Books
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The Fort is a rare standalone novel from Bernard Cornwell. It tells the story of an early engagement in the American War of Independence. On paper the battle should easily have been won by the Americans but it turned out to be a victory for the British. It is very closely based on fact and…
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The God Species by Mark Lynam is about how humans are affecting the planetary environment and about how some of the things the environmental movement are proposing as solutions aren’t helping. Lynam explains why and suggests alternatives. Basically, technology has got us into this mess and only technology can get us out of it. As…
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George Soros wrote The Crisis of Global Capitalism in 1998, in the last credit crunch. I thought it would be interesting to see if what he said was still true. The central point of the book is that money markets aren’t based on natural laws that are always true no matter what, but are actually…
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The Shelters of Stone is the fifth in the Earth’s Children series by Jean M. Auel. I read the first book, The Clan of the Cave Bear, when I was eleven and I loved it. I read it many times and it remains one of my favourite books. I’d also read the other three, with…
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Free kindle books! Yay. There are books now out of copyright that are available free for the kindle and I have availed myself of a few. One of them is The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope which I wanted to read as it was mentioned in an article on The Business Case for…
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The first thing to say about The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender is that it has a great title. It’s evocative and intriguing, the rhythm is good and is the sort of title that makes me wish I had a talent for titling things. At the age of nine Rose discovers she…
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One of my top ten books is Possession by A. S. Byatt and so it stands to reason that I would like other books by the same author. I read Angels and Insects and wasn’t blown away. I bought Babel Tower and it has sat on my bookshelf for ten years. Part of the reason…
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Tiger of Talmare by Nina Scott is a novella that I stumbled across while I was browsing Amazon for contemporary science fiction written by women. Mel is a space pirate who has been hired to hijack a spaceship carrying the cryogenically frozen Zach to be tried for a massacre on Talmare. Zach is a tiger-human…
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The Hidden Empire by Kevin J. Anderson is the first book in The Saga of Seven Suns series which runs to seven books. It’s a meaty space opera of around 660 pages. A nice substantial book to really get my teeth into. In theory. Humanity expanded out into the universe in generation ships. They encountered…
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I love a big book – it’s very satisfying. There is a depth of immersion that just can’t be achieved in anything less than 500 pages. The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George is a big book at 960 pages and it is well worth the effort. The memoirs tell the story of the whole life of Cleopatra;…
Boudica Marginalia 