Listen to This by Alex Ross
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love reading good music criticism and this is some of the best I have found. Ross’s listening spans genres and periods and the writing reflects a vast knowledge of music history.
Margaret Dashwood and the Enchanted Atlas by Beth Deitchman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Great fun. Margaret Dashwood from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility has an adventure of her own.
Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value by William Poundstone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this survey of recent research into the psychology of price and value, with detours into lots of other areas and a massive list of references to mine for future reading.
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Fantastic detective novel, told from the perspective of many different characters. Definitely going to read more in the series.
SQL Antipatterns: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Database Programming by Bill Karwin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A collection of practically-minded and cogently expressed advice about how not to design databases.
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Pretty funny and very British. It’s probably more funny if you are British and more familiar with some of the British stereotypes being caricatured.
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
My rating: 0 of 5 stars
A beautiful and haunting novel set in the horrifying conditions of the Second Chechen War. Highly recommended.
The collection of Seneca’s letters I read recently contained a passing reference to what was clearly asthma, a terrifying condition that often makes its sufferers feel like they are dying. It must have been even more terrifying before the age of inhalers. I was wondering how that condition contributed to his focus on the inevitability of death in his philosophical writing. It seems he wrote quite a bit more about his condition and its relevance to his thinking. Must read some Becker!
Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking by Douglas R. Hofstadter
My rating: 0 of 5 stars
Fantastic. This is Hofstadter’s latest thinking about thinking and, as usual, he has some enormously interesting things to say and a delightful way of saying it. Highly recommended.
Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Novel by Kate Atkinson
My rating: 0 of 5 stars
An extraordinary novel. Highly recommended.