Jon Bonne 1607743019 Leon 4 4.18 2013 The New California Wine: A Guide to the Producers and Wines Behind a Revolution in Taste
author: Jon Bonne
name: Leon
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/09/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It]]> 58642436
From the era of the hunter-gatherer to today, when we exist as workers in the globalised economy and citizens of online worlds, the need for status has always been wired into us. A wealth of research shows that how much of it we possess dramatically affects not only our happiness and wellbeing but also our physical health – and without sufficient status, we become more ill, and live shorter lives. It’s an unconscious obsession that drives the best and worst of us: our innovation, arts and civilisation as well as our murders, wars and genocides. But why is status such an all-consuming prize? What happens if it’s taken away from us? And how can our unquenchable thirst for it explain cults, moral panics, conspiracy theories, the rise of social media and the ‘culture wars’ of today?

On a breathtaking journey through time and culture, The Status Game offers a sweeping rethink of human psychology that will change how you see others – and how you see yourself]]> 437 Will Storr 0008354650 Leon 0 currently-reading 4.11 The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It
author: Will Storr
name: Leon
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/22
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]]> Salt: A World History 13172657 Homer called it a divine substance. Plato described it as especially dear to the gods. As Mark Kurlansky so brilliantly relates here, salt has shaped civilisation from the beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of mankind. Wars have been fought over salt and, while salt taxes secured empires across Europe and Asia, they have also inspired revolution - Gandhi's salt march in 1930 began the overthrow of British rule in India.



From the rural Sichuan province where the last home-made soya sauce is produced to the Cheshire brine springs that supplied salt around the globe, Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of world history, a multi-layered masterpiece that blends political, commercial, scientific, religious and culinary records into a rich and memorable tale.

]]> 497 Mark Kurlansky Leon 4 4.07 2002 Salt: A World History
author: Mark Kurlansky
name: Leon
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/16
date added: 2024/09/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Wild and Crazy Guys: How the Comedy Mavericks of the '80s Changed Hollywood Forever]]> 44792657 Featuring icons like Bill Murray, Steve Martin, and Eddie Murphy, and covering films like Animal House , Caddyshack, and Ghostbusters , the behind-the-scenes story of the comedy misfits who ruled '80s Hollywood and the beloved films that made them famous

Wild and Crazy Guys opens in 1978 with Chevy Chase and Bill Murray taking bad-tempered (and slightly pathetic) swings at each other backstage at Saturday Night Live, and closes 21 years later with the two doing a skit in the same venue, poking fun at each other, their illustrious careers, triumphs and prat falls. In between, Nick de Semlyen takes us on a trip through the tumultuous '80s, delving behind the scenes of movies such as Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, and dozens more. Chronicling the off-screen, larger-than-life antics of Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, John Belushi, et al, it's got drugs, sex, punch-ups, webbed toes, and Bill Murray being pushed into a swimming pool by Hunter S. Thompson, while tied to a lawn chair. What's not to like?

Based on candid interviews from the stars themselves, as well as those in their immediate orbit, Wild and Crazy Guys is a fantastic insider account of the friendships, feuds, triumphs, and disasters experienced by these iconic funnymen, and reveals the hidden history behind the most fertile period ever for screen comedy.]]> 352 Nick de Semlyen 0752266578 Leon 4 4.17 2019 Wild and Crazy Guys: How the Comedy Mavericks of the '80s Changed Hollywood Forever
author: Nick de Semlyen
name: Leon
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/31
date added: 2024/08/31
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]]> Bossypants 11192425 Once in a generation a woman comes along who changes everything. Tina Fey is not that woman, but she met that woman once and acted weird around her.Before 30 Rock, Mean Girls and 'Sarah Palin', Tina Fey was just a young girl with a a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV. She has seen both these dreams come true.At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon - from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all you're no one until someone calls you bossy.]]> 264 Tina Fey 0748129774 Leon 4 3.88 2011 Bossypants
author: Tina Fey
name: Leon
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/08/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Lying for Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of Our World]]> 38605195 321 Dan Davies Leon 4 3.96 2018 Lying for Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of Our World
author: Dan Davies
name: Leon
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/06
date added: 2024/08/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious]]> 59433526
In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the problem of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings across multiple scientific disciplines have given us a way to understand consciousness and its significance for human life.

