The latest in a very irregular series of posts on what I’ve been reading.
Books
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
I’m currently at page 769 of 872 in this book. It has taken me 7 weeks to get this far. I have no idea if I will actually finish this book. I do know that if anyone else other than Hilary Mantel had written it, I would have given up on it long ago. It is an exploration of the leading figures of the French Revolution. It is a very middle class novel: in the midst of the chaos and upheaval of the uprising and subsequent Terror, it focuses on the internal lives of the protagonists, and as a result it comes across as very dry and dusty despite its tumultuous setting. Occasionally, I read a passage in this book that reminds me of how great a writer Mantel was, and it keeps me plodding through it.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
A completely mad but beautiful novel from the author of one of my favourite books, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I read this book in a single day: it really is a page-turner, as it is completely unpredictable in its first half.
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
A celebration of Agatha Christie’s novels, involving a murder in a big house, time loops and a body swapping detective. 👌👩🍳
In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park
Yeonmi Park’s amazing and brutal story of escaping from in North Korea. I read stories like this and it makes me realise how lucky we are living in the West, and how little we value our freedom.
The Bees by Laline Paull
An extremely disconcerting novel, told from the point of view of a bee. It reminded me of Richard Adam’s Watership Down in that it took a creature we all know, and completely destroyed all our preconceived notions of how that creature lives it’s life.
House of Glass by Hadley Freeman
A beautiful and terrifying novel of a family’s attempts to survive WWII and the Holocaust, and the impact of those events on the family today.
Articles
TSMC’s debacle in the American desert by Viola Zhou
A in-depth look at the issues with the TSMC semiconductor plant being setup in Arizona. This is of particular interest as the Biden administration moves to impose tariffs and to improve/remove the supply chain dependency for strategic components like semiconductors from Chinese manufacturers, and highlights some of the issues that the Morris Chang warned Nancy Pelosi about previously.
A Trio of Complete Arses
Some articles I’ve read about various tech “celebrities” that show exactly what type of person they really are:
- My Dinner With Andreessen by Rick Perlstein
- What Elon Musk’s favorite game tells us about him by Dave Karpf
- Sam Altman Is Full Of Shit by Edward Zitron
The oldest hatred returns (Paywall) by Alex Massie
Alex Massie writes about the rise in anti-semitism in the UK following the October 7th Hamas terror attacks against Israel.
NI’s frightening decay is breaking public services - and breaking people (Paywall) by Sam Mcbride
The Belfast Telegraph’s Sam McBride writes about NI’s crumbling infrastructure and it’s dysfunctional government and civil service. And again.
Cyber Security: A Pre-War Reality Check by Bert Hubert
Bert Hubert scares us silly by exposing how unprepared our software and telecommunication systems are for any major conflict.
Fay Stender and the Politics of Murder by Diana Russell
I recently read of the murder of Fay Stender, a left-wing California lawyer in the 1960s who defended the likes of Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers and George Jackson who founded the Black Guerrilla Family. As part of my reading into her murder, I came across this in-depth article by Diana Russell, who examines Stender’s murder through a feminist lens. I found it particularly interesting that the magazine in which this piece was published in prefaces the article by coming close to accusing the US state with involvement with Stender’s murder, despite there being no evidence presented for this, and this accusation being completely against the tone and direction of Russell’s writing.