Jeremy Baker
The brownshirts are preparing...
The latest Atlantic story about extreme militia groups preparing to contest the US election is deeply, deeply troubling:
wars don’t always start with a clear, decisive event—an attack, a coup, an invasion—and that you might not realize you’re in one until it’s under way. Civil conflict is gradual.
Has the US conflict already begun? What can be done to halt it?
Read more: Right-Wing Militias Are Bracing for Civil War - The Atlantic
There’s something wonderful about Shepherd Restaurant
The Book of Koli
This looks like an interesting book 📚! Looks like another one I’ll need to track down and read…
Narrator Koli’s inquisitive mind and kind heart make him the perfect guide to Carey’s immersive, impeccably rendered world, and his speech and way of life are different enough to imagine the weight of what was lost but still achingly familiar, and as always, Carey leavens his often bleak scenarios with empathy and hope.
Work - a history of how we spend out time
James Suzman’s new book 📚 “Work - a history of how we spend out time” is a fascinating and thought-provoking review of the long run history of work and the impact of agriculture and industrialisation. It highlights the opportunity, in a world of increasing automation, to transform how we organise our lives and economies to support ourselves and each other. As John Maynard Keynes thought:
by 2030, capital accumulation, improvements in productivity and technological advances would have solved the “economic problem” and ushered in an age in which no one besides a few “purposive moneymakers” worked more than 15 hours in a week
We now have a chance to turn that prediction into reality.
Read more: The 300,000-year case for the 15-hour week – Finanz.dk
Van Gogh Alive
Went to see the Van Gogh Alive exhibition for Eva's birthday.
Bill, Mum, Eva and Katie
Just started reading: Alaric the Goth by Douglas Boin 📚
Currently reading: Laughing Shall I Die by Tom Shippey 📚
Currently reading: The making of the ancient Greek economy by Alain Bresson 📚
Paul Melser dinner set
Delighted at our new dinner set made for us by Paul Melser. Really works fantastically with the new kitchen design.
Paul's wonderful pottery is located on Norfolk Road towards Mount Holdsworth in the Tararua Range, Wairarapa, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Family photos in the Eketahuna cottage garden
Dad, me and Mum
Jenni, me and Mum
Mum and Jenni
Jenni and me
What a beautiful day!
He rangi ātaahua tēnei!
#eke #eketahuna #ekecountrycottage #morena #tewikiotereomāori #aotearoa #family #garden
The Children of Ash and Elm (Neil Price 2020)
Every now and then a history book comes along that helps you think about the past in entirely new ways.
This new history of the Vikings by Uppsala University archaeologist Neil Price does just that. 📚
See: Kirkus Reviews
Regency style in a warehouse loft setting
An eclectic but aligned mixture of styles sometimes just works...
Review of Piranesi - a novel by Susanna Clarke
This new novel by Susanna Clarke (author of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell), references (in multiple ways) the work of the Italian artist and architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi known for his etchings of “fictitious and atmospheric prisons” (Le Carceri d’Invenzione). It is a ‘realist fantasy’ that conjures up both internal and external ‘otherworldliness’ in a lyrical and ultimately tender tale of loss, forgetting, and remembering.
Themes of finding truth through madness, caring for the dead and the lost, and devotion to place and the world (or worlds), are balanced with examinations of narcissism, ‘transgression’ and deep and enduring malicious manipulation.
It is all the more remarkable that this is told through a tale with initially only one character, and ultimately only a very small number of additional participants. It is a short read, for as the puzzle unfolds, the story draws you rapidly along until its ultimate and satisfying conclusion.
Highly recommended. 📚
Reviews and Links
Home Sweet Labyrinth: Susanna Clarke’s Mysterious ‘Piranesi’ Will Lock You In
The long-awaited followup to ’Jonathan Strange" is even more magically immersive
Thrilling to the magic inside the houses in ‘Piranesi’
Susanna Clarke’s infinitely clever ‘Piranesi’ is enough to make you appreciate life in quarantine
Piranesi Review: Susanna Clarke Turns to Modernist Magical Realism
Susanna Clarke's new novel - "Piranesi"
Fascinating new book 📚
Only just started reading it and it’s intriguing and delightful.
Wreck of the Hydrabad
Exposed elements of the wreck of the Hydrabad Waitarere Beach
Maritime Archeaology Association of NZ investigation
Bill visits the wreck of the Hydrabad
We went for a walk up the Hokio / Waitarere beach in search of the whale burial site, and couldn’t see anything, but visited the site of the Hydrabad wreck instead:
