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This is such a strange and delightful book. It was the last thing he wrote and it was published after his death in 1982. It does feel - and perhaps I'm putting this on it with hindsight - like a man downloading all his thoughts on the meaning of life. Apparently it is loosely part of a trilogy with VALIS and The Divine Invasion.

I haven't read a Philip K Dick novel for ages. I think this was the last novel he wrote before he died and it is quite something. I'm not sure what that something is but it seems to be a man wrestling with the ideas of God through the medium of a novel. Like he's dumping all his reading and thinking into this book and trying to reach some conclusion.

Darwin's theory of Atoll Creation. It's fascinating how close he is to a theory of plate tectonics. Close, but not quite there. A little research suggests an alternative theory for Atoll Creation that isn't madly different and requires subduction to work.

The chapter on New Zealand is a festival of Darwin's judgement towards the Maori. He contrasts them, to their detriment, to the Tahitians. He's very judgemental about their tattoos, which again contrasts with the complimentary description of Tahitian tattoos. He seems to dislike the country as a whole, although - to be slightly fair - he's down on a lot of the English settlers too.

Read the sections of the Galapagos Islands and Tahiti. Lots of small birds being killed and tortoises. Darwin can't see an animal without cutting it open and/or eating it. Lol.

I feel like I've been reading this forever. But I've only been doing so in chunks so that's probably why. This is an abridged version of the full Journal, but I feel it could do with a lot more notes. Indeed I think what you really want is a version of this book filled with notes, illustrations, photographs and contemporary biologists/geologists commenting on his theorising with the most up to date science.

The first of the International Booker Prize List for me to read. It's short and I'm working through the list from smallest page count to highest. Whether I read them all or not will be moot. But, apart from Solenoid, they're all short.

From the library. This is my non-fiction read of the moment. The early part is contextualising the true brutality and greed of the British slave trade before the campaign to end slavery began. "The Caribbean was a slaughterhouse."

This is my big poetry read. It's going to be slow progress so I'll only update it on a weekly basis. So far though it's pretty good. His poetry of the countryside, from an ordinary rural workers perspective is pretty beautiful. Tom Paulin in his introduction says 'Although John Clare's genius has yet to be properly acknowledged...he is England's greatest nature poet...'

Pausing for a bit. Not that I'm not enjioying it but I've got other things to do and I feel I need to give this proper focus. And I need a hard copy. For some reason this isn't good for me on Kindle.