Fourteen years ago, I read Fforde's Shades of Grey and my life hasn't been quite the same since. It was a magical tale, almost totally devoid of exposition, building in an fantasy world like no other. Fans have been clamouring for a sequel ever since. The first few chapters of the sequel do an excellent job of exposition - but this isn't the sort of book you can pick up without having recently read the original. I got a dozen pages into Red Side Story before I realised that I remembered nothing about the original. So I went back to read Shades of Grey. I'm delighted to say it was just as good ..read more

"History is not erased when statues are pulled down. It is made." Some people celebrated when Saddam's statue was toppled in Iraq. Yet those same voices condemn the felling of Coulson, Rhodes, and a dozen other statues. Why? Alex von Tunzelmann has a knack for getting to the heart of history in an accessible manner. There isn't a hefty amount of ponderous academic theory to wade through - just well researched stories mixed with contemporary accounts. Statues don't have human rights. But our primitive brains sometimes seem to confuse the icon for the individual. When we have a parasocial relati ..read more

Did you know that a Suffragette invented the UK's electrical plug? Dame Caroline Haslett was an electrical engineer who foresaw the way that electricity could be used to remove domestic drudgery from women's lives. There is a slim biography of her, written by her sister, which is sadly out of print. Luckily, the book is available for free on Archive.org. It is a curious book. It dwells on her faith as much as her technical prowess. Her waistline is the subject of wry amusement. There's also the (naturally) dated views of the day to contend with along with an odd segue into spiritualism. And ..read more

This book didn't really resonate with me. I enjoyed both Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquillity, so I think I was expecting something in a similar vein. Instead of ethereal sci-fi, this is a tangled tale which feels like a mish-mash of half a dozen movies. The central premise of a Ponzi scheme which warps the lives of those around it - which leads to a jumbled cast of characters, none of whom really get a chance to be fleshed out. The pivotal mystery at the start of the novel is resolved in such an inconsequential way that it feels mostly pointless to include. It is beautifully written, charmi ..read more

This is a weird book. The politics of the Star Wars universe are rarely deeply examined. The various tax-related shenanigans of The Phantom Menace were derided by geeks but here become a potent source for art as a dozen artists reimagine classic propaganda posters from Earth and remix them with pop-culture. There are some stunning pieces of art - with a real feel of history. Here's a typical sample: Others just look like they were stitched together from clipart. The images are a decently sized - but could have been a bit higher resolution for viewing on a tablet. The textual content is mostl ..read more

Every technology is a transitional technology. This book makes the case that the complexity of modern technology is, well, complex! Systems are designed by so many people that their outputs are an utter mystery to anyone - even those deeply enmeshed within them. It is somewhat scattershot - leaping between sextech, payment processors, architecture, and half a dozen other subjects. Each chapter is a worthy examination of a complex technology - but I felt it would have benefited from being a little more focussed. ‘what happens when systems break?’ is that they become visible. This, I think, is ..read more

Infrastructure is impossible. You have to wrangle thousands of people over dozens of months, with a budget of millions, to deliver something made of hundreds of plans, which has to fit seamlessly into the world. How does any infrastructure get built? It mostly doesn't. This is the terrifying true story of all the different ways big projects fail. If you've ever been part of a big IT project, some of the themes will give you flashbacks. What kills me is how normalised this has become. We all know that predicted budgets are little more than crystal-ball gazing. We can see that tiny blockers now ..read more

This is a fascinating story told on an almost geological timescale. It is a tantalisingly glimpse, into a much larger world. It is a story of contradiction - there's an epic universe, but we're stuck in a parochial backwater. It is full of un-human creations - yet its politics are firmly a reflection of the 2020s. I loved the story - it's almost impossible to describe how wild it gets - but found myself continually frustrated with the po-faced nature of the characters. The protagonists are so morally-righteous that it gets a little repetitive and tiresome. That's balanced by the bonkers notion ..read more

The problem with autobiographies is that every anecdote ends with "needless to say, I had the last laugh!" This corporate-autobiography is no different - as it details the rise and impact of Bellingcat - a team of investigators and journalists. I am in awe of Bellingcat - and have seen them give talks on a couple of occasions. This book is a thrilling account of how they perform "open source" investigations; solving crimes with freely available data. But every few pages, I got an uneasy feeling about their methods and motivations. The book is surprisingly incurious about the effectiveness, mor ..read more

The central schtick of this book is a cliché brilliantly delivered. Take a side-character from a beloved book and retell the story through their eyes. I only have hazy memories of reading 1984 - where Julia is little more than a femme fatale. This book is an explicit and visceral journey through Julia's life in Airstrip One. We see how, from her point of view, Winston Smith is little more than a pathetic dreamer. His childish fantasies of toppling Big Bother are the last gasp of a snivelling coward. His love nothing but selfishness. It isn't a radical reworking of 1984 - the themes about total ..read more