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mousetrapplingTwo weeks worth, as I was away last week ...
Fiction: Finished "The Remorseful Day", Colin Dexter - in the book, he doesn't die on the lawn in Exeter College! I can see why this is the only Morse book I own, I did enjoy reading it but I didn't like the character(s) enough to want to spend any more time in their company.
Read "A Peace Divided", Tanya Huff - mil-sf, well, ex-mil-sf coz the war has been over for 3 books and the characters are adjusting to this new normality (the protagonists are in law enforcement, kinda). Still enjoying the series, next book will be the last one tho! Or at least for now, it just came out in June. Shan't pick it up till I next want something new on my kindle.
Started "The Price of the Stars", Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald - space opera, I have 6 of the 7 books, but I think I've only read them once before. Getting off to a good start, but I've not read much yet. I appear to be missing the 5th book, so I've a bit of time to decide if I want to complete the series or not. (Why I don't own it I do not know.)
Non-fiction: Finished "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - an interesting, and somewhat depressing, book. It's very much presented as his own point of view on how & why the Middle East is as fucked up as it is (c.2005 when the book was written), but with enough specifics that I'm pretty sure one could fact check it (but I personally am not going to). It could've done with a bit more of a brutal edit, though - felt rambling at times and I think he could've made some points more efficiently.
Finished "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" Stephen R. Covey - indeed mostly common sense. He has a knack for explaining things, tho, and I finally got my head round how the Quadrants thing fits the sort of things I spend quite a chunk of time doing.
Started "The Mind in the Cave", David Lewis-Williams - about the cave art of the Paleolithic and the origins of art and the transition from hominids to humans (so's to speak). A book to stretch my brain, I think - for instance one chapter so far has looked at the previous theories to explain cave art and their Structuralist &/or Marxist underpinnings.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 3 Scenes 3-5 - the humour of this play really is in the wordplay, so I'm still reading the joke explanations & not quite getting the jokes.
Podcasts: ep 203-205 of The China History Podcast - up to date with him now, with a brief history of Chinese martial arts
ep 166-168, plus a whole bunch of bonus episodes that I mostly skipped of The History of Byzantium- up to date again, the mainline episodes were part of his exploration of what the Byzantine Empire was like c.1000 CE. The bonus stuff was mostly related to his recent kickstarter campaign.
ep 4.B - 3.Q of The History of India - mostly a look at themes (like the state & status of Buddhism & Jainism) or areas away from the focus of the main line narrative, c.600 CE(ish).
Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about Sun Tzu's Art of War - what we know about the man who wrote it (not a lot, not even that he wrote it), the context it came out of and its legacy.
Music: While running I listened to Tracy Chapman "Tracy Chapman", Sage Francis "A Healthy Distrust", Emily Portman "The Glamoury", LCD Soundsystem "LCD Soundsystem", The Raveonettes "In & Out of Control". Also listened to a compilation called "Ambient Moods" which turned out to be more Massive Attack/Everything But the Girl/Kate Bush and less, well, ambient so much more to my tastes than I anticipated from the title.
Egypt Unwrapped: The Real Cleopatra - average for an Egypt Unwrapped episode, looking at what we know of the actual historical person of Cleopatra as vs. the Roman propaganda version of her.
ep 3 of Hairy Bikers' Mediterranean Adventure - Corsica! With more food we'd like to eat, and fewer things with too many legs ;) Also looked like a nice place to visit.
BBC Proms 2018: The Folk Prom - featuring performances by The Unthanks, hence why we recorded it.
ep 2 & 3 of Andrew Marr's History of the World - empires, new religions & philosophies and quite a bit of simplification as we get up to c.7th Century CE in just 2 hours. I do like the series, it's got a good sense of which stories to tell and tells them well, but I do also find myself thinking "well, yes, but ..." quite a lot.
ep 1 & 2 of Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema - series where Mark Kermode takes 5 different genres of films and breaks them down into the common tropes & themes that they use. First two episodes covered Rom Coms & Heist movies.
ep 2 of Size Matters - looking at how things would be different if they were smaller this time. Rather shallow series, to be honest, but I found it fun to watch. I think J mostly napped :/
Books
Fiction: Finished "The Remorseful Day", Colin Dexter - in the book, he doesn't die on the lawn in Exeter College! I can see why this is the only Morse book I own, I did enjoy reading it but I didn't like the character(s) enough to want to spend any more time in their company.
