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Entries Tagged as 'Books'

When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies

June 14th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Politics

Recently I finished reading When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies, a book by Andy Beckett.  It was another book I got through Amazon’s ‘Vine’ programme, in which they send me free stuff and in return I review it for them.   As a child of the seventies I couldn’t resist requesting it, but [...]

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How to be a better person

June 7th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Life

I recently read How to be a better person, a book by Seb Hunter.  It was another freebie through Amazon’s ‘Vine’ programme which I chose because I enjoyed his first book and therefor though I would enjoy this one as well.  Here is what I said about it.

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Scary book

June 3rd, 2009 · 19 Comments · Politics

I’m still reading When The Lights Went Out - Britain in the Seventies.   It is all about events thirty years ago, but has some very topical echoes, especially on the very scary page 413…

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We are all Europeans now

May 10th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Life, Politics

At the moment I am reading a history of the 1970s and enjoying it a lot more than I expected to.   Last night I was at the section covering Britain’s entry to the Common Market and there was an interesting poll about attitudes at the time.

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Predictable

April 12th, 2009 · No Comments · Life

I had forgotten that I had read all about the book Predictably Irrational.  Indeed I had forgotten that it was on my Amazon wishlist, and even forgot that I wrote about it a year ago.    This week I bought it because it sounded interesting and as I started reading it something about it sounded familiar.
Only [...]

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Jade Goody 1981-2009

March 27th, 2009 · 10 Comments · Life

While I was in town today I looked in the book shop window and saw a book called Jade Goody: Fighting to the end,  My autobiography 1981-2001.    At the time I thought that the implications were a bit distasteful.

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A great start

March 21st, 2009 · 6 Comments · Life

As any fule no, the best ever first line for a book is Iain Banks’ The Crow Road1 , and nothing really comes close to that.  Having said that, I started reading Robert Rankin’s latest book, Necrophenia, yesterday and it does start well:
It was about a week after I’d almost saved mankind
”It was the day [...]

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The Black Swan

March 18th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Life

I have just finished reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which has left me reeling a little bit.
It is sort of about maths and economics but also about philosophy and science generally.  I think that somebody recommended it to me in a comment on this site, but I can’t remember who that was.  [...]

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Told you so

March 16th, 2009 · No Comments · Politics

[Cross-posted from Common Endeavour]
I am rarely in a position to say “told you so” but someone who is in a great position to utter those words is Naseem Nicholas Taleb.  I am nearing the end of his book The Black Swan (published in 2007) and on page 225 he says:
We have never lived before under [...]

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Predictions

January 31st, 2009 · 2 Comments · Life, Music

Predictions are a notoriously risky business - just ask the IMF (about which Hopi Sen says everything that needs to be said I think).   But getting away from the unerliability of six-month projections by the IMF, how about a prediction from 1973 that I came across this week.

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