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Migration!
I decided to move my blog posts across from Livejournal to a site of my own - partly as an excuse to play around with a new website design (it'd been 6 years since the last overhaul I gave my site). Finally got the last few fiddly details sorted out yesterday, so it's now live. The new address is ( Read more... ) -
Prehistoric Autopsy; Wartime Farm
The second episode of Prehistoric Autopsy was all about Homo erectus, and they were building a model of Nariokotome Boy. This is a 1.5 million year old near complete Homo erectus skeleton & the most complete one ever found. They started off with context, again - Homo erectus only died out relatively recently, but was around for 2 million years, ( Read more... ) -
"The Desert of Souls" Howard Andrew Jones
I read an excerpt from the sequel to "The Desert of Souls" on tor.com & was intrigued enough to reserve this one at the library. And then a bit startled when it came in coz it had been long enough that I forgot I'd reserved it ( Read more... ) -
"China: The World's Oldest Civilisation Revealed" John Makeham (Part 3)
Unification and Expansion: The First Chinese EmpiresThis chapter of the book covers the Qin Dynasty & the two halves of the Han Dynasty, who ruled China between 221BC and 220AD. The Qin Emperor was the first ruler to unite China under the rule of a central authority rather than the feudal states of previous dynasties. The Han emerged initially as ( Read more... ) -
In Our Time: The Upanishads
The Upanishads are some of the sacred texts of Hinduism, originally transmitted orally from father to son in the priest families they were written down in the 6th Century AD. They consist of a series of dialogues about the nature of the universe and the nature of knowledge. And I'd not even heard of them before listening to the In Our Time ( Read more... ) -
Threads of Silk and Gold (Exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum)
While we were in Oxford after Christmas we went to the Ashmolean Museum - J looked at the Egyptian stuff and I took the opportunity to visit one of the exhibitions they had on, as well as having a look at the early Chinese gallery to look at the sorts of things mentioned in the book I am reading.
Threads of Silk and GoldThis is an exhibition of ( Read more... ) -
Prehistoric Autopsy; Wartime Farm
Last night we watched the first part of Prehistoric Autopsy which was all about the Neanderthals. This is a three part series presented by Alice Roberts & George McGavin plus a whole team of experts - the format is that they have a "lab" set up with various different experts & they demonstrate some of the research that's been or is being done ( Read more... ) -
"Gridlinked" Neal Asher
Next up on the shelf is somewhat of a contrast to the previous one, and bought probably about 10 years ago or so. Again with plans to buy the rest, and I think I did read some from the library although I never got round to buying more. A more positive re-reading experience it has to be said ( Read more... ) -
"China: The World's Oldest Civilisation Revealed" John Makeham (Part 2)
The "Three Dynasties": The Ancient KingdomsThe first Chinese historian, Sima Qian, wrote a history of China around about 100BC and he starts with Five Emperors who're pretty much considered these days to be mythical (although the book says there are attempts to tie them to particular Neolithic groups). After these Emperors he writes of three early ( Read more... ) -
"Bitten" by Kelley Armstrong
I've decided to read my way through all the fiction we have on our shelves, which'll take a while coz there's on the order of 500 books, and also coz I'm still reading the various non-fiction books I've stacked up in the queue ( Read more... )