Books
Category archives for Books
Rob Thurman Gets Her Tenses Wrong
Posted by Martin R on April 10, 2011 I’m a picky reader when it comes to entertainment, and if I don’t like the first 50 pages of a novel I rarely continue. The most recent casualty of this policy is a book I was very kindly given by Birger Johansson, Rob Thurman’s The Grimrose Path (2010). Its a modern urban fantasy with angels…
Earl Birger Rules
Posted by Martin R on April 2, 2011 Birger Johansson is an awesome guy. We’ve never met, but he’s one of Aard’s most prolific and witty commenters. And then, out of the blue, he suddenly tells me that he’s got some free shipping to spare on Amazon and sends me a hoard of books, a DVD and a graphic novel! THANK YOU BIRGER!…
Should I Put Together an Aard E-Book?
Posted by Martin R on March 14, 2011 Here’s an idea that I’d like some reader feedback on. Would it be worthwhile to put together an EPUB e-book, about as long as a 200-page paperback, of selected blog entries of mine? I’m thinking I’d organise it in thematic sections and sort each section chronologically. And publish the thing for free on Smashwords. If…
Best Reads of 2009 and 2010
Posted by Martin R on December 31, 2010 Looking for a good book? Here are my best reads in English of the past two years. 2009 The Colour of Magic. Terry Pratchett 1983. Lavishly ornate humorous fantasy. Dancing with strangers. Inga Clendinnen 2003. On contacts between the first English penal colony and the aboriginals at Sydney Cove in 1788-92. On the Origin of…
Eager For Better E-Book Deals
Posted by Martin R on December 20, 2010 I’m eager to start reading more e-books. I rarely re-read books (except for work), and my friends rarely borrow paper ones from me, so I have little reason to hang on to paper books. E-books would be just the thing. But the prices aren’t any good. I either have to pay more for an e-book…
What Makes Civilization? Sid Meier?
Posted by Martin R on December 1, 2010 Reviewing David Wengrow’s What Makes Civilization? is made difficult by the discrepancy between its title and its contents. Out of about 240 pp in total, only ~180 are intended to be read, the rest being comprised of bibliography, index etc. And these pages do not offer meditation on the necessary conditions or definition of civilisation.…
New Guide Book to Medieval Södermanland
Posted by Martin R on October 27, 2010 Sweden’s traditionally divided into 25 landskap provinces. They live on in people’s minds despite having been superseded by a new län division in 1634. The boundaries of the landskap go way back into prehistory, and so they don’t respect the country’s cities much, these generally being much later in origin. Stockholm is a case in…
Dorrik Stow’s Vanished Ocean
Posted by Martin R on October 12, 2010 In his fine new book Vanished Ocean, geologist Dorrik Stow uses the biography of one of our planet’s vanished oceans to teach the reader a wide range of veeery long-term perspectives on geological history. The ocean that geologists call the Tethys came into being when the Pangaea supercontinent coalesced in the Late Permian, 260 million…
The Glossies Tell Me I’m Not A Man
Posted by Martin R on September 28, 2010 I’ve felt largely like an outsider since I was a kid, but these days I rarely experience the full force of it except when I visit a news agent’s and confront the glossy magazines. They carry hundreds of titles. And at a pinch I can maybe find one or two that might interest me mildly.…
Hobbit Continuity Error
Posted by Martin R on September 13, 2010 J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his three main books in the order their contents happen in his fantasy world. But they weren’t published in that order. Young Tolkien writes the various component works of The Silmarillion, middle-aged Tolkien writes and publishes The Hobbit, old Tolkien writes and publishes The Lord of the Rings, then his son Christopher…
