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Something for the weekend? How stories last – Neil Gaiman #Writing

Here’s a delicious use for 100 minutes of your weekend. In June 2015, Neil Gaiman gave a talk at the Long Now Foundation on the nature, power and evolution of stories. Are stories alive? He talks about our symbiotic relationship with stories and how animals live for, perhaps 30 years at most; trees can live for a […]

Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science by Diane Stanley

Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science – @brainpicker

The BrainPickings blog highlights this engaging children’s book about mathematician, computing pioneer (and much more), Ada Lovelace: Sounds like it should be required reading to small children everywhere. By the way, reading this I learn that Ada Lovelace was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron; something I feel I should have known already.

Animal Farm

Execupundit prescribes Animal Farm, to be taken annually. I re-read it a few months ago, for the first time since school. Required reading for our post-truth times.

The post-Christmas reading shelf

(plus a little, stray listening too large for the music shelves) It groans in weight and eager anticipation. There is no particular order, but I’ve already started The Word Detective and Dear Mr M.    

Not just a secret door …

… but a secret door in your library! Kurt shares some objects of desire, here. What could possibly be better?

A Christmas Cornucopia

A new book from Mark Forsyth, the author of The Elements of Eloquence. Already on my wish list: It will allow you to impress your friends and bore your enemies with detailed knowledge of who Good King Wenceslas was and why he wasn’t a king and wasn’t called Wenceslas and absolutely didn’t look out.

The joy, power and wonder of reading

… from Nicholas Bate: “… the original not the news article puffery. Read the classics. Read difficult stuff. Read Chaucer in the original and imagine a world without the sound bite. Spend days in a good library, pulling books from shelves and reading deep, deep …”

Neil Gaiman on Norse Mythology

I’m looking forward to this so much. I’ve loved Norse mythology since I was small and Look and Learn magazine (or was it World of Wonder?) ran a series on the Norse gods. Neil Gaiman’s brilliantly imagined American Gods reintroduced me as, of course did the Marvel films. His book on the mythology is out in […]

The Daily Stoic

This looks interesting. From Brain Pickings, a review of a new book, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. Having read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and a little Seneca, I’ve wanted to learn more about Stoic philosophy. It feels very contemporary, very  relevant to […]

Books, as far as the eye can see…

The Norrington Room, Blackwell’s bookshop, Oxford.   “The Norrington Room is one of the largest and most famous bookselling rooms in the world.  Opened in 1966 and named after Sir Arthur Norrington, then President of Trinity College, the room extends beneath the college’s quad.”

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