I am in New York again, and as usual up at jetlag-o'clock and avoiding prep for my panel later. I am insanely perky now after going out at 5am to get coffee, but expect this to fade rapidly when I actually need the energy, so am coasting for a bit.

Some books I have read.

( Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, with spoilers )

This is one of those books, like A Sand County Almanac, that reminds one of why one became an environmentalist to start with and makes one look at the world in a different light. And not altogether a depressing one - Monbiot is a good writer, skating the boundary between serious and ponderous with occasional dry wit and self-deprecation. He also ( Read more... )

( Thursday Next series, Jasper Fforde )

This is the best thing I have read in 2015 to date, the sequel to Three Body Problem. Which, slightly disturbingly, may win a Hugo mainly by harnessing bilateral support from actual science fiction fans and right wing nutters. To be fair, the series is certainly not left wing - it is set in a worse-than-bleak universe where doing terrible things ( Read more... )

The story of an honest, humbly born banker whose life is overshadowed by rivalry with a brutal, lawless aristocrat with pretensions to a social conscience, and said aristocrat's prolific and problematic brood.
( Read more... )

( Tess of the D'Urbervilles )

Good book.

( And now with spoilers, also gushing )

I promised to read some management books, because I dropped out of management class, and this one was recommended as old but still valid ( Read more... )

I zipped through this in under a day (in fairness that day involved two flights). And I was disappointed, mainly because it wasn't what I wanted to be reading - I should concentrate on my classic SF catching up, or my German, if I'm not after light reading. I read the collection of reviews by Jo Walton, What Makes This Book So Great, and although ( Read more... )

I have not had a good week. An industry conference/exhibition (usually crazy solar fun!!!) in Vegas was ruined by sleeping funny on the flight over, leaving me in constant pain from shoulder and neck. The NHS website says these things pass and I should take painkillers and take it easy. The thirty meetings were not easy ones and I have had to join ( Read more... )