Posts and notes Book

It’s not too often that a book really makes you think – whether this is about yourself and your own position in the universe, or just about bizarre or interesting concepts. I’ve recently happened across a couple of books written by qntm that definitely do both of these things: Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories and There is No Antimemetics Division.

There is No Antimemetics Division is a science fiction dystopian novel(la) introducing (at least, to me) the concept of antimemes – ideas that can’t be shared or passed on. On the face of it, this doesn’t sound particularly distressing, but the book explores the implications of this alongside the setting of malicious (intentionally or otherwise) “entities” known as SCPs (“Secure, Contain, Protect”) that can manipulate and control thoughts, ideas (and even physical or electronic records) in order to prevent the spread of knowledge.

I’ve been a member of Goodreads since 2013. I follow a few of my friends and family on there, and whilst it was nice to see the types of things people are reading, I only really ever used the service as a way for logging what I had read. The other social aspects didn’t keep me coming back and I personally didn’t find the home feed interesting.

As I started to get more into the Fediverse back in 2021, I joined BookWyrm (as @wilw@bookwyrm.social). I was able to export my reads as a CSV from Goodreads and import them into BookWyrm, which I continued to use as a method for recording reads and listens. BookWyrm is excellent, easy-to-use, and less clunky than Goodreads. I can certainly recommend it if you’re looking to join or build a community around books.

Dean Burnett’s The Idiot Brain is an interesting insight into why people think the way they do, personality, emotion, and the biology of the brain.

The author (who happens to live in the same city as me: Cardiff), covers a wide range of examples of human behaviour and relates them to brain function. Often these are based on defence mechanisms developed over the vast time of human evolution, and it’s amazing how our perception of fear and “uncertainty” can have an impact on other feelings and emotions too - such as embarrassment.

I feel that this book really resonated with my own thoughts around the importance of diversity in groups and teams.

Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking is a book that examines how effectiveness and output can be dramatically altered through building teams that contain diverse thinkers.

The book considers a number of examples - from both the past and present - and compares and contrasts scenarios where teams expressing different proportions of diverse thinkers can change their performance; sometimes with life-threatening consequences.

I often enjoy books that try to take a different view on known events. I don’t mean consipiracy theory - more around thinking laterally or “out of the box”. Such ways of thinking often inspire ideas that drive innovative change, and it’s important in order to counter “group think” or simply accepting what’s easiest.

One such book that tries to do this is Extraterrestrial by Avi Loeb.

Having recently read The Secret Barrister, which I loved, I was recommended to also check out This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay.

The book is similar to the Secret Barrister in that it’s a collection of insights and stories from a working professional - this time a hospital doctor. The book is subtitled Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor.

The author tells the story of his experiences in completing medical school and beginning work in the UK National Health Service (NHS) system. NHS doctors generally follow a pre-defined pathway from “F1” through to consultant (or slightly different if a GP), and this book describes experiences of the author as he works his way through this process.

The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken is an oustanding book. In my opinion it is easily the best book I have read in the past year - certainly the most interesting.

The book is written by an anonymous barrister working in the criminal justice system for England and Wales. They explain the current inadequacies of criminal justice through a mix of interesting real-life and often first-hand stories.

Having recently read Project Hail Mary - and rated it highly - Goodreads suggested I try Columbus Day by Craig Alanson.

This is the first book in the Expeditionary Force series - one that I hadn’t yet heard of at the time.

Although it’s sci-fi, the book is set in the modern-day. Earth gets invaded by far more technologically advanced aliens and humanity suddenly finds itself playing along as the lowest echelon in a war involving many different levels of alien capability. The mostly-powerless humans need to work out which side they should be fighting on.

Every now and again it’s nice to dive back into a young adult book. I recently read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.

The book is a sort of dark romantic/fantasy mashup. It’s about a travelling circus, those who perform in it, and those who run it.

Le Cirque des Rêves is not just any circus, however. It’s only open at night, and always closes before dawn. What appears to be clever trickery may actually be much more behind the scenes, and the garish colours found in other circuses have been replaced by a simple black and white colour scheme.

