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A great retelling of the story of Achilles from the point of view of Patroclus (even after... you know)

Light and easy to read, with a pace that will satisfy young or first time (to the story) readers. Some beatiful prose and emotive writing. This book certainly makes the characters seem real and believable - expertly dealing with divinity in an incredibly grounded way.

Apollo's intervention at the walls of Troy here is perhaps my favourite adaptation I've read so far.

Yes, it's a romance story, but it's also much more. You know what is coming - I've avoided a spoiler above but whether by film, TV, or book the story of what happens in the siege of Troy is not a suprise. The focus on relationships and emotions hits harder given knowledge of what is coming and the constant sense of inevitability.

I don't think this was for me. I understand what we were trying to do. I generally love magical academia stories. I generally love historical settings with magical backgrounds or urban fantasy.

I also love stories that draw on real world myths and magic systems.

I didn't love this. It was quite slow and boring - spending too much time quoting philosophers and real world sources. Too much time labouring exposition as though Kuang had some sort of "I know abouts" per minute to achieve.

Both Alice and Peter didn't feel like particularly believable or relatable characters and the stakes often felt muddled and confused to me.

Possibly this was just a pacing issue - once it lost and frustrated me I think I was done.

I really liked the format of this book. The nature of a light overview of approaches to improve code quality means it's hard to appeal to everyone.

Approaches are often either obvious and day to day, or too complex, depending on your current position and project.

In this book, each chapter is only really a page or two (it was originally a web series) and it's super easy to absorb something you're interested in, or skip over something less appropriate.

I enjoyed sections on when not to tidy, and how to justify tidying as valuable to the business you're working with.

Journey to the centre of the Earth has a special place in my heart. It was one of the first audiobooks I had as a child - on a tape with sound effects and (from what I remember) an amazing voice cast.

I think relistening to a more adult version was always going to be disappointing, and honestly some of the remembered magic of the story was missing.

That said, I still love the Icelandic themes and adventure. The difference between Lindenbrock, Axel, and Hans, is way more obvious and meaningful to me now as an adult.

A fun read from the father of sci-fi.

I wasn't sure how much novelty or interest would be in this book reading it 10 years on in quite a saturated subject area.

I really enjoyed this - it flew by and was an amazingly "practical" guide to evolution and what makes us us.

Alice Roberts continues to wield her amazing ability to weave together history, archaology, biology, geology and many other ologies in an accessible precise way.

You're also left with a sense of wonder and acceptance of improbability and a connection to everyone that went before you.

This was good - I read it straight after Dracula and perhaps enjoyed it a little less.

Lots of themes from this book echo into media and writing today. While it's telling the story of a monster, it's really about what it means to be human - an absolutely required trope in almost all science fiction these days, from Spock, to Data, to Pinocchio, Castiel, and E.T.

An easy read, dripping with atmosphere and history.

Told by a collection of characters, you try to guess and put together what is happening in real time. Dracula himself featured less than I expected, but was somehow also omnipresent.

I think I enjoyed the opening from Jonathan's point of view the most - though it was cool to meet Van Helsing later.

Listening to the notes after the book, I have to say a lot of the obvious (in retrospect) themes completely passed me by, so perhaps one to reread.