Thoroughly disappointing. It's a rip-off of about a dozen Asimov stories about domestic robots. Robot helps child. Robot gets religion. Robot Misunderstands world. Robot is abused. It baffles me why this was nominated for so many prizes - I guess judges don't read enough old-school sci-fi? It's written in Ishiuro's dreamy, wandering style. I enjoyed that on his previous books, but here it…
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This is a tough little compilation to review. It's a collection of mid-1980s stories all grouped around the loose theme of "Cyberpunk". What is Cyberpunk? Well, I'm not quite sure. And neither is the book. Some of the stories are high-tech tales of people fighting the system and sticking it to the man! Others are... allegories about original sin in gargoyles? That said, they're all interesting …
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This is a delightfully silly magical romp. Without getting too deep into the spoilers, it is the anti-Potter of books. Middle-aged, feminist, modern witches - drinking wine and kicking arse. And they're all out of wine. I don't think it adds much new to the genre - bitchy witches bullying their peers hasn't changed since Mildred Hubble burnt her first cauldron. But this is done with such glee - …
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After reading Shashi Tharoor's Inglorious Empire I was keen to read more about my country's history. It's weird that studying history in the UK consists of the Tudors, Shakespeare, the Industrial Revolution, and the World Wars. Nothing about how modern Britain came to exist, our empire, its global and local consequences, or the path it put us on. I guess we have to learn that from random statues …
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This is a sequel to Shouting Zeros and Ones - Digital Technology, Ethics and Policy in New Zealand and follows a familiar pattern. It's a series of essays looking at digital issues from a uniquely NZ perspective. There is a fair bit of Te reo Māori (Māori language) in the book. It's great that the language is enjoying a resurgence. Most concepts are explained in context - although you may need t…
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This is a profoundly depressing but utterly necessary read. It charts Fiona Hill's journey from the moribund educational opportunities provided in a dying coal city in England, all the way to her testimony in the Trump impeachment hearings. It is part biography and part political manifesto. Both parts work well together, but requires a degree of context switching. She contextualises all her…
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My mate Julia has written a book! And, as per the title, it is really good. This is a book about helping you discover if that idea you've had - for a product, feature, book, business, whatever - is likely to catch on. It does this through the lens of understanding users. The Really Good Idea Test puts people at the heart of innovation, rather than the other way around. Essentially, it's a…
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This thorough examination of Pink Floyd's epic album is a lushly illustrated coffee-table book. Breezily written and good for dipping in and out of. It gives as a brief history of Pink Floyd and then dives in to every nook and cranny about the making of DSotM. It's chock full of some great archive photos - it really goes for the deep cuts. Although I'm sure that die-hard fans will have seen a…
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Nat Spiller, an admired climate change activist, has accidentally drowned. That’s the police verdict. But was it an accident? His partner Ellie thinks otherwise. Pam, Ellie’s aunt, draws a reluctant Lauren Fraser into the mystery. It's a bit weird to describe a murder mystery as "cosy" - but that's the vibe of this book. It's a sequel to The One That Got Away and follows a similar template. Th…
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I have never felt less like a human being than while reading this book. I don't mind video-games, I find them mildly diverting. I've never gotten in to massively multiplayer online games (unless you count Twitter). I just don't see what's appealing about them. Why would I want a bunch of teenagers screaming racial slurs at me when I'm trying to relax? The book says "reality is broken" - but it…
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1861: "On the one hand, slavery is bad. On the other hand, cheap cotton from the South keeps the UK economy working." 2022: "On the one hand, invading Ukraine is bad. On the other hand, cheap gas from Russia keeps the UK economy working." Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose… This is an incredible book. I knew very little about the American Civil War - this is a thorough history of that blo…
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This is an astoundingly delightful book. It takes Nagel's classic question "What is it like to be a bat?" and takes us in to the heart of the hive. Humans can only understand our own lived reality. So here we have bees' behaviour translated into schemes and intrigues which would not be out of place in a medieval court. Bees wings are roaring engines, and their enemies are the hoards of…
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