I've gone back to reading the Masters of Rome series, trying to finish what I started. I was a little worried that I'd be lost when I started, but book three had a really good summarry and the books break in good points. Effectively, there's a new generation of people to worry about in each book, while some younger protagonists suddenly become ( Read more... )

I managed a bit of a first, this week. I read my first book on the Kindle. It was the Atrocity Archives, by Charles Stross ( Read more... )

The last book of Robert Jordan's epic Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light, was published earlier this year. I bought it when visiting Forbidden Planet. I'd left it for myself as a treat to read when I wanted to ( Read more... )

The Great Great North Road is the new stand-alone novel from the British sci-fi writer Peter Hamilton. As with any Peter Hamilton novel, it is big, and heavy. At nearly a thousand pages, it's the kind of novel that made me fervently wish I had an ebook reader any time I left the house.

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Today, the NHS kindly sent me my first invitation for a cervical smear test. It gave me, and both of my parents (when I showed it to them) a really good chuckle.

The previous week has been quite hectic. I visited darwinian_woman in Oxford on Thursday, I went to a charity fundraiser on Friday at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, which was for Gendered Intelligence, ( Read more... )

I was interested in the Hunger Games because it is The Next Big Sci-fi Thing and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so I bought the books and read them ( Read more... )

I spent the New Year at home on my own, which was a bit boring of me. But that will teach me not to arrange something beforehand. However, it's not been that bad. I've been quite exhausted after Christmas, and Christmas went really well. I've found I've excessed to excess and I'm really looking forwards to life getting back to normal. I like ( Read more... )

I've read a bit more of The Wealth of Nations, and the next two chapters talk a bit more about the division of labour, the kind of circumstances it arises under. Chapter two is where Adam Smith makes the very famous quote about the division of labour arising from self interest. It's really quite a short chapter. The next one he talks about the ( Read more... )

I read the first chapter of the first book of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, which talks about the division of labour in a society ( Read more... )

I just finished the Guardian Cycle by Julia Grey, which is a series of about five books of medium length each. It's one of those series that I'm not entirely sure about. I think some parts of it were excellent, and some parts of it were awful, with very little in the middle, and even now I'm a bit unsure about which bit is which ( Read more... )