This has been a tough year - I've found it hard to get back in to reading. A few books knocked me off my stride and the lack of a commute meant less downtime for reading. Nevertheless, 46 books isn't too bad! Of note, for the first time in ages I read a couple of paper books! Like some kind of old-fashioned cave-man! Myself When Young from 1938 is astounding. If you want to understand proto-feminism or how society viewed itself, it is a must read. The Intergalactic Omniglot was a book I…
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One of the things I love about having a database-backed blog like WordPress is that's it opens up a delightful range of possibilities for displaying content. I've read and reviewed around 300 books over the last few years. So I wrote a scrap of code which goes through all my book reviews, grabs their cover and rating, and displays them in a nice grid. You can visit it at shkspr.mobi/blog/library You know how when you're at a friend's home you rummage through their bookshelf? That's the same…
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Google Books is one of many projects that Google has forgotten about. There's no support available and, of course, it's impossible to send them a bug report. The best anyone can do is write a ranty blog post and hope it gets noticed. When I search for my name in Google Books, it returns books I have reviewed. These aren't books that I've written. They don't mention, quote, or cite me. My reviews don't appear on the dust-jacket. Google has got confused. Here's an example. Go to the Google…
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Yesterday, I revealed my disappointment in being unable to print a bookcase. Today I revel in my cleverness at coming up with a solution! I decided to create a photo-mosaic of a nice photo of me and my wife - using all our book covers. The Result Close Up The image was printed on high-quality canvas - which gives it a pleasing texture and isn't too glossy. Zoomed in, this is what it looks like: As you can see, there is a fair amount of detail on the canvas. Enough so that most titles and …
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This is a mixture of lament and how-to guide. Suppose you've reviewed lots of books. It's pretty easy to generate a link to let people buy the book at Amazon or any other online store. But how do you link to a user's local library? You can't. There is no "search every library in the UK" service. You can search the British Library, but they generally don't deliver to your local town centre. Here's how to (almost) search local libraries for books. eBooks eBook behemoth OverDrive rules the…
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I was inspired by this delightful bookshop clock: David Coates@OziasMidwinterBookshop clock... pic.x.com/1tvwjii4kn❤️ 42,165💬 490♻️ 017:03 - Sun 16 May 2021 I wondered - if it was possible to create a similar clock using books from a single author? So here's my first attempt - using Agatha Christie's novels. I've tried to use first edition covers, where possible. There are a few notable absences - 8, 9, and 11. The 2 is represented by "And two other stories" - which is a bit weak! If you c…
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Last year, I set myself a challenge to read a new book per week. I managed to read 50 books, which I was pretty happy with. This year, I decided to only read books written by women. Here's what I learned. Obviously, COVID had a fairly negative effect on my reading rate. I went months without touching a book, and some evenings I could only get a few pages in before giving in to the need to doom-scroll. I love reading recreationally, and I need to get back into the habit. I wish I could read…
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I've been reading lots more non-fiction books than normal. And I'm getting increasingly annoyed about footnotes. Footnotes are a weird skeuomorph hangover from the days of printed text. I don't think they are really suited to eBooks - but they seem to have come along for the ride into the future. There are a few things that really annoy me from a usability point of view. Some of these are the fault of the author, some the publisher, some the eBook format, and some the reader app. Firstly,…
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Last month, I took myself on holiday with one aim - read as many books as possible. My wife and I tend to alternate our holidays - one relaxing break then one adventure break. Our previous trip was a 3 week road-trip through Australia, so this time I opted for an all-inclusive break in the Canaries at an adults-only hotel. I spent a week lying in the sunshine, eReader in hand, pausing only for the occasional cocktail. I thoroughly recommend this sort of holiday. If you have a "staycation",…
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I set myself an unofficial New Year's Resolution - to read more books and write a review of each of them. I wanted to read about one new book per week. Well, I fell a little short of that target - what with getting a new job, moving house, road-tripping across Australia - but I'm pretty pleased with the total. 50 books read and reviewed! It has been a bit tough getting into the swing of reading again. I get about an hour on the train each day, and an hour or so before I fall asleep. I do…
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Covering 2 weeks of holiday and 1 week of work. This is how I've spent my time... Talks The lovely folk at JS Oxford invited me to talk about my recent experiments with SVG. Headlining the bill was the brilliant Nicky Thompson with her talk about CSS shapes. Work Mostly deleting emails, as is appropriate after a holiday. As for the rest... Bugs in publishing. As part of my quest to ensure all government documents are open, I occasionally come across quirks like this. Better ODF…
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I like to go on holiday in order to read books. After last year's post a few people expressed surprise that I hadn't included many female authors. I felt compelled to rectify that, so I decided to read only female authors this holiday. I only had 7 days, and did quite a lot of sight-seeing, so there's only 6 entries here. Will try for a more relaxing holiday next year! First up, "Station Eleven" by Emily St. John Mandel. A cracking "end of the world" novel, neatly tied together via…
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