In the forty-eight brief chapters of Feeling & Knowing, and in writing that remains faithful to our intuitive sense of what feeling and experiencing are about, Damasio helps us understand why being conscious is not the same as sensing, why nervous systems are essential for the development of feelings, and why feeling opens the way to consciousness writ large. He combines the latest discoveries in various sciences with philosophy and discusses his original research, which has transformed our understanding of the brain and human behavior.

Here is an indispensable guide to understand­ing how we experience the world within and around us and find our place in the universe.]]> 184 António Damásio 1472147324 Leon 4 4.00 2021 Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious
author: António Damásio
name: Leon
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
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]]> <![CDATA[This is How You Lose the Time War]]> 45839133 Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.]]> 164 Amal El-Mohtar 1529405246 Leon 4 3.83 2019 This is How You Lose the Time War
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Leon
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/01
date added: 2024/07/01
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]]> <![CDATA[What Is ChatGPT Doing... and Why Does It Work?]]> 123245371 143 Stephen Wolfram 1579550827 Leon 0 currently-reading 3.87 What Is ChatGPT Doing... and Why Does It Work?
author: Stephen Wolfram
name: Leon
average rating: 3.87
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/30
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI]]> 198678736
Cutting through the noise of AI evangelists and AI doom-mongers, Wharton professor Ethan Mollick has become one of the most prominent and provocative explainers of AI, focusing on the practical aspects of how these new tools for thought can transform our world. In Co-Intelligence, he urges us to engage with AI as co-worker, co-teacher and coach. Wide ranging, hugely thought-provoking and optimistic, Co-Intelligence reveals the promise and power of this new era.]]> 243 Ethan Mollick 075356078X Leon 5 anyone who wants to get smart about Gen AI needs to read this

Superb, clear and weirdly practical. When I grow up I want to be able to articulate myself as well as this. Ethan clearly has a strong point of view but even if you disagree, it’s hard to imagine this book won’t make you at least slightly smarter.]]> 3.89 2024 Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI
author: Ethan Mollick
name: Leon
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/30
date added: 2024/06/30
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anyone who wants to get smart about Gen AI needs to read this

Superb, clear and weirdly practical. When I grow up I want to be able to articulate myself as well as this. Ethan clearly has a strong point of view but even if you disagree, it’s hard to imagine this book won’t make you at least slightly smarter.
]]> <![CDATA[Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal]]> 58751295 Acclaimed National Book Award-winning author George Packer diagnoses America's descent into a failed state, and envisions a path toward overcoming injustices, paralyses, and divides How, in a few decades, did the United States transform from a broadly prosperous middle-class country, with relatively healthy institutions and competent leaders, to a nation defined by discredited elites, hollowed-out institutions, and blatant inequalities-feared and pitied by our friends, mocked and sabotaged by our adversaries, first in the world in Covid cases and deaths, and led in recent years by an incompetent authoritarian bigot? Last Best Hope is a bracing account of our current crisis and of how a new era of civic revitalization may bring it to an end. Combining reportage with historical narrative, autobiography, and political analysis, Packer depicts and assesses the four inadequate narratives that dominate American public Libertarian America, which imagines a nation of individuals responsible for their own fate, and serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy; Cosmopolitan America, the ideology of Silicon Valley and the professional elite,which celebrates globalization and leaves many American communities behind; Diverse America, which defines citizens as members of large identity groups that have inflicted or suffered oppression; and White America, a shallow nationalism that fears the contamination of non-whites and treachery of coastal elites, and poses the greatest threat to democracy in our lifetime. At a time when many fear that the American experiment in self-government may collapse, or, in Abraham Lincoln's words, "die by suicide", Packer shows that none of these narratives can sustain American democracy. To point a better way forward, he looks back at previous eras of crisis to discover the resources for invigorating self-government. Combining trenchant social analysis with a vibrant and stinging essayistic voice and a deep knowledge of America's past and present, Last Best Hope is an essential contribution to the literature of national self-examination the times demand.]]> 220 George Packer 1529191696 Leon 4 4.19 2021 Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal
author: George Packer
name: Leon
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/16
date added: 2024/06/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Determined: Life Without Free Will]]> 81071841 In a masterful synthesis of science and philosophy, one of the world's pre-eminent behavioural scientists demonstrates that free will is a powerful and dangerous illusion. The result is a new way to think about choice, identity, responsibility, justice, morality and how we live together.

