Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

Bliss on Toast is a cookbook by Prue Leith.

The idea of a toast cookbook might raise eyebrows but the book is excellent. I tried almost every recipe. It makes such good lunches. They’re often quick to make and still delicious. If you are bored of your usual lunches, this is a great way to mix things up for little effort and big results. This is instantly one of my favourite cookbooks.

Ruins is the second novel in Orson Scott Card’s Pathfinder series. I went straight from the first book to this one and it is probably even better.

Card gives an introduction in which he says trilogies are often rubbish because the middle book/film is just filler. I think he is spot on: most trilogies would do better as two books. This one is more like an Asimov book. Stuff happens. Interesting stuff. And we get even more into the science fiction that was promised in book one.

Pathfinder is the first novel in Orson Scott Card’s series by the same name.

I loved the Ender’s Game books so I thought I would give this a try. I wasn’t sure at first as I was looking for science fiction and this started out more as a fantasy book. And it is, although it got more science fiction-y as time went on.

I’m glad I stuck with it. It turned out to be a great fusion of fantasy and science fiction involving time trial but with some good twists on the way time travel is usually presented. Rather than getting caught up in ensuring causality loops, Card just tells a great story.

The Irish Granny’s Pocket Farmhouse Potato Recipes is a pocket recipe book with a tonne of different potato-based recipes. Soups, salads, pies, bakes, curries, casseroles, sides and more is all covered. It’s impressive just how many things can be made of potato. Well worth a read.

Worrying Is Optional is a self-help book by Ben Eckstein. It uses third-wave cognitive behavioural therapy, drawing on acceptance and commitment therapy and metacognitive therapy to help people reduce their worrying. it’s written in a light-hearted way that should be accessible to everyone and takes you through understanding worry, other ways to deal with worry, retraining your attention and practical exercises for changing your relationship with worry.

A month ago I read Ender’s Game and it was superb. It sounded too violent for me but it’s actually a brilliant story. Ender’s Shadow is another book by Orson Scott Card that tells the same story from Bean’s point-of-view. It’s equally excellent.

Ender’s Game is a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card. I was looking around for more science fiction (I love Asimov and really enjoyed Blade Runner recently) but I wasn’t sure about this one. Sounded all about war and fighting. But it was recommended by so many sources that I thought I would give it a go.

It was excellent. I really enjoyed it. There was quite a lot of fighting in it. But it didn’t get in the way of a good story. Ender is a very likeable character, in my opinion, faced with difficult moral choices. It is easy to forget that he is a child, which itself adds another layer of complexity to the rights and wrongs of the situation.

The Suspect is a murder mystery novel by Rob Rinder and the second in the Adam Green series. It’s a fun read and I enjoyed it.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? often titled Blade Runner is a novel by Philip K. Dick.

It’s really good. Dystopian future up there with Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World. The book explores what it is to be human. The answer, according to Dick, is empathy. Androids, not matter how sophisticated the AI, can’t quite get human emotions. Whereas humans, even when given a Penfield Mood Organ to programme their feelings, still want a full range of experience.

For me, the most important theme of the book Mercerism. Does it matter where Mercer is real or not, if a collective experience and spiritual unity is generated from that idea? The answer is yes, it does matter. But that doesn’t mean there is no value in it. It could still be meaningful and worthwhile. So take that, Buster Friendly.

Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall is a book by Zeke Faux which tells the story of FTX, Teether, Sam Bankman-Fried and other players in the crypto industry.

It’s not a complete history of crypto: digital currencies are already well established when the book begins but it does take you through Bankman-Fried’s rise and fall. Is is heavily critical of crypto, asking where any of the supposed benefits are (fair point) and examining its use in money laundering with the journalist visiting sites in Cambodia where victims are human trafficked and forced to run crypto scams for gangs.

It seems a little unfair to make crypto the villain, rather than global inequality or lake of regulation in these states. They did the same thing with cash or fake fiat bank accounts before crypto, and better money laundering controls would work with crypto, too. It also ignores the idea that maybe the true value of crypto is the blockchain, regardless of whether crypto turns out to be useful.

But it was a fun read, and at the same time, brings some attention to human trafficking which is sorely needed.