• Book: Indie Microblogging by Manton Reece

    Continuing my "reading books" habit - I've finished TWO in 2024!! I was one of Manton's Kickstarters for Micro.blog and his book. The book is finally here. And I've managed to read it quite quickly (for me). Is it any good?

  • Book: Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth

    I've been doing really well maintaining a read-everyday habit, determined to plough through my pile of un-read or part-read books. Here are my very brief thoughts on Doughnut Economics.

  • Programming styles and books

    I confess, while I have my CS degree and am well-read, I've never read many of the "classics": Clean Code, Refactoring, The Pragmatic Programmer. So with Sandi Metz's "99 Bottles of OOP" on offer, I thought I'd make a start there.

  • Refactoring UI

    I love this kit. It's expensive, but it's an amazing tool for me. But it does also feel lacking/incomplete in its current form.

  • Prevent Accidental Shootings

    There has been a lot of discussion of America’s gun laws and culture recently after the school shooting in Conneticut. The danger of gun prevalence in the USA really hit home, though, as I was reading a book over Christmas.   I’ve been reading Armin Brott’s excellent ‘The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the […]

  • Book: The Northern Lights (and Film: The Golden Compass)

    Philip Pullman is an author with a reputation. He is the children’s Dan Brown. He’s known more for the controversy about what he writes than for how he writes. I don’t like Dan Brown’s writing. I read the Da Vinci Code and though I thought it was gripping and exciting, it was also patronising and […]

  • Book: Prayer by Phillip Yancey

    This book was recommended as a good read on prayer but didn’t live up to expectations. Before I wrote these notes on it I did some searching and it’s hard to find a bad review of the book. And I have to say that, despite the slow start to it, the book did grow on […]

  • Book: The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde

    I’ve been off sick the last few days, sleeping, resting, and taking my mind off my churning stomach by both reading and writing. One result of which is that, after about 6 months of on-and-off reading, I’ve finally finished a book! The Eyre Affair is a cleverly comic, extremely eccentric romp through time space and […]

  • Book: Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell

    A friend of mine used to keep notes on books she had read and films she had seen. I hope to occasionally jot down what I think of books, films, maybe music here. Not reviews, but reminders to me of what the thing was about and what I thought of it. I’ve just finished reading […]