Pun based title, when I think of one

I gave Kate Atkinson's Life After Life a star straight away when I noted it down in my book list last night. Meaning, that I was (and am) already sure that at the year's end, this will turn out to have been one of the books to have made a lasting impact on me. It's been hanging around on my 'to read' shelf for a while; I admit that I only picked it up now for the quirk, of reading it (and therefore listing it) immediately after Life ie. the Keith Richards book. With which it shares almost nothing, and on the other hand, everything. Especially a feeling for that elusive sense of what we are, adrift in the stream, as life flows on. But expressed very differently :) Before you even read the back cover blurb, you're assaulted by profuse encomiums (apologies - that's my sole lifetime use of that word) from reviewers and famous literary names, a few of which you can see on the cover. There are many more inside, before you get anywhere near the book itself. I wis...

"with James Fox" . Thoroughly engrossing, and eye opening. It's a quick read, despite topping 600 pages; and you sense it could have been much longer and still have stuff left out. For me, it strikes an ideal balance in its content. It covers almost everything you want it to cover, and despite its contradictions and changing moods - actually, because of those things - it feels honest and direct, and presents a pretty complete picture of the man . I'm in an odd position, as someone who despite being in a great demographic to be a Rolling Stones fan - I'm twelve years younger than Richards - I never really paid them much attention, and only once bought a Stones record, for a mate for his 21st. I instinctively preferred their sound to the Beatles' ie. for its explicit blues base. But, well, hard to say, apart from getting into prog early on. However, one was always aware of the Rolling Stones. They were often in the news , in reports which also mentioned the poli...

Quite. The apocalyptic wish for a giant asteroid, sure, does reflect emotions I find it hard to let go of about 2021; however, it sort of spins off one of the most hopeful things all year which has just occurred, namely the launch of NASA's fab new space telescope . Some will nitpick forever about projects like this, especially the money, but it offers a prospect of discoveries even more wildly amazing than Hubble, and that can retire happily with all that it achieved for human knowledge. So, despite an inclination to get down about what I 'only' managed this year, let's talk about some worthwhile cultural things which I did or enjoyed, despite some tough stuff which happened. I actually saw two films in the cinema . This isn't enough to pretend to comment on 'the year in film' or anything like that, but it meant a lot to me, having that experience which I enjoy a lot. I saw Dune in one of the new little boutique cinemas, the sort where they bring food to y...

This is an excellent introductory history of the RNAS . Hobbs' book tells the full story of the RNAS's birth and death; its life spanned a mere four years, but by the end of the book you'll marvel that he managed to cover it in just under 500 pages. It's an extraordinary story of invention, innovation, tactical and strategic vision and, not least, inspiring selflessness and courage. The photographic content is fulsome, really very good, including many images I'd certainly never seen before despite my long time interest, of the aircraft, the new seaplane and flush deck aircraft carriers, including plentiful deck and hangar views, of experiments and trials, and of many of the main personalities. There are also maps, of varying use - there was one page in particular whose narrative discussed the conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean in some detail; but I looked in vain for many of the place names on the map provided on the same page. Not to worry: overall, the illustra...

Or, The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation . Trail of Tears describes the historical event known by that name, the removal of the Cherokee people in 1838 from their homeland in the South East of America, to what was then known as Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, West of the Mississippi. John Ehle's book was published in 1988, so in some ways it really isn't that old; but I must have bought it not long after. At any rate, it's been sitting on my bookshelf for a very long time. Browsed through a few times, that's all. I have a number of books about the Cherokee and their history - as a people they're rather better documented than most other indigenous American nations - and with a renewed interest in the topic I thought this volume would be a good place to start. So, why have I been putting off reading the book properly? I think it's partly because I may have felt I knew the basics of the story already, and partly because I understood it as a story of genocide...

by Don Grooms and John Oocumma is at barely over 100 pages a basic down to earth introduction to speaking Cherokee in everyday situations. Superficially it seems to be a typical phrasebook as you might find for any language. Except that Cherokee isn't any language. Linguists would have to say it's in decline , mostly spoken by the older generation. Numerically the Cherokee would appear to be doing well, compared with other indigenous peoples, especially if you include all those who say they're part Cherokee. But they live entirely within the USA, they're extensively mixed with the general population, and few are inclined to hold on to their ancestral language. They exist as distinct communities in only two places: on the Qualla Boundary, the Cherokee reservation in the Smoky Mountains at the Western end of North Carolina; and around a couple of towns in the Eastern part of Oklahoma.  The plain fact is that any Cherokee you met would be a fluent speaker of US Englis...

Consider Phlebas is the first book in Iain M. Banks's Culture series. It's a fairly loose series; the stories are apparently self contained. 'Apparently'? That, because it's the first Culture book I've read. However, I have read one other of his science fiction books, The Algebraist , also a work of space opera. In some ways it could almost be a Culture book except it wouldn't quite fit. It impressed me as regards his writing and world creation, and since I had another Iain M. Banks Culture book lying around which I'd never read, Look to Windward , I went for that and then saw that it stands quite late on in the collection. I decided to read the first - this one, Consider Phlebas - even if not strictly necessary, figuring that any writer creating an ambitious 'universe' will do a lot of introducing of the features of that universe in the first volume, even if the story itself is fully resolved by the end. A side note here is that I've neve...