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Books read December

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And so we’ve reached December and the year’s total: ninetyone books read in total, the first time since 2006 that I’ve read less than a hundred books — and even this number is somewhat inflated by my reread of the entire Discworld series. I blame my obsession with Football Manager — as well as other videogames — this past year for this, for keeping sitting behind the pc for much longer and hence reading less. I also seemed to have less energy for reading and in general 2012 was somewhat of a year of recuperation for me, for obvious reasons.

Terminal World — Alastair Reynolds
Alastair Reynolds does steampunk in a far future world where Vingean zones make high technology possible in some parts of the planet, but limits technology in others.

Outies — J. R. Pournelle
A sequel to a sequel which itself had not been half as good as the original novel, written by the daughter of one of the original writers, decades after the first sequel had come out. Nine out of ten of the books you can describe this way are godawful crap (ten out of ten if Kevin J. Anderson is the cowriter), but this is the exception. It helps that J. R. (Jennifer) Pournelle is an archaeologist and anthropologist and takes her experience into the novel. As a writer, she’s at least as good a craft person as her father, if not better.

Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025 — 1204 — Barbara Hill
An interesting look at a period of Byzantine history that saw a remarkable number of powerful women entering imperial politics. This book not just tells their story, but examines their limits and powers and the ways in which they could and could not exercise their power and how this was represented in contemporary sources.

Moving Pictures, Reaper Man, Witches Abroad, — Terry Pratchett
The first batch of Pratchett Discworld novels read in December in my ongoing reread of the entire series.

As They Were — M. F. K. Fisher
Sandra always loved M. F. K. Fisher’s writing, which is why I read this collection of essays about food, traveling and the people she met.

Small Gods, Lords and Ladies, Men at Arms — Terry Pratchett
The second batch.

Same procedure as last year

posts interesting only to me, Sandra
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I don’t like New Year’s Eve; never have. It’s a holiday that always puts you in a melancholy mood as you’re supposed to reflect on the past year and get swallowed up in all the instant nostalgia television and the news media bombard you with. Not to mention all the obligatory partying on the night, which always seems to be going on somewhere else than where I’m at. It all puts me in a maudlin mood and I can’t stand that. then again I’m somebody who can get wistful because the novel I’m reading is almost finished…

2012 has been a strange year anyway, it would’ve been a good year if not for one little thing: the job went well after a bit of a hiccup in 2011 (switching assignments), financially everything’s alright, the cats are in good health, it’s just that this has been the first year without Sandra. And when you’ve been with somebody for eleven years it’s very strange to not have them around anymore. Very strange and painful. Not a day that hasn’t gone by without me being reminded of her not being here. Especially today.

Sandra always liked New Years eve and the crazy fireworks the Dutch get up to tonight (and in the runup to tonight and for several days afterwards (the cats are less impressed)) and always wanted to be in the thick of it, while my first instinct had always been to hide away from it. Despite this mismatch, we had some good New Years’ Eves together, going out to Nieuwmarkt to watch the mobsters, the Chinese kids and the students competing with each other as to who could light the biggest bang, as well as that New Year’s party back in Plymouth, the last year she lived there, that had been just perfect. Without her? Eh, what’s the point.

Health care as a moral issue

posts interesting only to me, Reefer Madness, sciencebollocks
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Alex talks about medical surveillance technology and the assumptions driving it and how wrong they can be and in the process makes a point that can be applied more generally:

Now, there is obviously some truth to this. Giving up smoking is a really good idea, as is taking your damn pills. But it is also highly problematic. For one thing, it assumes that the problem is non-compliance. In that sense, it transfers your problem from the domain of reality – a physical problem to be solved – into the domain of morality – a statement about good and bad. Rather than being poor, stressed, addicted, etc, the problem is that you are wrong and a bad person. As a rule, this is normatively evil, and of course it only works if the problem is not actually a real problem.

I’ve seen this sort of reasoning play out, or at least this was what it looked like from the outside, in the hospital Sandra stayed in for most of the last two-three years of her life. Sandra was a smoker, had been for decades and while fully aware of the risks, she also was certain that this would not be the thing that killed her and of course she was right… For her, as for many other people, the short term benefits of having a quick fag were more important than the long term health consequences.

Now when she first went into hospital it still have a couple of smoking rooms on the premisses, where both staff (more of whom smoked than you’d expect) and patients could go to. Then one day, in the middle of winter these were closed down because some busybody in higher management decided they don’t belong in a hospital. So now all those patients had to trundle out in the cold to get their fix, which certainly for Sandra didn’t do much for her health.

It’s that sort of attitude where the health health health message has to be driven home, even to people who are in no state to quit smoking, who are dealing with much more immediate problems and need the stress release fags offer. No, people need to be harassed and bullied into doing the right thing, even when it’s inappropriate.

Books read November

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Slim pickings this month and being busy at work didn’t help. Though be honest, I was reading 3-4 books at teh same time so I expect a glut of books finished in early December, but for now I’ve only read four books:

Faust Eric — Terry Pratchett
A somewhat odd Discworld novel, as it was originally published as an illustrated chapbook. Eric tries to summon a demon and gets Rincewind instead. Hilarity ensues.

Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025 – 1204 — Barbara Hill
The Byzantine Empire had a larger than usual share of female rulers, no more so than in the period Barbara Hill discusses, when for various reasons there was more room for strong minded women to influence imperial politics.

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush — Eric Newby
Newby was working as a tailor in London when a friend asked him to come to Afghanistan to visit the remote north east corner, Nuristan and climb some mountains there. Despite no experience as a mountaineer, how could he refuse?

Iron Kingdom — Christopher Clark
A largely sympathetic account of the history of Prussia, trying to avoid the teleology that dogs a lot of German history, looking forward to the Third Reich.