Read "A Peace Divided", Tanya Huff - mil-sf, well, ex-mil-sf coz the war has been over for 3 books and the characters are adjusting to this new normality (the protagonists are in law enforcement, kinda). Still enjoying the series, next book will be the last one tho! Or at least for now, it just came out in June. Shan't pick it up till I next want something new on my kindle.
Started "The Price of the Stars", Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald - space opera, I have 6 of the 7 books, but I think I've only read them once before. Getting off to a good start, but I've not read much yet. I appear to be missing the 5th book, so I've a bit of time to decide if I want to complete the series or not. (Why I don't own it I do not know.)
Non-fiction: Finished "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East", Robert Fisk - an interesting, and somewhat depressing, book. It's very much presented as his own point of view on how & why the Middle East is as fucked up as it is (c.2005 when the book was written), but with enough specifics that I'm pretty sure one could fact check it (but I personally am not going to). It could've done with a bit more of a brutal edit, though - felt rambling at times and I think he could've made some points more efficiently.
Finished "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" Stephen R. Covey - indeed mostly common sense. He has a knack for explaining things, tho, and I finally got my head round how the Quadrants thing fits the sort of things I spend quite a chunk of time doing.
Started "The Mind in the Cave", David Lewis-Williams - about the cave art of the Paleolithic and the origins of art and the transition from hominids to humans (so's to speak). A book to stretch my brain, I think - for instance one chapter so far has looked at the previous theories to explain cave art and their Structuralist &/or Marxist underpinnings.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor Act 3 Scenes 3-5 - the humour of this play really is in the wordplay, so I'm still reading the joke explanations & not quite getting the jokes.
Listening
Podcasts: ep 203-205 of The China History Podcast - up to date with him now, with a brief history of Chinese martial arts
ep 166-168, plus a whole bunch of bonus episodes that I mostly skipped of The History of Byzantium- up to date again, the mainline episodes were part of his exploration of what the Byzantine Empire was like c.1000 CE. The bonus stuff was mostly related to his recent kickstarter campaign.
ep 4.B - 3.Q of The History of India - mostly a look at themes (like the state & status of Buddhism & Jainism) or areas away from the focus of the main line narrative, c.600 CE(ish).
Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about Sun Tzu's Art of War - what we know about the man who wrote it (not a lot, not even that he wrote it), the context it came out of and its legacy.
Music: While running I listened to Tracy Chapman "Tracy Chapman", Sage Francis "A Healthy Distrust", Emily Portman "The Glamoury", LCD Soundsystem "LCD Soundsystem", The Raveonettes "In & Out of Control". Also listened to a compilation called "Ambient Moods" which turned out to be more Massive Attack/Everything But the Girl/Kate Bush and less, well, ambient so much more to my tastes than I anticipated from the title.
Watching
Egypt Unwrapped: The Real Cleopatra - average for an Egypt Unwrapped episode, looking at what we know of the actual historical person of Cleopatra as vs. the Roman propaganda version of her.
ep 3 of Hairy Bikers' Mediterranean Adventure - Corsica! With more food we'd like to eat, and fewer things with too many legs ;) Also looked like a nice place to visit.
BBC Proms 2018: The Folk Prom - featuring performances by The Unthanks, hence why we recorded it.
ep 2 & 3 of Andrew Marr's History of the World - empires, new religions & philosophies and quite a bit of simplification as we get up to c.7th Century CE in just 2 hours. I do like the series, it's got a good sense of which stories to tell and tells them well, but I do also find myself thinking "well, yes, but ..." quite a lot.
ep 1 & 2 of Mark Kermode's Secrets of Cinema - series where Mark Kermode takes 5 different genres of films and breaks them down into the common tropes & themes that they use. First two episodes covered Rom Coms & Heist movies.
ep 2 of Size Matters - looking at how things would be different if they were smaller this time. Rather shallow series, to be honest, but I found it fun to watch. I think J mostly napped :/
