Alison Scott > Recent Status Updates

And.. this has gone back to the library before I finished it. I should get it back mid-year I think.

I've never listened to a history as an audiobook and am suddenly feeling the lack of footnotes in a way that doesn't normally trouble me in all the productivity nonsense I read.

Having bought this and simply forgotten to read it (I know, I know) my memory was jogged by meeting up with James (who is an old friend). Almost literally unputdownable but I have to do *some* work today. Thorough, knowledgeable, opinionated, hilarious.

Oliver Sacks turns his attention to his own childhood with his customary eye for a good story and the result is compelling for someone who shares some but not all of his experiences. This is a deathmarch book: it has to go back to the library on 16 January at the latest.

Three parallel stories of women (past, present, future) and their relationship to the Great Barrier Reef. Enjoying this a lot.

Detailed, thorough. I’d read the substack posts that this book collates, but there’s a lot of interesting introductory information including all sorts of stuff I didn’t know about the early history of computer games – including for example that they were sold on punch cards, or that ELIZA was written to demonstrate the pointlessness and triviality of chatbots.

I thought I had finished this, but I hadn't. Extraordinary but also somewhat tricky book.

My current self-help audiobook. It is fine but so far, everything is something that people have, in fact, told me before. That doesn’t necessarily remove the value of the book, which is a clear, level-headed statement of what research tells us we should do when faced with some of the common symptoms of declining mental health.

Got fed up of my friends keeping telling me how awesome this series is.

Absolutely loving this now, something clicked. Keeping wikipedia open by my side after realising that the references add a vast amount.

Not sure why I started this; felt it's a book I should have read.

Another recommendation from John Coxon; this one turned up surprisingly quickly on a library loan. I already know the wikipedia version of this story, so I'm hoping for insight.

This has to go back to the library today, not because someone else wants it but because “I’ve renewed it the maximum number of times”.

Just one of those books that I found unpickupable; I just made a final desultory attempt and realised that I don’t care about these characters or what they’re up to; I *did* care about the framing stories, but eh, I’m in the middle of an infodump and. Enough.

Actually I started this ages ago but it didn’t make it into Goodreads. Getting picked up on a sort of “time to finish some part read books” purge.

On a forced march on this one, but really enjoying it so far.

Next self-help audiobook - this time specifically targeting happiness.

Thanks to Fiona for an ARC. Absorbing and thought-provoking.

I was reading this as a library audiobook and it went back to the library so I've put it back into a hold queue.

Very fluffy indeed.

Continuing as a mix of useful thoughts and complete woo woo. The stuff on 'crazy makers' seems a bit out of place but I accept that under-achieving artists do often hang around with people like this.

A stunning opening followed by some strange pacing, implausible fortune, sudden time jumps and a couple of shifts of viewpoint character. I’ve set it down for the moment and will pick it up again tomorrow.