On Subcultures

Last weekend I went out to Clunes for Booktown. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Booktown is an annual event held in Clunes where booksellers gather for special sales, and where authors, publishers and other bookish folk give talks. It’s a great little day out, if you’re nearby, so be sure to check it out.

Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

I got home from work late one night recently, and turned on the TV for a bit to wind down before bed. For some reason there was something actually interesting on at 2am - Fry’s Planet Word, wherein he discusses language in all its glory.

I have always been interested in language, grammar, etymology and so on, and I read a lot about it while at Uni (mostly in, or inspired by, Editing classes) but I’ve really been neglecting it since I finished my course. I did, however, get Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson for Christmas or a birthday not too long ago, and watching Planet Word enticed me to take it off the TBR pile. So, when it became apparent I wasn’t going to finish Heuristics and Biases anywhere near on time, I decided to give it a read.

Noam Chomsky’s How The World Works

Last night I finished off Noam Chomsky’s omnibus How The World Works, which is made up of four of his earlier books - What Uncle Sam Really Wants; The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many; Secrets, Lies and Democracy; and The Common Good. These four are made up of edited transcripts of radio interviews Chomsky did through the 80s and 90s, and the format works quite well - the questions are useful starting points, and Chomsky mostly just uses them as a springboard from which to make points, so they tend not to intrude too much.

52 Books in 52 Weeks

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them - Schopenhauer

It’s been a long time between posts, so before I get into the main bit, a small update: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is officially a frontrunner for my favourite novel of all time; my combined present-haul from my December birthday and Christmas consisted mostly of books, so the TBR pile is taller than ever; and I’m moving to Melbourne and looking for a job, ideally in a bookshop. Since looking for a job in a bookshop involves visiting a lot of bookshops, the TBR pile has suffered even more; but if anyone who reads this has a lead on such a job, let me know!

SUICIDE

Okay, so, I briefly reviewed the first Machine of Death anthology a while ago but what I neglected to mention was that submissions for the second volume were open at the time, and that I'd written a piece to enter. Well, I was informed a few days ago that it didn't get in, so I figured I'd throw it up on here for people to have a look at.

Letting Go

A number of webcomic artists I follow recently discussed the latest reboot of some of Marvel’s intellectual property, which happened around the same time as DC rebooted the Justice League with Wonder Woman in a particularly feminist-enraging pose. Kris Straub, I think, made some very good points, but his point about the confinements of canon doesn’t really go far enough.

On Twitter, and the "bastardisation" of language

People decry Twitter (and similar mediums, like SMS) for bastardising language, for dropping the tone of our conversations, for removing the complexity of points that can’t be made under 140 characters. They’re all pretty debatable, but either way, I’ve noticed that it has its advantages.