Paula

Really excellent fun. Light, cheerful

Revisado: 02-05-25

An unusual St Mary’s. You can miss this one without losing the storyline…but don’t is my strong advice.

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Chick-lit that’s actually funny

Revisado: 09-19-24

Jodi Taylor has found a formula which is immensely entertaining and developed a cast of characters who, while not remotely realistic, are charming, entertaining, compelling.

Hanging every story on a fascinating historical event is a winner for me.

I do get a bit sick of the girl-boss thing - especially when uniformly coupled with the girl-victim thing - but, suspending credibility and shaking off my mild irritation (it is, after all, unashamedly chick lit) I normally just let that drivel go through to the keeper. Is this becoming more of a thing as the various series develop or am I just becoming more irritable?

Anyway, that aside, great fun had by all, the good guys win, you know that the bad guys (eventually will) get their comeuppance and Zara Ramm has a lovely voice, perfect for these stories. I like the St Mary’s/Time Police series far better than the others (though the historical romance was quite light and frothy actually) so I’ll probably stay on the train a while longer (see what I did there?)

Anyway, great literature it most definitely isn’t, but great fun…definitely.

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Time travel sort of meets Harry Potter

Revisado: 06-04-24

Loved this. Great, well fleshed out characters, interesting plot and a well detailed and consistent enhanced reality. Add time travel - an unusual spin on it too - and all this book needed for perfection from my pov was a bit of “spontaneous human combustion”.

Perhaps later in the series?

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Great book - eyes opened very wide

Revisado: 11-19-23

Well written, very persuasive and deeply troubling. Explains so many occurrences, decisions that seemed impenetrable at the time.

I suppose we expect politics to be Machiavellian but I was unsophisticated enough to think that the good of the people occasionally crept on to politicians’ radar. Only when the politician is exceptional, it seems.

Like pretty much everyone, I always liked snd respected Boris - he is wrong about climate alarm, but right to gain nationally from global insanity and wrong about the vaccine but right to use vaccination to avoid lockdown…at the end of the day, he’s not a scientist-it’s easy to be bamboozled by both the climate lobby and big pharma.

I’m not sure “enjoy” is the right word but I’m very pleased to have listened to this. I’ll give it a couple of weeks then listen again, I think.

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As always, Herron writes a ripper spook novel

Revisado: 02-01-23

Different to most Slow Horses novels … but the usual suspects are here, outdoing themselves as always

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The Slow Horses ride again!

Revisado: 01-04-23

I re-listened to this immediately after watching the new TV treatment of it (desperately disappointing casting in season 2 after the excellent work in all respects of bringing book 1 to the screen).

The original story here (if you’ve watched TV first) is far tighter, the Slow Horses far more an ensemble group (all are living breathing highly individual characters, each flawed in a different style, with unique implications). The story while superficially similar is different enough from the teleplay to be worth experiencing both. For my money, though, the highlight has got to be Molly Doran (a long running character) to whom absolutely no justice was done on the screen and Shirley Dander who the tv turned from “all the sex appeal of a traffic bollard” into a 21st century americanised (boring and entirely unbelievable) ideal of a pretty but kick-ass girlie heroine (take liberties with the stories, guys, but leave my favourite characters alone!!!)

So, whether you’ve seen the show first or not, listen to the book - the Sean Barrett reading if you have a choice - you’ll meet new friends and have a great time.

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Should be periodic mandatory reading for pilots

Revisado: 11-29-22

A couple of reviewers have complained about the statistics - and they might be right - but, as a pilot, everything this warns against and all the ways in which pilots can, by preflight or inflight attention, absolutely eliminate, or by education practice alleviate are 100% of dead right.

When I listened to this, I could hear my instructor(s) pounding each message into my ears as I had worked towards my licence and endorsements.

Once you’ve qualified, unless and until you have an accident, no one ever does this to you again - even in the biennial flight reviews the emphasis is on practical flying and legislative changes.

I suspect that most private pilots who don’t plan to go commercial, fly relatively rarely. I am not amongst these pilots - I own a plane which is hangared directly behind my house (I fly from a strip in the NE paddock) and consequently, if I wake up to a nice morning, I can and do go flying - whether I plan a long trip to meet friends or take someone for a spin is really a function of how good the longer term weather forecasts were - if the good weather is less expected I just take myself up for fun.

I’m always well current in VFR, legally speaking. It is a rare week I don’t fly at least one day, a little less in winter.

The truth is, though, if I’ve just been up for a range of short flights recently, I specifically lack practice in standard landings - my home strip is grass, short and very steep (10 degrees) - in winter, especially, I often don’t land on a horizontal runway for a couple of months at a time - my home strip requires short/soft field technique and my habit is (strong crosswinds apart) to use modified short-field techniques everywhere I go. I’m rethinking that as a consequence of listening and plan a visit to my old instructor to discuss.

I’m very pleased to have had the refresher. There was some stuff I had never heard (not all that much, in fact) but a whole raft of stuff that had slipped into the back of my mind. I plan to make listening to the book a part of my personal “biennial” and link it t9 my flight review and medical.

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Excellent

Revisado: 11-25-22

Everything is understated. Slowly, steadily, imperceptibly the tension builds. Then the story turns inside out and the whole thing unwinds.

Five books into the series, we already care every bit as much about Guido Guerrieri’s social and romantic evolution as we do about the plot (another 5 books in to these series (please!) and I wouldn’t be surprised if I felt the actual plot simply to be a McGuffin).

Sean Barrett is the perfect narrator.

Highly recommended - and the book does stand entirely alone and self contained - but do listen to the series in order, Guido is such an engaging character, it would be a shame not to watch his mid-life gently unravel and re-ravel…

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Fantastic explanation - needs updating

Revisado: 05-21-22

This is one of the best and clearest explanations of particle physics for non-physicists I’ve ever listened to (and I listen to many of these). Unfortunately, this is way out of date - pre-Higgs boson, for example - and would truly be improved by an updated version of this material. Please, Prof. Pollard, remake this set of lectures and bring them up to date!

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Historical material persuasive, topical somewhat less so

Revisado: 06-18-21

I have read many of Ferguson’s books so I had a good idea what to expect from him - and this book is typical of the thorough and multidisciplinary analysis he offers.

The material on COVID (though enlightening) was undermined by intelligence/data/events post publication in August 2020. And, of course, by the highly partisan, politically charged information communication matrix of modern times - especially since the election of Trump in 2016.

The use of scale-free network analysis in respect of COVID was fascinating - though what Ferguson missed was the importance of one characteristic of such networks - it is true that they are extremely resilient against arbitrary damage (knock out a few - even quite a lot of - randomly chosen nodes and communication can be rerouted very effectively) but it is also true that such networks are very fragile against deliberate and targeted attack.

Knowing this, it is easy to see that eliminating Trump (the ultimate highly connected node in respect of one “side” of political discourse) from Twitter, Facebook etc essentially decimated conservative discourse in the election period (and, in fact, subsequently). Important for that section of this book because the entire COVID story is strongly, almost viciously politically partisan.

An approach to management of the COVID discourse and response focused on a partisan contest in which the interests of the people played the part of, at most, the football is, I think fundamental…and is way underplayed in this book.

Irrespective, the book lays out a basis for critical analysis and Ferguson’s own is not “holy writ” there is space to argue, to consider the implications of alternative lines of analysis.

I enjoyed the book, gained much from it, was sometimes very vocally disparaging of the author, sometimes surprised and respectful. Overall, if this had been a graduate class, I’d have been very happy that I’d enrolled.

Read it critically, it can only help you grow your understanding of the topic and your capacity to critically analyse fact-grounded argument.

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