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Reviewing my book pile of shame
I have finally achieved the ambition of any literary person: to finish reading every book in my house*. Most prominently, what I call the ‘pile of shame’: a teteering stack of random books purchased from charity shops. Second-hand books are one of the cheapest things you can buy in London, at about £1 each. When… — read more
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We Need to Talk About Kevin: I don’t buy it
We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver’s 2003 pitch-dark thriller about a killer child, is a fascinating puzzle because of its unreliable narrator, Kevin’s mother, Eva. In the book, Eva is a successful travel guide writer who was always uncertain about becoming a mother. After a tough pregnancy and birth, she struggles to connect… — read more
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This is the best AI will ever be
One cliche in the pro-AI community is that you should invest as soon as possible, because: ‘this is the worst the models will ever be.’ As a talking point, that isn’t very persuasive- you could also make the claim that you should invest in a chair company, because chairs are also ‘the worst they’ll ever… — read more
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Trump and Hanlon’s Razor
I tend towards the ‘Hanlon’s Razor’ version of Trump. 1) He wants a ‘win’ before the midterms, and doesn’t care about the consequences in a few years because a Democrat will probably be in power. 2) He is very stupid and doesn’t understand deterrence or geopolitics. 3) He’s thin-skinned and lashes out at anyone who… — read more
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Ishmael is the main character
Moby Dick is difficult to summarise in a review because its exuberance seems to overflow the page. The book is the travelogue of an adventurous whaler named Ishmael in the mid-19th century. It describes his search for a ship, encounter with a Polynesian cannibal named Queequeeg, and fateful voyage with Captain Ahab to seek the… — read more
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Harry Potter is not for adults
Harry Potter is not and never has been for adults. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. I read the first three books in about 1999 when I was eleven. They were fine- superior to most books aimed at children at the time. If you wanted to graduate from Goosebumps and Dick King-Smith, they were… — read more
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Chris Barker 