Reviews and Comments

Ascapola Locked account

Ascapola@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 1 month ago

Always have one or more books on the go, but I tend to only read them in bed or travelling. So quite slow progress.

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C. J. Sansom: Dominion (2013, Pan Books, Pan Macmillan) 3 stars

At once a startling, sinister reimagining of 1950s Britain and a gripping, humane spy thriller, …

Review of 'Dominion' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A good read and the alt-history is excellently argued and described. But I can't help thinking the American OSS/CIA would have just bumped Frank off. They would have had agents in Britain.

Review of 'Under Occupation' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

After enjoying earlier Furst novels I was excited when I came across this in the library. What a disappointment.

A series of rather disconnected and indeed rather corny and clichéd resistance activities that were undertaken by an unlikeable and lazily drawn main protagonist and associates.

Plus annoying irrelevancies - a map of Paris at the front with places marked that weren't in the plot and catching trains from the wrong stations.

Review of 'Black Earth' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A thoroughly engaging journey across Ukraine from west to east. Ukraine's tragic history is told through the stories of the people Mühling meets in 2015 as the war in the Dombass is already taking place.

This is a particularly useful read at the moment - providing background and complexity to the picture presented in the media.

Review of 'Quantitative techniques in geography' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Published in 1974, this book assumes users will have to hand crank the techniques - with a calculator if they are lucky.

I enjoyed working through the examples and consolidation exercises using spreadsheets and Python.

There are quite a few errors in the book and some 'quaint' languages and assumptions.

Review of 'Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Loved the format of this book - easy to read, with options to dive deeper through the appendix and the website 7half.info 7half.info.

Feldman Barrett introduces up to date science about how brains have evolved, how they are organised, and 'run' our lives. Plus some tips on how we can learn to manage them better.

Michael Williams: On The Slow Train Again (Arrow) 2 stars

Review of 'On The Slow Train Again' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

There are some interesting itineraries that I'd like to explore, but I got bored with the frequent references to Beeching and the "good old steam days" and the descriptions and interactions are a bit superficial.

UPDATE
So unmemorable was this book that I'd forgotten I'd read it 18 months ago. The journeys are interesting, but the descriptions are twee and repetitive.