Behind every thought, action and experience there lies a chain of biological and environmental causes, stretching back from the moment a neuron fires to the dawn of our species and beyond. Nowhere in this infinite sequence is there a place where free will could play a role.

Without free will, it makes no more sense to punish people for antisocial behaviour than it does to scold a car for breaking down. It is no one's fault they are poor or overweight or unsuccessful, nor do people deserve praise for their talent or hard work; 'grit' is a myth. This mechanistic view of human behaviour challenges our most powerful instincts, but history suggests that we have already made great strides toward where once we saw demonic possession or cowardice, for example, now we diagnose illness or trauma and offer help.

Determined confronts us with our true who and what we are is biology and nothing more. Disturbing and liberating in equal measure, it explores the far-reaching implications for society of accepting this reality. Monumentally difficult as it may be, the reward will be a far more just and humane world.]]> 511 Robert M. Sapolsky 1473561418 Leon 0 currently-reading 4.40 2023 Determined: Life Without Free Will
author: Robert M. Sapolsky
name: Leon
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison]]> 36510260 290 Shaka Senghor Leon 4 4.46 2013 Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison
author: Shaka Senghor
name: Leon
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/08
date added: 2024/06/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding]]> 34810205 Reason, we are told, is what makes us human, the source of our knowledge and wisdom. If reason is so useful, why didn't it also evolve in other animals? If reason is that reliable, why do we produce so much thoroughly reasoned nonsense? In their ground-breaking account of the evolution and workings of reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber set out to solve this double enigma. Reason, they argue with a compelling mix of real-life and experimental evidence, is not geared to solitary use, to arriving at better beliefs and decisions on our own. What reason does, rather, is help us justify our beliefs and actions to others, convince them through argumentation, and evaluate the justifications and arguments that others address to us.

In other words, reason has evolved to help humans better exploit their uniquely rich social environment. This illuminating interpretation of reason makes sense of strengths and weaknesses that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists - why reason is biased in favour of what we already believe, why it may lead to terrible ideas and yet is indispensable to spreading good ones. Ambitious, provocative, and entertaining, The Enigma of Reason will spark debate among psychologists and philosophers, and make many reasonable people rethink their own thinking.

]]> 379 Hugo Mercier Leon 0 currently-reading 4.12 2017 The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding
author: Hugo Mercier
name: Leon
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/07
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign]]> 33874545 558 Jonathan Allen 0553447092 Leon 4 3.69 2017 Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign
author: Jonathan Allen
name: Leon
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/06
date added: 2024/06/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - and How The World Lost its Mind]]> 197716282 304 Dan Davies 1782839259 Leon 5 3.74 2024 The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - and How The World Lost its Mind
author: Dan Davies
name: Leon
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/27
date added: 2024/05/27
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]]> The Redemption of Time 75310309 The Redemption of Time extends the astonishing universe conjured by the Three-Body Trilogy.
Death is no release for Yun Tianming – merely the first step on a journey that will place him on the frontline of a war that has raged since the beginning of time.

At the end of the fourth year of the Crisis Era, Yun Tianming died. He was flash frozen, put aboard a spacecraft and launched on a trajectory to intercept the Trisolaran First Fleet. It was a desperate plan, a Trojan gambit almost certain to fail. But there was an infinitesimal chance that the aliens would find rebooting a human irresistible, and that someday, somehow, Tianming might relay valuable information back to Earth.