Andy Weir has become renowned over the past decade for his science fiction novels. The Martian (and its movie) was hugely enjoyable and successful. I wasn’t so keen on Artemis, but still did enjoy the excitement of the story.

I thought his latest book - Project Hail Mary - was fantastic.

The story opens with a lone astronaut waking up in a spaceship that he has no memory of. He doesn’t know where he is, who he is, or how he got there. Although he works out that he is of pivotal importance to the survival of the human race, the story cleverly keeps you guessing about what might come next right to the end.

Anxious People is a book about an attempted bank robbery in a Swedish town (not Stockholm!). It is written by Fredrik Backman.

The story involves a would-be bank robber arriving unexpectedly at an open apartment viewing whilst trying to run away, and taking the prospective buyers hostage in the process. It is mostly split between being set at the apartment itself and the police station in which the hostages are separately interviewed after the event. It is told primarily from the perspectives of the bank robber, the hostages, and the police officers.

The Classic Collection of H.G. Wells novels contains five well-known stories: The War of the Worlds, The First Men in the Moon, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The Island of Doctor Moreau.

Despite the fame of these novels, I had never read any of them until I recently listened to them via the audiobook version, which was excellently narrated by the likes of David Tennant, Hugh Bonneville, and others.

I was recently asked whether Steve Jobs was someone that inspired me. It’s a difficult question, I find; he’s definitely an inspiring person in the sense of his work ethic, the products he envisages, and his way of understanding the needs of the target customer better than they know it themselves.

As a person, however, I find his personality and the way he treats others less inspiring. I try to be empathetic to others and take into account the emotional and psychological position of someone else when interacting with them. In a professional workplace this (hopefully) contributes towards creating a space that enables people to grow and develop whilst also emboldening colleagues to put forward their own thoughts and opinions in a more risk-free environment.

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes tells the story of a young English woman - Alice - who marries an American man and moves to a small town in Kentucky in the late 1930s.

Not long after arriving in Kentucky Alice realises she may have made a mistake when it comes to her new husband. However, the real story focuses around a job Alice gets working with the local library.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah is a book set out in the Alaskan wild. It tells the story of a young family that move in order to live off-the-grid after the father returns from being a prisoner of war in the Vietnam war.

The book mostly focuses on the viewpoint of the daughter, Leni, who is thirteen years old when she moves with her mother and father. The story tells how Leni adapts and grows into her new Alaskan life over the years, whilst at the same time trying to navigate some of the perils at home in her family cabin. Leni and her family meet and grow close to different members of the local community, in which there are a variety of views regarding the types of people that should be allowed to come to Alaska.

This post contains some of my thoughts on the book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by Jason Schreier.

This book contains a number of stories about how some of the most well-known (and other less well-known) video games are made. The book’s subtitle, “The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made”, sums it up pretty well.

Working in the software industry myself, I often hear about the notion of “crunch time”, which is a term we’ve borrowed from the game devleopment industry at times when critical updates, fixes, or deadlines are pressing. However, after reflecting on the stories in this book, it makes me realise that the “crunches” we suffer are nothing to the crunch and stresses experienced by game developers in many small teams and large development studios alike.

I recently finished reading The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy.

This genre of novel (sort of military thriller fiction) is not usual for me and this is the first Clancy book I have read. That being said, the book has been on my “to-read” list for a fair amount of time and so I am glad I got round to reading it.

Last week I read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. The book won the 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction.

“Set” in Bedford, England, the story starts by introducing the main character - Nora Seed - who feels completely down. She is depressed and thinks that she has nothing further to contribute to her own life or to the lives of the few people around her.

Recently I finished reading Dirty Little Secrets. This is the first book I have read by Jo Spain and the first time I have known of the author.

The book first appears as though it’s a typical murder mystery set in a relatively wealthy gated community in Ireland - however the intricacies of the characters and narrative quickly made it hard to put down. The story begins with the discovery of the long-dead body of the woman who lives at number 4 and continues with the involvement of the detectives as they investigate the strange incident.