Today I came across an obituary of the writer Robert Nye, who died last month. I wasn’t aware that he had died and if I am honest I hadn’t realised he was still alive because, although he is described as a ‘poet and author’, I only knew of him through his novels, and the last […]
Entries Tagged as 'Books'
The Ice Beneath Her
June 27th, 2016 · Comments Off · Life
I have just finished reading my first Scandinavian thriller. It is called The Ice Beneath Her by Camilla Grebe, due to be published on September 8th. This is what I thought about it…
An Android Awakes
November 3rd, 2015 · Comments Off · Life
An Andoid Awakes by Mike French and Karl Brown This is a soon-to-be-published book (Nov 13th) which I had an advance reader copy of from the publishers. Reading this book, the word that kept coming to mind was ‘kaleidoscope’, by which I mean those tube-like things we had as kids in the 60s where the […]
I, Robert
September 30th, 2015 · Comments Off · Life
It is very rare that I buy actual paper books these days. Basically I just do not have the space for any more books. Instead I download e-books which is not the same experience but is much more convenient. The few ‘proper’ books I get are mostly proof copies from publishers or presents. If I […]
A coping strategy
July 4th, 2015 · Comments Off · Life
I am currently ploughing my way through a book about ‘systems thinking’ (Freedom from Command & Control by John Seddon). It is not exactly a page-turner, but there is no option to wait for the film to come out. It suddenly got to be more fun when I decided to add some bits of my […]
Tags: Books
Mr Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore
June 14th, 2015 · Comments Off · Life
We arrive at books by many different routes. It may be that a cover catches our eye in the shop, or a review in a magazine sounds good, or somebody recommends it. I came to this book by a bit of a backwards route. I very much enjoyed a book called The Reader on the […]
Programming flavours
June 3rd, 2015 · Comments Off · Technology
This evening I came across a great passage in the book I am reading. The passage is about programming languages, the book isn’t. Not really anyway. But, of course, the point of a programming language is that you don’t just read it; you write it, too. You make it do things for you. And this, […]
Not lost in translation
May 19th, 2015 · Comments Off · Life
As I have mentioned before, one of my favourite things is to get hold of pre-publication proofs of new books, especially if they are well-written and a pleasure to read. Last week I read just such a book – The Reader on the 6.27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent. Apart from anything I think the writer deserves […]
Crisis? What Crisis?
November 18th, 2014 · Comments Off · Politics
I finally finished reading Crisis? What Crisis?: Britain in the 1970s by Alwyn Turner. It took a while. I would probably have read two or three novels in the time it took me to read it, even though it is a much shorter book than many other history books that often weigh in at 700 […]
Britain is a miserable sight
October 31st, 2014 · Comments Off · Life
I came aacross an eye-catching quote this evening: Britain is a miserable sight. A society of failures, full of apathy, and aroused only by envy at the success of others. This is why we will continue to decline. Not because of our economic or industrial problems. They are soluble. But because the psychology of our […]
even more impressed you did it as soon as we got home 
x thank you xxx