This guy's probably right - but there's no need for him to be such a dick about it. The book is about the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis which, simply put, says that the language people use changes the way they experience the world. McWhorter thinks this is bullshit - and goes through his reasoning in painstaking detail. It occasionally veers into personal attacks, which I found a little odd. K. David Harrison has posited that depicting language diversity as marvelously random, as I have, is “…
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The end-game of my MSc is almost in sight! I've written up 6 assignments. Now all I need to do is write a 10,000 word dissertation in the form of a Major Project Report. Oh, and go through an End-Point-Assessment with my portfolio to make sure I actually know what I'm talking about. But, back to the report. I need to write a 1,000 word literature review. The only problem is… I've never done one of those before! Sadly, my MSc provider aren't particularly proactive in providing resources to s…
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When a freak technological failure halts traffic to and from the planet Gora, three strangers are thrown together unexpectedly, with seemingly nothing to do but wait. Under the care of Ouloo, an enterprising alien, and Tupo, her occasionally helpful child, the trio are compelled to confront where they've been, where they might go, and what they might be to one another. And so we come to the end of the remarkable Wayfarers series. It is a lovely conclusion - full of alien weirdness and…
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Every day, extraordinary inventions and innovative ideas are side-lined in a world that remains subservient to men. But it doesn't have to be this way. Instead, ingrained ideas about men and women continue to shape our economic decisions; favouring men and leading us to the same tired set of solutions. For too long we have underestimated the consequences of sexism in our economy, and the way it holds all of us - women and men - back. This is a cracking book. Similar in scope to…
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Binti is an absolute treat. I've not read much Afro-Futurism, but what I have has been truly excellent and entertaining. What is it like to try to honour your ancestors while feeling the call for adventure? It's a topic which has been explored ad infinitum but rarely with such passion. Why do old men fear powerful young women? Binti isn't Buffy - she's a much more complex cipher for a million people trapped between tradition and the future. Okorafor has taken the basic hero's journey and…
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The book starts by referencing one of my favourite book - The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals. That book looks at the history of criminal trials of animals and gets in to the philosophy about whether a flock of geese can be considered liable for the damage they cause. It is a deeply weird, but totally enlightening book. This book is a bit more of a roving travelogue. Roach meanders through half-a-dozen countries talking to the people who suffer from "criminal" animals,…
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This is a massive tome. Or do I mean tomb…? What if you discovered that your widower-father was not a mild-mannered historian but, instead… A VAMPIRE HUNTER! The caper takes us all over Europe - a veritable travelogue of bustling capitals and dusty backwaters. It holds itself ever-so seriously - occasionally dropping into the meta-narrative of fictional vampires - but always treating the gothic horror with the respect the genre deserves. Genuinely creepy - without being gory and sup…
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This book is outstanding. It is a clear-eyed view of the future as it was seen from 20 years ago. I've never taken so many scribbled notes in the margins of a book. Many of the ideas are ahead of its time - and only a couple of clunkers which never made it. One thing to note is that it is written in the shadow of the terrorist attacks on New York City. There are around 50 mentions of 9/11 in the book - to the point where it feels like an obsession. Even the most mundane observation is tied…
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These are the facts: throughout history human beings have had sex. Sexual culture did not begin in the sixties. It has always been celebrated, needed, wanted and desired part of what it means to be human. So: what can learn by looking at the sexual lives of our ancestors? What does it tell us about our attitudes and worries today, and how can the past teach us a better way of looking forward?I I'm not quite sure what to make of this book. It is exploration of how sex and sexual…
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As recommended to me by a comment on my blog. This is ridiculous fun from start to finish. It's a John Grisham-style courtroom drama. Only the defendant is an alien. Literally a multi-limbed beast from a dozen light-years away. That's it. That's the whole plot. And it works wonderfully. Nothing wrong with a bit of good clean sci-fi fun. It lightly explores racism - using the aliens as a proxy for the way humans become defensively tribal. There's a brief diversion into the evils of…
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This is selection of essays looking - as the title suggests - at the relationship between Shakespeare and immigration. It's always worth re-examining our relationship with "classic" works. There are some very obvious immigration issues in Shakespeare - and this book does a plausible job of uncovering some of them. It also takes us through some of the issues facing Elizabethan England - for example, how the Welsh "immigrants" were treated by the "native" London population, and how that…
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I started reading this as the news came out that someone at Google got convinced that their AI was sentient. And that's what this book is about! A researcher starts talking to his computer and gradually becomes convinced that it is "alive". It is a perennially prescient story. And it is fascinating to see how the state-of-the-art was perceived in 1972. It is in the shadow of 2001 - but much more grounded in the "now" rather than the future. It's amazing to see how it has influenced things…
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