The Man from the Future - The Visionary Life of John von Neumann by Ananyo Bhattacharya. Delightful biography of von Neuman. Loved the AB version. 4/5.

81 Things That Blew Our Minds in 2023. “When you look at a tattoo, you’re seeing ink shining in the “belly” of an immune cell that has gobbled up the ink and failed to digest it.”

52 things I learned in 2023. “Languages are louder in the tropics because the extra moisture warmer air can hold allows for more flexibility and range for vocal chords.”

Blackouts: A Novel, by Justin Torres. 2023 National Book Award for Fiction. Hmm, that was… interesting. Literal blackouts, film scripts, story inside story, queer history and flowing yet jerky writing. Not my usual read and not sure I want to read a similar one but still 3.5/5

What the Dying Teach the Living by Frank Ostaseski, Humbling, deeply thought provoking.

Identity Crisis (DC Comics) – “So many superhero comics look at things through a telescope trying to find giant monsters and whole worlds to punch. Identity Crisis is designed to look at these characters through a microscope, pulling in so tight, we can see all their flaws and imperfections.” – Brad Meltzer. Digital format. I am not a comics fan but this was worth the digression. Yup, I realise this is a much maligned mini-series, but hey, it was a 4.5/5 for me.

Courtney Dauwalter: Step inside the ‘pain cave’, where rules are remade. “sparked questions, debate and research into whether ultra-endurance distances might be among the only sporting arenas where the playing field between the sexes is effectively levelled.” Fascinating.

Unusual units – Dirac Due to his laconic style, the Cambridge colleagues of Nobel-prize winning physicist Paul Dirac are said to have defined one Dirac as a rate of speaking equal to one word per hour.

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, by Salman Rushdie (AB). Courageous, personal and honest. Elegant as always. 4.5/5

Michael Stipe Is Writing His Next Act. Slowly. – nice profile of an impressive artist. Simple clean style that cuts to the content.

Devin Kelly’s Ordinary Plots: Meditations on Poems + Verse has been a revelation. Case in point Najwan Darwish’s “On the Third Day”, Mary Oliver’s “Some Questions You Might Ask”, Tariq Alarabi’s “Carob Tree” and so many more. There is a refined elegance to these posts that reflect on, but never dissects, poems from all over.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, in AB. Clarifying, crisp and packs a punch 4.5/5

The Serpentine Band, by Congyun ‘Mu Ming’ Gu. A beautifully written 18,500 words long novella that dances. 5/5

Tabula Rasa: Volume 1 by John McPhee, in AB. Free flowing, but not sure to where. Not for me. 3/5

chatGPT20.txt, Donald Knuth on his experemintation with chatGPT.

Nothing Compares, great documentary on Sinéad O’Connor.

Pedro Páramo, by Juan Rulfo in a new translation by Douglas J. Weatherford. “What exactly do you understand?”. Mastery of the form. 5/5.

In The Stacks (Maisie’s Tune), short story by Robin Sloan. Well told 3.5/5

The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth, by Ken Krimstein. Beautifully narrated and drawn graphic biography. 4/5.

~

on

a

hiatus

Been a while. A longer post to compensate and to wrap up the year.

The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Exquisite, “like five hundred million little bells”. 5/5

Ka, by Roberto Calasso. I am going to revert to the description in the 1998 review in NYT – “a giddy invasion of stories – brilliant, enigmatic, troubling, outrageous, erotic, beautiful.” Enchanting. 5/5

Playing God Unplugged, by Tim Henson. Incredible guitar solo. “a different species” is not too far off.

Encrypted traffic interception on Hetzner and Linode targeting the largest Russian XMPP (Jabber) messaging service, geeky and interesting.

How Andrew Wylie turned serious literature into big business, fascinating profile of the literary agent Andrew Wylie.

How to Survive in Tech By Somebody Who Has and Hasn’t. I thank Gary for this long, comprehensive and personal article. Something there for everyone.

Four Seasons in Rome, by Anthony Doerr (AB). A slow-paced take on the beauty of Rome. Beautiful meandering words. 3.5/5

Quincy, Netflix. Amazing initimate documentary of a legand. 4/5

“Humility, curiosity”, Nick Cave’s answer to “I find it pointless to pursue anything in this bizarre and temporary world that is so much against my values in every way possible.”

Why Read?, enlightening lecture by Eva Brann, 2005 recipient of the National Humanities Medal.

Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir, by Margo Jefferson (AB). Abandoned. I tried, really did, but just could not relate enough nor get hooked into this one. -/5

“This is by far my favorite story of all those I have written.” – Isaac Asimov on The Last Question

Jon Fosse’s Search for Peace, “The Norwegian author has spent decades producing a strange, revered body of work. But he still doesn’t know where the writing comes from.”

Three-Body Problem, Chinese TV adptation of the book with English subtitles.

Jonathan Rée on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, great conversation.

LavaRand in Production, details of the Cloudflare lava lamps that help with Internet encryption.

Prajapati - Tim Parks hugs the original. The English translator of Roberto Calasso’s “Ka” writes on the experience of translating this monumental work.