Nosemonkey > Recent Status Updates

This is dense as all hell, but I'm enjoying it. Having schools of herring as a kind of semi-immortal character observing humanity from the depths is an interesting one, but somehow kinda works.

Reading for work purposes. This is starting to feel a bit dated, but has some solid approaches and suggestions.

As these things go, this is surprisingly not awful. Far fewer tedious platitudes than usual, plus some genuinely helpful tips on organisational change.

Not sure it's really about innovation so much as change management, though.

I'm assuming it's because this is 70 years old that nothing in here seems surprising. Pacing through on audiobook on triple speed, and so far I haven't been tempted to slow down to take it in better, which says something... Kinda interesting, though.

I found this a massive slog when I first read it, several years ago. The writing I found turgid. After Kahneman died a few months back (with his most recent, Noise, still unread on the shelf) I decided it was time for another go. This time I'm doing the audiobook version, and finding it *much* more engaging. Stopping to take notes while walking the dog...

To try and revive my interest, I've decided to start reading a bit more around the industry I've been working in for a decade. This one's a decent one to start with, so far at least. Albeit I was never a fan of Sutherland's agency when I used to work with them. Not the most collaborative... But hey ho.

Dense and lyrical and fascinating, and I have no idea what the overall flow is going to be. Have been meaning to read this for ages.

I've bought the first in Israel's Enlightenment when it came out in hardback c.25 years ago. I've still not read it. I have two more in the series unread on the shelf. I'm tackling this one via audiobook - with a *terrible* narrator - while walking the dog, and Israel insists at the start that it's important to have read something like *five* of his other books to get it. Ha! Wish me luck...

Given this is a joint biography of four people, little wonder it's taken this long to start to get to the meat of the actual philosophy... Decent, though.

I like Baggini. Simplifies philosophical concepts with clarity. Nothing new, per se, but well told.

I'm this --> <-- close to giving up on this, just as I gave up on 2666 about a quarter of the way through.

I mean, it's fine. It's entertaining in parts. But it's once again somehow becoming repetitive in tone and approach, despite having made it to the section based upon multiple voices.

What am I missing? The quotes on the cover are raving, comparing him to Borges, Marquez, Rimbaud. I just don't get it.

The Freud/Moses chapter was a bit of a slog, but then I always find Freud a bit much. Mostly because it just seems based on bullshit he just made up, but which he confidently asserts is based on some fundamental scientific truth somehow, and if you don't get it you're ignorant or stupid. Calasso's account here has not changed my mind.

I mislaid this for ages, and kinda forgot I'd not finished it. A massive great big book, but very readable.

This is fascinating. All sorts of stuff I didn't know.

Decided to give this a go as a follow-on from a book on the wider Wars of the Roses, and a lot of this is coming back to me now, probably from GCSEs. Strangely nonlinear though, this - can't tell if that's helping or not.

Getting pretty bored with the opening section's naïve narrator, and hoping it picks up once I get past this. My last stab at a Roberto Bolaño I got bored with too... Hmmm...

I was worried this may not be as excellent as the title. I shouldn't have been. Gloriously weird yet banal at the same time, strangely profound, occasionally startling in its genuine beauty. And all mad better by the audiobook version, read by Herzog himself in his idiosyncratic style. Enjoying this a lot.