Nosemonkey > Recent Status Updates

Flows well (50+ pages in one sitting on a Monday night always a good sign), and full of things I'd never heard of from the history of black people in Britain in the 20th century, as well as several I had. Now about to move from set-up to thesis. Will see how it develops.

Still fun. Still needs a glossary. This edition doesn't have one...

Good book to read on the first trip to Morocco. Good stuff so far, if slightly repetitive in the introduction. Kicks in properly pretty quickly, though, and a great way in to understanding some of the historical roots of our ongoing misconceptions over Islam.

Really? Over a year since I last picked this up? Ha!

Enthusiastic and readable. Nothing exactly new here so far, but written in an extremely accessible way, which makes a nice changing from many economics books (and is, doubtless, part of the point).

Detail piled upon detail, leading to overall impression. Dense and daunting at times (not least due to untranslated passages of Italian, Latin, Spanish, and others), but calming, engrossing.

As gloriously illogical and confusing as most myths. Some similarities to Greek and Norse ones in places, and in others totally different.

Seems like I got to Japan too late... An interesting explanation for the bizarre lack of awareness Japanese people seem to have of the fact that, as Kerr puts it, "Japan is becoming an ugly country" - even if he overeggs it a bit. There's still a lot of beauty there - albeit not as much as there was when he first got there. He's certainly right about the loss of natural countryside though. Near impossible to find.

Not sure why I keep leaving such big gaps between reading this, as it's really rather good. Keats, Coleridge, metaphysics, Frankenstein, all sorts.

Right, second attempt, past page 100, and giving up again. An annoying writing style, and repetitive as hell. Don't get why it was so popular.

Chapter 22, and it's getting more obviously strategic again - political strategy, the use of myth, propaganda, cultural shifts, the rise of party, the manipulation of crowds. Good stuff.

That said, some chapters make this feel more of its time than others - just through 50-odd pages on the death of Princess Diana and the hypocisies of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. Would have felt relevant in 2004, but now?

So many fascinating little asides and details in this, many that I'm amazed I didn't hear at the time. Good stuff.