And so he did. But not before he betrayed humanity.

Now, after millennia in exile, Tianming has a final chance at redemption. A being calling itself The Spirit has recruited him to help wage war against a foe that threatens the existence of the entire universe. a challenge he will accept, but this time Tianming refuses to be a mere pawn... He has his own plans.

Published with the blessing of Cixin Liu, The Redemption of Time extends the astonishing universe conjured by the Three-Body Trilogy. You'll discover why the universe is a 'dark forest', and for the first time, you'll come face-to-face with a Trisolaran...]]> 290 Baoshu Leon 0 currently-reading 3.92 2011 The Redemption of Time
author: Baoshu
name: Leon
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/19
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology]]> 173509677 A cutting-edge new vision of biology that proposes to revise our concept of what life is – from Science Book Prize winner and former Nature editor Philip Ball.Biology is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. Several aspects of the standard picture of how life works have been exposed as incomplete, misleading, or wrong.In How Life Works, Philip Ball explores the new biology, revealing life to be a far richer, more ingenious affair than we had guessed. With this knowledge come new possibilities. Today we can redesign and reconfigure living systems, tissues, and organisms. We can reprogram cells, for instance, to carry out new tasks and grow into structures not seen in the natural world. Some researchers believe that ultimately we will be able to regenerate limbs and organs, and perhaps even create new life forms that evolution has never imagined.Incorporating the latest research and insights, How Life Works is a sweeping journey into this new frontier of the nature of life, a realm that will reshape our understanding of life as we know it.]]> 550 Philip Ball 1529096014 Leon 5 4.33 2023 How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology
author: Philip Ball
name: Leon
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/24
date added: 2024/04/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World]]> 27419302 What if you could combine the agility, adaptability, and cohesion of a small team with the power and resources of a giant organization?

When General Stanley McChrystal took command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in Iraq in 2003, he quickly realized that conventional military tactics were failing. The allied forces had a huge advantage in numbers, equipment and training - but none of the enemy's speed and flexibility.

McChrystal and his colleagues discarded a century of conventional wisdom to create a 'team of teams' that combined extremely transparent communication with decentralized decision-making authority. Faster, flatter and more flexible, the task force beat back al-Qaeda.

In this powerful book, McChrystal and his colleagues show how the challenges they faced in Iraq can be relevant to any leader. Through compelling examples, the authors demonstrate that the 'team of teams' strategy has worked everywhere from hospital emergency rooms to NASA and has the potential to transform organizations large and small.

'A bold argument that leaders can help teams become greater than the sum of their parts' Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit

'An indispensable guide to organizational change' Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs

]]> 253 Stanley McChrystal Leon 5 up there with the hard thing about hard things and high output management

I tend to be a bit nervous about recent-ish business books, especially ones which rely on anecdote. Too many times you’re reading about an amazing management innovation in a book, and already the main protagonists are in jail or disgrace.

Hopefully this won’t happen here :-) what I particularly like is that he’s focusing on appropriate management structures for the Information Age, and he’s doing so from the perspective of a master practitioner of the command and control model. I will definitely read again, likely within the next couple of years - will be interesting to see if I’m still so bullish on it then.]]> 4.32 2015 Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World
author: Stanley McChrystal
name: Leon
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/06
date added: 2024/04/06
shelves:
review:
up there with the hard thing about hard things and high output management

I tend to be a bit nervous about recent-ish business books, especially ones which rely on anecdote. Too many times you’re reading about an amazing management innovation in a book, and already the main protagonists are in jail or disgrace.

