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Brian Bilston’s book Days Like These has a poem for each day of the year and I’m reading it in real time, one a day. So today, 1st July, I am half way through. Some of the poems are great, some are more forgettable. Mostly they are tied to a day of celebration, such as the first UK Pride march. Recommended.

Chapter 7

I was planning on reading this in real time, I.e. each monthly chapter in the relevant month, but this book is so irritating that I’m probably going to finish it sooner, just to get it done.

Too condensed. She doesn’t explain how she selected the strategies she applies in this book. Nor does she explain how she formed the ‘Twelve Commandments’ and the ‘Secrets of Adulthood’. These pop up in the main text like nasty unexplained surprises. A different list of ‘Secrets of Adulthood’ appears in the end matter to the one in the introduction, along with ‘Paradoxes of Happiness’. Confusing.

Terrible book. Only reading because I’m a completed-finisher.

I thought this book would make an interesting comparison to Julie/Julia. However, it is disappointing in the extreme. Only two things are keeping me reading this: (1) my completer-finisher tendencies and (2) my preference for extremely lite reading to send me to sleep.

I’ve finished chapters one and two, and am hooked all over again by Mantel’s writing of Cromwell.

I’ve just finished Part One of two, ‘Understanding Autism’. Part Two is ‘Living with Autism’. So far, this is the best book I’ve read about autism. Prizant wants us to regard autism positively and encourages us to ask why, and to listen to the people with autism in our lives. It is an easy read.

Vanity Fair is jeopardising my reading challenge success! It’s worth it though.

Lots on the world wars currently - more history of the world, than silk roads just now, I feel.

Also, the people with ridiculous ideas about what the technology can and can’t do all seem to be women...

The author is quite hard on Charles Babbage, described as a cryptography tinkerer and best known for his ‘failed attempt’ to invent a computer.

The history and science of autism told by a woman with ASD