First day
Years ago I bought a map of London to help, I think, make some sense of The Midnight Mayor. I have the feeling I threw it out because 'Google Maps, who needs paper'. A mistake. Probably I should just ignore all the place names that Aaronovitch throws out as Peter drives about London, but I need to see what's going on, and the new Google Maps is fricking useless when I'm trying to follow Peter veering round Euston Station and ending up at Bishopsgate. Google Maps is cluttered up with a million eateries and markers for tube stations without the names, and coloured lines that I assume are Underground but also not named and also useless, and the roads are all A-whatever so if you don't know that the A-10 is Bishopsgate, sucks to be you. Again, this shouldn't bother me, but Aaronovitch knows what he's seeing and I want to know too. The first book made so much more sense when I could see what St Paul's Church looked like.
This is why I don't upgrade my desktop: because this old version of Chrome gives me both names and numbers, eventually, and the little walking man icon at need. But it's nothing like as good as a paper map.
Finished
Warner, Lolly Willowes
- so, another for the greatest 100 books in English. Nicely done but not to my purposes
Abouet and Oubrerie, Aya de Yopougon 4&5
-- in which the relationships grow ever more complex and serene Aya has her own unsolvable problems finally, due to the utter sexism of just about every older man in the country (the younger ones at least handle it with more grace.) There are only a few chapters left of this work, and I keep hoping that the unsinkable Aya will have her revenge before the end of them.
Which said, the French really irritates me because Abouet has her characters call each other by name every bloody time they open their mouths.
Soskei, I am a Cat lll
-- the last chapter at least contained a shaggy dog story about a man who didn't play his violin on top of a mountain, but otherwise, this belongs to the genre of translation that renders futon as quilt, and ijimeru as tease, when what's being described as full-out harassment.
Probably something else, gone in the mists of this othertime. ETA two Cyril Hares, read on my tablet.
Now?
Still Lies Sleeping and The Mortal Word, taking both slow.
Next?
Aya 6 when it comes in. Otherwise, depends what kind of winter this turns into.
This is why I don't upgrade my desktop: because this old version of Chrome gives me both names and numbers, eventually, and the little walking man icon at need. But it's nothing like as good as a paper map.
Finished
Warner, Lolly Willowes
- so, another for the greatest 100 books in English. Nicely done but not to my purposes
Abouet and Oubrerie, Aya de Yopougon 4&5
-- in which the relationships grow ever more complex and serene Aya has her own unsolvable problems finally, due to the utter sexism of just about every older man in the country (the younger ones at least handle it with more grace.) There are only a few chapters left of this work, and I keep hoping that the unsinkable Aya will have her revenge before the end of them.
Which said, the French really irritates me because Abouet has her characters call each other by name every bloody time they open their mouths.
Soskei, I am a Cat lll
-- the last chapter at least contained a shaggy dog story about a man who didn't play his violin on top of a mountain, but otherwise, this belongs to the genre of translation that renders futon as quilt, and ijimeru as tease, when what's being described as full-out harassment.
Probably something else, gone in the mists of this othertime. ETA two Cyril Hares, read on my tablet.
Now?
Still Lies Sleeping and The Mortal Word, taking both slow.
Next?
Aya 6 when it comes in. Otherwise, depends what kind of winter this turns into.