Okay, someone else really needs to start picking out books for me to read. First, I started reading The Mandibles shortly after the last election and had to set it aside because the dystopian view of the United States being reduced to a Third-World Nation was hitting a little to close to home at the time. And now, on one of the most depressing days that I can remember*, other than the days my mother and father died, I finished reading A Monster Calls. I’ve mentioned before that […]
A love of books can form friendships across long distances
In October 1949, New York writer sends off a letter to a bookshop in London, Marks & Co, on 84 Charing Cross Road. She is looking for reasonable second-hand books and luckily the staff at Marks & Co are able to help her. By Christmas, as she has heard that everyone in the UK are still on rationing, she has ordered a whole ham and a lot of powdered eggs to be shared out among the staff and her generosity prompts the mysterious FPD that […]
I’ve Got Friends in High Places
The Two Faces of Tomorrow by James R. Hogan (1979) Long before Terminator brought us the terrors of a unified, anti-human computer named Skynet, James R. Hogan addressed the issue with exciting but more favorable results. In the near future, an integrated computer system on the moon follows an order to remove a lunar ridge for a construction crew. Unfortunately, the engineers who requested the removal are on-site when a lunar cannon obliterates it. On Earth, a charismatic scientist and his department have been working […]
It could be habit forming
Habits – why we form them and what helps us keep them – is a topic that’s been on my mind much lately. There have been periods of time in my life where good habits were beyond habit – they were my nature. But recently, I have found it difficult to build those good habits back into my life. A quick and engaging read, Charles Duhigg begins with an explanation of how habits work on cues, with a resulting reward – known as the habit loop. […]