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Review: Ulysses Unbound: A Reader's Companion to James Joyce's Ulysses

Ulysses Unbound: A Reader's Companion to James Joyce's Ulysses by Terence Killeen My rating: 5 of 5 stars An excellent guide to a notoriously difficult classic. I re-read Ulysses earlier this year ahead of a family holiday in Dublin, timed to coincide with Bloomsday - the day the book is set in. Killeen provides an easy and enjoyable way to distil the essence of Joyce’s masterpiece. His systematic approach to each episode (chapter) with a good and clear description of the Homeric parallels, should appeal to the novice Joycean (me) as well as more learned students of literature. I enjoyed walking through this book, as much as I did walking the scenes for real this June. We started off at the Martello tower - and after lunching in Sandymount, progressed through to Davy Byrnes for a glass of Burgundy. The book, of course, carries on to 2am, which is past my bedtime. I have read Ulysses twice, in full chronological order, and collapsed exhausted ...
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Review: The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life

The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life by Morgan Housel My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews
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Review: The Last Days of Budapest: The Destruction of Europe’s Most Cosmopolitan Capital in World War II

The Last Days of Budapest: The Destruction of Europe’s Most Cosmopolitan Capital in World War II by Adam LeBor My rating: 3 of 5 stars View all my reviews
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Review: The Songlines

The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin My rating: 5 of 5 stars This was a delightful book, reminding me how great a travel writer Chatwin was. I have followed his footsteps in the mountains of Lijiang and the wind-swept ports of Chilean Patagonia. I have filled Moleskine after Moleskine of fragments during the past 20 years, but none like the delicate observations recorded in Songlines. I started using Moleskine notebooks in 2005 in homage to Chatwin. In France, these notebooks are known as carnets moleskines: 'moleskine', in this case, being its black oilcloth binding. Each time I went to Paris, I would buy a fresh supply from a papeterie in the Rue de l'Áncienne Comédie. The pages were squared and the endpapers held in place with an elastic band. I had numbered them in series. I wrote my name and address on the front page, offering a reward to the finder. To lose a passport was the least of one's worries: to lose a notebook was a catastroph...
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Review: The Forty Rules of Love

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak My rating: 4 of 5 stars View all my reviews
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Review: The Songlines

The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews
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Review: Permutation City

Permutation City by Greg Egan My rating: 5 of 5 stars This was an excellent recommendation from my son. Written in 1992, it is prescient of the modern day, and the crevasse we are attempting to cross in the world of AI. The book covers many philosophical points of consciousness and embodiment. People can make digital ‘copies’ of themselves and allow their alter egos to live on in a digital world that has all the depth and colour of our world, yet is a captive to physical constraints of computing power. Copies can think, and exhibit all that one might ascribe to a conscious being. They can also work and manipulate virtual worlds, and those become sophisticated universes of their own. At times the book’s chronology is confusing, and intentionally blurs the lines between the present, the parallel present, and the far future. It is an engaging read, and a worthy addition to the sci-fi canon. I gave it five stars. View all my reviews
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