CUK Book Club: Currently reading...

[NotAllThere]

Today I found this, which is ever so jolly:

https://npolicy.org/books/Reactor-Gr.../Chapter_1.pdf

Doesn't mention Cobalt Thorium G though.

I love the preamble, which says "...and leave it to the others". When (spoiler alert) it's "...and leave it to the otters". Or was that deliberate?

Great short story!

[NotAllThere]

Derek Künsken, The Quantum War.

Third in the trilogy. Hard science fiction, humour, space opera.

[DoctorStrangelove]

"A short history of technology" by T.K. Derry & Trevor I. Williams.

Short in the sense of being written in 1960, not so short in the sense of being 783 pages long.

There were A Lot of Words in that, but now it's done, apart from the 20 or so unprinted pages towards the end, which was rather annoying.

Next: "It's an old Wild West Custom" by Duncan Emrich, who seems not to have been a fan of Old Yellow Hair Custer judging by some of his comments.

Amusing enough & easy to read.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Industrial Revolutionaries" by Gavin Weightman, all about, oddly enough, the industrial revolutionaries of the 18th & 19th centuries.

Done. Next: TBD.

Looks as if it will be "Blowing up Russia" by Alexander Litvinenko and Yuri Felshtinsky.

That's sat on the shelf for years too, though probably not as many years as the Project Orion book.

In other other news, one of the russian scum who murdered Litvinenko has died of covid.

Hopefully slowly & painfully.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Thanks to the almighty google I finally found: "Like Young" by Theodore "Ted" Sturgeon.

https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_...p?view=theater

Been searching for this for years.

I wonder where & when I first read it.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: TBD

And having been determined, it proved thusly to be: "The British Way of Life" by Prof. K. B. Smellie, 1955, William Heinemann Ltd.

Which proved to be quite hardgoing, particularly the bit about the Constitution (Unwritten). .

Next: "The Industrial Revolutionaries" by Gavin Weightman, all about, oddly enough, the industrial revolutionaries of the 18th & 19th centuries.

It seems rather easier to read than the aforementioned tome by Prof. Smellie.


Today I found this, which is ever so jolly:

https://npolicy.org/books/Reactor-Gr.../Chapter_1.pdf

Doesn't mention Cobalt Thorium G though.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next:

To Infinity & Beyond: "Project Orion" by George Dyson.

Which looked more inneresting than it turned out to be, though the small nukes bit was diverting.

Next: TBD

And having been determined, it proved thusly to be: "The British Way of Life" by Prof. K. B. Smellie, 1955, William Heinemann Ltd.

Turns out that the good professor had his left leg below the knee and right foot blown off by a German shell in April 1917, which presumably got him out of the mincing machine for the duration.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lselibrary/3983645400

However this didn't prevent him living for a total of 90 years & 3 days.

[OwlHoot]

Currently reading or recently read:

* "Terms & Conditions: Life in Girls' Boarding Schools, 1939-1979", by Ysenda Graham (2016)

* "Rome: Eternal City", by Ferdinand Addis (2018)

Both bought in a charity shop, so nothing I went out of my way to obtain, with (for the first) a suspiciously pervy motive! Actually, the first was laugh out loud funny in places and an interesting read.

The second is somewhat similar in content to the well-known "Ave Roma Immortalis" by F Marion Crawford (1898) (Gutenberg ebooks at vol 1, vol 2), but as one would expect from their publication dates quite a bit racier!

Planning to read:

* "Docker Deep Dive", by Nigel Poulton (2020-05)

* "Python Testing with pytest", by Brian Okken (2017)

Been using Docker and pytest a fair bit, so thought it was time I consolidated and increased my knowledge of them.

[NotAllThere]

Just starting Genevieve Cogman's The Dark Archives (Part of The Invisible Library series). Light weight-ish fantasy. Not quite as comic as Pratchett but there are similiarities.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Done.

Next: Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon The Next Attack: The Globalisation of Jihad (London: Hodder and Stoughton,2005)

Another epic that's sat on the bookshelf for knocking on for 15 years or so.

Stone me, it reveals the neocons to be even fecking denser than I'd imagined was possible.

In the realms of believing six impossible things before breakfast sort of dense re the invasion of Eyerack.

Glad that's over. The tulipstorms since 2005 have proved the worth of the neocons & their delusions even before The Orange Idiot appeared.

Next:

To Infinity & Beyond: "Project Orion" by George Dyson.

No vacuum cleaners were harmed in the making of this book.

I observe from the enclosed receipt that I purchased this in June of 2002, so it's matured well in the interim.