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Sum: 40 Tales From The Afterlives
Sum: 40 Tales From The Afterlives by David Eagleman Published: 2009 I first heard about this little book when Stephen Fry mentioned it favourably on Twitter, and since I am powerless to his suggestions, I added it to my next Amazon shipment. It’s taken me a long time to get around to it, but I’m glad I did. The title of the book really says it all. This is a collection of forty vignettes that imagine different afterlife scenarios. They range from comical to heartbreaking, and each one is perfectly sized but could easily inspire longer pieces. The amount of creativity packed into this is astonishing. As someone who used…
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Blink
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell Published: 2005 The basic premise of this book is that we should pay more attention to our initial gut reaction when making decisions, as having more information can often lead to making worse decisions, except if you haven’t spent enough time honing the particular skill and knowledge set you’re basing the decision on, because then it could lead to shooting an innocent dude 41 times. So…be careful with that. I liked this book a lot. It’s not really going to change how you make decisions, but it does provide chapter after chapter of interesting anecdotes showing both the positive and negative aspects of ‘thin slicing’ –…
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A Feast for Crows
A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin Published: 2005 George R.R. Martin juggles a lot of characters in this series, in much the same way Robert Jordon did in his Wheel of Time series. The difference was that Martin knew how to pull it off. Jordon would develop a very cool storyline with one of his viewpoint characters, really suck you in, and then you wouldn’t hear from that character for ages. I specifically remember being enthralled with Perrin’s storyline, and then he wasn’t mentioned for 1200 pages. Every time I finished a chapter I was hoping the next would follow him. so it made for a frustrating and…
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Ready Player One
Ready Player One (audio) by Ernest Cline Published: 2011 Narration: Wil Wheaton The story takes place 30 years from now, in a somewhat generic dystopia. Wade Watts lives in a trailer stack with his hateful aunt. Life sucks, so he spends most of his time logged in to the OASIS – a virtual reality world that started life as a MMO game and is now used for everything from schooling to business transactions. The man who created the OASIS, James Halliday, left in his will 240 billion dollars to anyone who could find his hidden easter egg. He was obsessed with the 80s, so the easter egg hunters study all…
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The Continual Condition: Poems
The Continual Condition: Poems by Charles Bukowski Published: 2009 I’ve come across some Bukowski over the years, but this is the first time I actually picked up one of his collections. The sleeve description says that it contains never-before-collected poems, which I think means they were previously published but never in one of his own collections. I usually try not to start with someone’s latest book, particularly if it’s published post-mortem, but this contains work that stretches right back to the beginning of his career and is a great introduction if you haven’t read much by him. There’s something about Bukowski’s writing that can occasionally stop you dead in your…
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The God Delusion
The God Delusion (audio) by Richard Dawkins Published: 2006 Narration: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward I remember discussing Dawkins and Hitchens with a friend a few years ago, and he felt that all of these pro-atheism books were a bit silly and pointless, as they were really just preaching to the choir (so to speak). It is preaching to the choir, but that choir is filled with a lot of people who benefit from hearing this side of the discussion. There is quite a bit of hate and distrust towards atheists out there, and anything gaining popularity that might support those who are feeling alone is a good thing. I live…
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The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living
The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by
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A Year in Provence
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle Published: 1989 Peter Mayle and his wife decided to make the move from London to Provence, to buy and renovate a 200-year-old house, and this book chronicles their first year. Each chapter covers a month of that year as they eat, meet the locals, deal with visitors, and find their way in their new homeland. This is not an exciting book. They aren’t risking their necks, traveling through the Amazon, and fighting off snakes. They’re just living out their lives as anyone would in a new country. As such, it’s a bit of a slow burn and possibly not that interesting if you…
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The High Window
The High Window by Raymond Chandler Published: 1942 I read The Lady in the Lake and Farewell, My Lovely in university and always meant to read more of Chandler’s work. The High Window was actually assigned reading in that same class, but I wasn’t able to get to it. I really enjoyed the other two books, but that enjoyment mostly came out of the atmosphere and wit and imagery in the writing. The plots felt to me like something you hung on to and let drag you through the prose. They were a little too convoluted to really focus on or care too much about, so you just let it…
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I Am Legend
I Am Legend (audio) by Richard Matheson Published: 1954 Firstly, I didn’t think the movie as was quite as bad as everyone made it out to be, but I can see where they’re coming from if they had read the book first. While it feels similar in atmosphere, it does differ in ways that reek somewhat of Hollywood tampering, and it ends up completely disregarding a fairly key point to the story. Robert Neville is a lone and immune survivor of a disease that turns people to vampires. His life is a tedious cycle of keeping the vampires at bay during the night and hunting them during the day. At…