Can't Stop the Signal

Great story and tremendously interesting, but there's something off about it that I can't put my finger on.

This book is perhaps my favourite thriller from the last decade, and I'm really looking forward to seeing if BBC Two can do it justice. 

A short film by Erik Wernquist, narrated by Carl Sagan from his book Pale Blue Dot.

So many appealing things about this book. The mirroring of world affairs, the jumps from individual to "historical" viewpoints, the ever present backdrop of climate change. This is shaping up to be a good one.

Honey, I'm home!

Like most footballers biographies, it's a bit dull. The most interesting parts are where he talks about growing up as a son of turkish immigrants in Germany, and the fallout of his choosing German nationality over Turkish. 

Dette er tung lesing, og umulig å vurdere for meg. La meg bare si at dette bør være obligatorisk lesing for samtlige norske helsepolitikere og anbefalt for alle som studerer eller jobber med helse eller ungdom.

Well, it's Tyson, and he's true to form. Nice primer in astrophysics, although if you're already somewhat into the subject there's not a lot of new stuff. The last chapter on the relative insignificance of humanity is pretty good and shows off Tysons poetic bent (although he's still not Sagan, possibly due to a lack of chemical assistance.)

As I mentioned in the earlier update on this, Carrie Fisher is both witty and extremely clever, but the biggest part of this book feels a bit trivial and frankly it's dull at times. I've watched the show that makes up the basis for this book and I'd much rather recommend that (or the audio book perhaps) than reading this. 

That said, I still think openness about mental issues is a good thing and that this book helps. 

See my previous Andy Weir post for example.

Edit: Changing themes fixed it, so theme issue, not BookLikes as such.

This seems like familiar KSR territory, ecological disasters and co-ops. I was a bit worried at the apparently juvenile writing style in the first couple of chapters but it's gone away. It might even have been intentional?

Slate asks, "What happens when literary novelists experiment with science fiction."

I answer, "Lots of wonderful things."

PEN grows more important every year.

Last year, Turkey imprisoned 81 journalists, more than any other country in the world. Egypt came second in this ranking, with 25 jailed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The committee also noted that Mexico has emerged as the most dangerous place to be a writer or journalist; in March, four journalists were murdered – 40% of the total number killed worldwide so far this year. The country also has the most missing journalists – 13 out of a global total of 54.

Carrie Fisher is smart and funny and this is a good read for when you're tired and not interested in thinking a lot. 

Yawn. While there are some good bits in this book it reads more like some sort of stream-of-consciousness retelling of a couple holidays paired with whatever anecdotes the author happened to remember while writing. Not my cup of tea (and actually not quite unlike Three Cups of Tea when you think about it. Minus the worst falsehoods of course.)