Let's continue our investigation of 1959 with Judith Merril, reading the sole "J" and two of the "K" stories from her list of Honorable Mentions at the back of the fifth of her famous Year's Best anthologies. Damon Knight's "What Rough Beast?" is a third "K" story that merited the Merril nod, but we read it way back in 2015. That leaves us with Shirley Jackson's "Strangers in Town," Colin Kapp's "Breaking Point," and Gerald Kersh's "The Oracle of the Fish." The titles of the stories in the…

I noted in my IBR2026 Opening post last January that I was taking a different approach this year: I was eager to read a pile of what I called ‘Big Books’ on my table, so I moved Pushcart to the summer. This was an experiment, and what I got from it was that it was a Bad Idea. I’m still feeling the repercussions: I have several half-read books that I’m just not going to finish this year. I’d hoped to fit in at least two more, but BASS drops in four days and I need a little breathing space. So…

Shaping up to be a great book.

This week, I spent a little time refining Field Notes. I also spent time (slowly, on and off) this weekend rewriting the case studies on my portfolio. Lot of work. I also finished The Secret History and picked up The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, though I haven’t gotten past the first couple of pages. I was quite keen on reading it, having heard a lot of good things about Rilke’s poetry. I skimmed through a few lines from the introductory chapter and, admittedly, found them quite…

Core Conceit Ooh, Scary Rebuilding Archetypes Rites of Passage Thumbnails Rumors and Legends Scaling Up Remind Me Who I recently discovered that the BBC requested proposals for a presumably post-Disney Doctor Who ©. The deadline passed on October second, so I can’t do much about that, and presumably they don’t want more American interlopers, especially of the sort that won’t shut up about Star Trek. Instead, I’d like to think about what a Free Culture version of the Doctor Who franchise might…

Every acquired book offers the possibility of entering another’s mind. An empty notebook offers the chance to discover one’s own mind. In These Spindrift Pages, Theodore Dalrymple’s observations of his reading encounters, he writes: Simenon bought notebooks without knowing what he was going to write in them or use them for. I have immense quantities of notebooks bought in the same way which I probably could not fill if I wrote for twelve hours a day for the rest of my life, but if I pass a shop…

These are some things I’ve wandered across on the web this week. 🔖 Energy Efficiency of Programming Languages The project continues to be a convenient source of tiny-tiny programs written in various programming languages. Independent researchers take the programs and do their independent research no-questions-asked. Let’s ask questions. energy programming sustainability 🔖 You Can See Everything Thirty-four days before she’s sent to prison, notorious Silicon Valley founder Elizabeth Holmes…

In Matt Bell’s excellent book on writing, Refuse to be Done, there’s a quote by Karen Russell, author of the excellent novels Swamplandia. and The Antidote. She says, 💬 “Writing a novel is kind of like scaling Mt. Everest and passing by your own bones on the way”. Respect is due, but I can’t help feeling it might not be quite that hard. #writing #climbing #writinglife

Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith A good single volume biography. Lots of details on his early life and his Military career. A bit less as president. Recommended 4/5 How Apollo Flew to the Moon by W. David Woods Amazingly detailed book covering systems and operations for every step of a mission. Read this after the popular Apollo books and fill in all your gaps. Highly Recommend 5/5 My Audiobook Scoring System 5/5 = Brilliant, top 5 book of the year 4/5 = Above average, strongly…

Andrew Kemp’s post itself has loads of interesting tidbits. ↬ ∙ Tagged in Books.

On Friday, I wrote a post and somehow it vanished. I think I accidentally restarted my laptop before I had saved the post. Anyway, it was a gaggle of little quick hits and varia and it seems better late than never: Corinth Canal Bridges. Open Access: Valeria Vitale and Gabriel Bodard eds.,Open Data in Ancient and Byzantine Studies (2026) AI Makes a Mathematician sad. Manuscripts The hidden lives of manuscripts Mythwashing and the Two Meanings of Mystery in Manuscript Discovery Stories From the…

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For the final read of our #1949Club week, I turned to a book which I’ve owned for some time but hadn’t initially realised was released in the year in question – “The Far Cry” by Emma Smith, in a Persephone Edition. This came to me some years ago courtesy of an X/Twitter acquaintance, the lovely Tracy, who kindly sent it on to me. It was obviously awaiting its time, which arrived now, as it managed to grab my attention despite the 1949 pile having some amazing-looking books. This one seemed to…

Today I am reviewing the next two releases in the series of Mr Men/Little Miss and Agatha Christie mashups. I have previously written about the other four titles in the series: Little Miss Marple: Muddle at the Vicarage (2025) Mr Poirot: Mischief on the Nile (2025) Little Miss Marple: Bump in the Library (2026) Mr Poirot: Mystery on the Opulent Express (2026) The Mr Men/Little Miss series was originally conceived by Roger Hargreaves, but these new stories which intertwine with the Agatha…

I had the opportunity to read an advanced reader’s copy of a book this week that I was very excited about. It’s by an author I’ve been meaning to read but haven’t quite gotten around to yet. I really enjoyed this book. The premise was right up my alley, and I loved everything about the actual novel itself. But I’m not going to publish the name of the book, or the author. All I will say is the publisher, which was Bloomsbury USA. Here’s why: My review is based on what I received. While the…

(LLMs were used to help organize and translate this post) A photography collection Untold Stories brings together images that, for me, seem to conceal a story. They may depict objects, people, or ordinary scenes, but somehow they trigger a sense of curiosity, unease, or anticipation — the feeling that there is something more to be discovered, something that remains just beyond what the image reveals. I find myself wondering why? or how? What happened here? What passions, frustrations, moments…