Hopefully this won’t happen here :-) what I particularly like is that he’s focusing on appropriate management structures for the Information Age, and he’s doing so from the perspective of a master practitioner of the command and control model. I will definitely read again, likely within the next couple of years - will be interesting to see if I’m still so bullish on it then.
]]> <![CDATA[Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking]]> 73098052 'I always keep a copy of Art & Fear on my bookshelf'
JAMES CLEAR, author of the #1 best-seller Atomic Habits

'A book for anyone and everyone who wants to face their fears and get to work'
DEBBIE MILLMAN, author and host of the podcast Design Matters

'A timeless cult classic ... I've stolen tons of inspiration from this book over the years and so will you'
AUSTIN KLEON, NYTimes bestselling author of Steal Like an Artist

'The ultimate pep talk for artists. ... An invaluable guide for living a creative, collaborative life.'
WENDY MACNAUGHTON, illustrator

Art & Fear is about the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way. Drawing on the authors' own experiences as two working artists, the book delves into the internal and external challenges to making art in the real world, and shows how they can be overcome every day.

First published in 1994, Art & Fear quickly became an underground classic, and word-of-mouth has placed it among the best-selling books on artmaking and creativity. Written by artists for artists, it offers generous and wise insight into what it feels like to sit down at your easel or keyboard, in your studio or performance space, trying to do the work you need to do. Every artist, whether a beginner or a prizewinner, a student or a teacher, faces the same fears - and this book illuminates the way through them.]]> 137 David Bayles 1800815999 Leon 0 currently-reading 4.11 1994 Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
author: David Bayles
name: Leon
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/17
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class]]> 162975551 'Masterpiece' Evening Standard

In this vivid coming-of-age memoir, Rob Henderson recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending elite universities – and what he learnt from seeing life from both sides of the tracks.

Rob Henderson was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father he never met, ultimately shuttling between ten different foster homes in California. When he was adopted into a loving family, he hoped that life would finally be stable and safe. He was tragedy, poverty and violence marked his adolescent years.

An unflinching portrait of shattered families, desperation, and determination, Troubled recounts how Henderson eventually managed to find an escape route through the military, which led to an academic career at Yale and Cambridge. As he reflects on the fate of many of his friends – drugs, death, prison – Henderson never escapes the feeling of being on the outside looking in, or a sense that his academic achievements are hollow compared to the love and protection that comes from stable family life. He dissects the hypocrisies of contemporary social class and shows how the most privileged among us benefit from a set of 'luxury beliefs' that actively harm the most vulnerable.

Rave Reader Reviews

'Eye-opening and heart-breaking'

'Inspiring'

'Incredible'

'Wow'

'Powerful and thought-provoking']]> 300 Rob Henderson 1800753659 Leon 4 4.64 2024 Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class
author: Rob Henderson
name: Leon
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/06
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)]]> 61214805 Identity politics is everywhere, polarising discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom and amplifying antagonisms in the media. But the compulsively referenced phrase bears little resemblance to the concept as first introduced by the radical Black feminist Combahee River Collective. While the Collective articulated a political viewpoint grounded in their own position as Black lesbians with the explicit aim of building solidarity across lines of difference, identity politics is now frequently weaponised as a means of closing ranks around ever-narrower conceptions of group interests.
But the trouble, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò deftly argues, is not with identity politics itself. Through a substantive engagement with the global Black radical tradition and a critical understanding of racial capitalism, Táíwò identifies the process by which a radical concept can be stripped of its political substance and liberatory potential by becoming the victim of elite capture -deployed by political, social and economic elites in the service of their own interests.
Táíwò’s crucial intervention both elucidates this complex process and helps us move beyond the binary of 'class’ vs. ‘race’. By rejecting elitist identity politics in favour of a constructive politics of radical solidarity, he advances the possibility of organising across our differences in the urgent struggle for a better world.]]> 176 Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò 0745347940 Leon 3 4.12 2022 Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)
author: Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
name: Leon
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/03
date added: 2024/03/03
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]]> MaddAddam (MaddAddam, #3) 17262203 394 Margaret Atwood 0385528787 Leon 4 4.00 2013 MaddAddam (MaddAddam, #3)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Leon
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/26
date added: 2024/02/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates and The Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend]]> 125070236 'The most explosive, mind-blowing business book I've ever read' – Bradley Hope, New York Times bestselling author of Billion Dollar Whale

'Jaw-dropping . . . well-told, well-structured and exquisitely reported' – Financial Times book review

Discover the unauthorized, unvarnished story of famed Wall Street hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio.

