Tag: 2024books

Book reviews: reaching the end

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Well, here we are. It’s almost the end of 2024! I figured I’d better get some reviews in for the books I’ve been reading recently. I want to ensure I’ve written up everything before the calendar flips over, because… OCD reasons.

Who knew the dreadful abyss featured fucking numbers? Not me.

The larger stuff I liked post for this year will be coming along (ideally on the last day of the year – i.e., tomorrow – but let’s not hold our breath too much) but here’s the books I read in the dying days of December.

(Ooh, alliteration! I’m fancy.)

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Book review: another five down

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The year keeps rocketing towards its end. I keep trying to read more and get bogged down in the whole rocketing-towards-the-endness of things at present. You know how it is – everyone is busy at this point, and things don’t seem to get less hectic. I’m continuing to read Miss Macintosh, My Darling and Finnegans Wake and I’m hoping to have both of those finished before the end of the year, though the chances of the latter actually getting done diminishes with each day. Largely because I’m increasingly feeling like I ain’t got time for Jimmy Joyce’s bullshit on this one.

Yeah, you stop and thing about what you’ve done, you fart-fancying pirate.

Happily for my TBR list, I’ve been out of town for business and so have had a bit of time to read – hello, four-hour layover – during travel. So here’s another few reviews of what I’ve been working through.

(I seem to be continuing my exploration of both the built environment (and its fuck-ups), so it’s nice to know there’s some kind of theme at work.)

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Book review: cinq?

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Not as quick as I’d hoped, but here’s another five book reviews.

Inside you are two wolves, and they’re these guys. (Also, you know who’ll like this gif? MY WIFE.)

I say ‘book’, but in this lot there’s just one physical book. The rest were audiobooks because the physical books I’ve been powering through are phonebook-sized volumes, and I’ve needed something shorter to break them up a bit.

(It’s an indicator of Books of Some Length when Paradise Lost is considered a quick read.)

Anyway, there’s nice range of stuff in here, and I’m quite pleased to have powered through them while driving, whether that be a) to Sydney and back or b) around the block on the mower.

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Book review: bites, knuckles, magical coffee and droughts

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Obviously my intent to power through my backlog of reviews has stalled like my Mazda 323 shitbox once did on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. (Embarrassingly, lots of honking.)

Pictured: you, the blog reader.

So yeah, let’s get to it.

(You’ll be pleased to know that my reading has slowed down a little, at least in terms of numbers of books read: I’m currently ploughing through two volumes – one fiction, one not – of more than 1000 pages each, so the numbers are not ticking over especially quickly at present.)

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Book review: recommendations, rereleases and revision

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Time for the first in a number of catch-up posts. Since I last wrote the reading has continued apace even as the reviewing has fallen off the cliff.

Time to get back on the keyboard.

Fear not, though: I’m not going to subject you to dozens of recaps in one go. I figure five will be more than enough to be going on with (at least until I write up the next five, right?)

Right.

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Book reviews: pre-flight five

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We’re about to go overseas for a month, and so I’m hoping that the next post here will be a recap of all the things I get through during fifty-odd hours of flights and however many hours of sitting in gardens.

HOWEVER that means that I need to clear my backlog of books read before I place myself at the tender mercies of security at the international terminal.

Same, except it’s a paperback.

So let’s get to it, because fuck knows I’ve got a lot of pre-trip packing and organisation to get through.

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Book reviews: carnies, conspiracies, despots and degenerates

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So I’m back on the five-books-per-review thing because let’s face it, a dozen-ish (as per my previous entry) is a bit much, even if you’re into the kind of stuff I write. Or the books I read. Or me, really.

Pictured: you.

On with it.

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Book reviews: rich guys, cult leaders, schlock horror, debt and architecture

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A veritable blend of genres, this one.

It’s a mixed bag. I’ve had a lot on since I last updated here, and reviewing books has fallen by the wayside, surprising no-one.

What is surprising, though, is that I’ve kept up the reading! I’m up to about thirty books for the year thus far, which is why you’re getting a baker’s dozen (plus a few extra) in this post. I had some enthusiasms make themselves known through this brace of books, as you’ll see. It’s, uh, a lot. Hopefully there’s something in there to pique your interest. And if not, hopefully you’ll heed my low-scored warnings .

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Book reviews: sharks, serendipity, ‘splosions, snapshots and spooks

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Well, another five books have come and gone, so it’s time for my thoughts on the same. They run the gamut from experimental fiction to weird memoir and scientific history to gothic fantasy, so you can’t accuse me of being particularly genre-monogamous in the last little while, if that’s even a thing.

Anyway, let’s see what I read. Or heard. Or both.

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Book reviews: nukes, noise, nature… and hot dogs

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This five-books-then-review idea seems to be working pretty well. Pressure’s off and I’ve a little more time to gather my thoughts. Will I still write too much? Probably. Will you read all of it? I’ve no idea.

You will be unsurprised to discover that this is true.

But join me, won’t you? For a coffee break-sized meditation on books that, for some reason, seemed to concern mass destruction and mass production, along with some nice tunes.

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