(LLMs were used to help organize and translate this post) A photography collection Solitude explores the relationship between empty space, isolation, and the individual. Through isolated objects, sparse compositions, and vast, seemingly empty environments, these images seek to convey a sense of loneliness and the smallness of the self in relation to the world. Yet solitude is not necessarily about absence or emptiness. The same space that makes us feel small can also reveal a sense of freedom…

(LLMs were used to help organize and translate this post) A photography collection Lost Memories explores the beauty of fog and other forms of transparency that partially conceal the world around us. Through obscured landscapes and blurred objects, these photographs capture a reality that is present but no longer entirely accessible. I'm fascinated by the way fog transforms familiar scenes, softening their shapes and dissolving their boundaries. It reminds me of how memory works: experiences…

It's the weekend, and that means double feature time. Though I am likely to hit more double features snce I still have a lot of movies I want to watch. I wanted to get some movies that could have some monsters I could use in Jackson, Sunny Valley, or even Valhalla and I wanted to stay within my time period. So tonight I decided on a mini monster marathon with two movies I have tried to watch before and never managed to finish.That probably should have been a warning. Still, I am nothing if not…

(Note: This post has spoilers.) I didn't plan for this, but this is the fourth book I've read consecutively that have multiple narrators. (The previous three books were Exit Party, Time Travel for Beginners, and Hollywood, Ending.) But, for my taste, this is the weakest book to employ this technique. (Seriously, spoilers in the next paragraph.) Worse, the majority of the narrators are unreliable. It is one thing, in my humble opinion, to ask the reader to spot the unreliable narrator. But to…

17 Contraption | INDEX | 19 Confused Self-imposed constraint: Use the letters of the prompt word inside a 2-inch square to illustrate its meaning. Hongdian Black Forest fountain pen, EF, black ink on 120 gsm paper.

At the end of each week, I usually collate a lightly edited collection of recent comments I’ve made on social media, which I think of as my public scratch pad. I tag on what books I may have finished reading. Knowing I’ll revisit my social media posts serves, I’ve found, as a positive and mellowing influence on my online activity. Some items show up on disquiet.com before this post, in which case I don’t repeat them. I mostly hang out on Mastodon (at post.lurk.org/@disquiet), and I’m also…

Teddy Bears Never Dieby Cho YeeunGenres: Horror Pages: 304 Rating: Synopsis: The horrormance genre mash-up you've been waiting for - from the award-winning Korean author Cho Yeeun comes a new novel where a young girl and a teddy bear team up to enact revenge! A poisoned city - A grieving daughter - A boy trapped in a bear's body. When the fledgling coastal town of Yamu is rocked by a mass-poisoning attack at The Seaview Parc, the luxury high-rise meant to revitalise the city, Hwayoung is one of…

Today, I ran across this article on Librarianship Studies, well… more of a collection of blurbs and quotes on why librarians from all around the world love their jobs. Besides being an entertaining read, it got me thinking about why I love being a librarian. I’m a bit long winded, so I am not sure I can condense my feelings on the topic of librarianship down into a single sentence, so I thought I would dedicate an entire blogpost to the topic instead. Lucky you! I first came to librarianship…

Watched: Tenzing 🍿 Extremely well-done. Incredible visuals, and truly unbelievable costuming. The found/archival footage was nearly indistinguishable from the modern film. I also really enjoyed getting more flavor on a story about which I basically knew only the Hillary/Norgay headline.

after my last post (and also poem and technical article to a much lesser extent) I’ve posted blew up I’ve sorta had this writers block where I don’t know where to go from here. I know I started this blog to write casually, and to keep posting little things but between my PhD program and a general lack of motivation I’ve found it really difficult to keep writing. I want to write about my image intensified astrophotography setup, so I can then share the astrophotos I took then, but in order to…

Write as if nobody is reading, and even if nobody is reading or engaging. The point isn’t likes, comments, or a follower count. The point is who you become by writing. The discipline it gives. The clear thinking. The daily practice. The body of work. The way we look at the world to hunt for stories. Write as if nobody is reading and keep writing because you don’t know who’s doing it. That’s the one of the mantras that has kept me writing for years. Writing daily is one of the habits that has…

“The Greatest Benefit to Mankind – A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present” by Roy Porter was published in 1999. It’s a magnificent 848-page book that I’ve now read. Many people, I’ve discovered, own a copy but have dipped into it rather than read it through. I hope that I might do medical history, the world at large, students of medicine (surely all of us), and Roy, whom I knew and who died suddenly aged 55 in 2002, a service by posting extracts of his book on my website.…

I'm reading all of Stephen King's fiction in publication order, starting with Carrie. I know there's someone out there already typing a comment to tell me that King published plenty of short fiction before Carrie came out. I'm aware of that. A lot of it was collected later in books like Night Shift and Skeleton Crew, and I'll read those stories when I get to the collections. The stuff that predates Carrie and has never been collected I'm going to try to track down. Much of it is juvenilia, and…

Book title: The Will of the Many Author: James Islington Rating: 4.5/5 That last chapter... Why is Islington doing this to me? I wanted to take a break before reading the next book. What a read. Unsurprisingly, it kept reminding me of Red Rising, but it's different enough to stand on its own. The worldbuilding is insane, and the magic system is clever. Or so I think, we've barely seen it in action. And the number of unanswered questions? I need to know what all of this means. So much for taking…