When Ray Dalio, billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, announced in October 2022 that he was stepping down from the company he founded forty-seven years ago, the news made headlines around the world. Dalio achieved worldwide fame thanks to a mystique of success cultivated in frequent media appearances, celebrity hobnobbing, and his bestselling book, Principles. In The Fund, Rob Copeland draws on hundreds of interviews with those inside and around the firm to reveal what really goes on with Dalio and his cohorts behind closed doors.

Tracing more than fifty years of Dalio's leadership, The Fund peels back the curtain to reveal a rarefied world of wealth and power, where former FBI director Jim Comey kisses Dalio's ring, recent Pennsylvania Senate candidate David McCormick sells out, and countless Bridgewater acolytes describe what it's like to work at this fascinating firm.

Dalio has stepped down from Bridgewater before; will the legacy of his Principles continue to chart the course of the firm? The Fund provides unique insight into the story of Dalio and Bridgewater, past, present and future.

'A taut, nonfiction thriller' – Bryan Burrough, bestselling author of Barbarians at the Gate

'Manages to both shock and entertain at the same time' – Philipp Meyer, bestselling author of American Rust and The Son]]> 353 Rob Copeland 1529075580 Leon 4 4.05 2023 The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates and The Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend
author: Rob Copeland
name: Leon
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/16
date added: 2024/02/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928]]> 23510492 A magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understanding of Stalin and his world

It has the quality of A poor cobbler’s son, a seminarian from an oppressed outer province of the Russian empire, reinvents himself as a revolutionary and finds a leadership role within a small group of marginal zealots. When the old world is unexpectedly brought down in a total war, the band seizes control of the country, and the new regime it founds as the vanguard of a new world order is ruthlessly dominated from within by the former seminarian until he stands as the absolute ruler of a vast and terrible state apparatus, with dominion over Eurasia. But the largest country in the world is also a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. Shortly after seizing total power, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever the root-and-branch uprooting and collectivization of agriculture and industry across the entire Soviet Union. To stand up to the capitalists he will force into being an industrialized, militarized, collectivized great power is an act of will. Millions will die, and many more will suffer, but Stalin will push through to the end against all resistance and doubts. Where did such power come from? We think we know the story well. Remarkably, Stephen Kotkin’s epic new biography shows us how much we still have to learn.

The product of a decade of scrupulous and intrepid research, Stalin contains a host of astonishing revelations. Kotkin gives an intimate first-ever view of the Bolshevik regime’s inner geography, bringing to the fore materials from Soviet military intelligence and the secret police. He details Stalin’s invention of a fabricated trial and mass executions as early as 1918, the technique he would later impose across the whole country. The book places Stalin’s momentous decision for collectivization more deeply than ever in the tragic history of imperial Russia. Above all, Kotkin offers a convincing portrait and explanation of Stalin’s monstrous power and of Russian power in the world. Stalin restores a sense of surprise to the way we think about the former Soviet Union, revolution, dictatorship, the twentieth century, and indeed the art of history itself.
]]> 976 Stephen Kotkin 0698170105 Leon 5 4.34 2014 Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
author: Stephen Kotkin
name: Leon
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/02/11
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam, #2)]]> 11138296
The sun brightens in the east, reddening the blue-grey haze that marks the distant ocean. The vultures roosting on the hydro poles fan out their wings to dry them. the air smells faintly of burning. The waterless flood - a man-made plague - has ended the world.

But two young women have Ren, a young dancer trapped where she worked, in an upmarket sex club (the cleanest dirty girls in town); and Toby, who watches and waits from her rooftop garden. Is anyone else out there?]]> 529 Margaret Atwood Leon 4 4.28 2009 The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam, #2)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Leon
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/09
date added: 2024/02/09
shelves:
review:

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