The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov
How do you tell the story of a remote injustice to a jaded world? You could make a documentary, or interview the survivors and…
The Future of Books: Reactive?
How would you like to read a book that reacted to your emotions, and changed its storyline to give you exactly what…
What Sport Tells Us About Life by Ed Smith
As well as The Chinese Garden of Serenity, Vishy also sent me What Sport Tells Us About Life. Again, it was a thoughtful…
A Chinese Garden of Serenity by Hung Tzu-ch’eng
My friend Vishy gave me A Chinese Garden of Serenity for Christmas. It was such a nice surprise to open the package from…
Halcyon Days
The phrase “halcyon days” has always meant nothing more to me than general nostalgia. Since moving to Crete, and more particularly since…
A Story in Two Pictures
Look what my landlord brought home this morning… And then I saw this…
“Rogue” sociology?: Floating City by Sudhir Venkatesh
What a difference a title makes, or even a subtitle. The version I read, the US edition which I received as a…
Paul Robeson: A Watched Man by Jordan Goodman
If you’ve ever wondered just how far government agencies will go to keep us safe from ideas that they find dangerous, this…
2013 reading highlights
I’m always a bit suspicious of those “Best books of 2013” articles. I read lots of them anyway, and carefully note down…