Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

I have previously joked that if you could somehow combine Neal Stephenson and Douglas Coupland, you’d end up with a dense, well-researched, character driven story.

Over the years, Stephenson has got better at writing people and Coupland has added more plot. Just as I argue that Snow Crash was the sweet spot for Stephenson, I think that Microserfs is for Coupland. (Don’t @ me. That’s an opinion, not an objective truth.)

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

Many people in the computer industry don’t understand how we got here. Well, maybe not here. Due to the passage of time, it would be how we got to the mid-nineties.

This book [affiliate link] does not pretend to be objective or complete, but talks about both the technology and the people that got us from the invention of transistors to Windows PC. What I love about it is that it focuses on the people rather than the technology, yet still manages to put the technology into perspective. The writing is also very chatty and full of character. So much tech history is stodgy or dull or inaccurate. Empires is none of those things.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

At some point I realised I would never be a great programmer. It’s possible that point came when I read this book, where Bentley [affiliate link] iterates on a number of problems, gradually improving them. Maybe I couldn’t do what the author does, but it’s a fascinating, well written journey.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

William Boyd is a great novelist [affiliate link], and this is (possibly) my favourite of his. The impact it’s had on me, in a way, is that the main character is very much flawed. It’s good to be reminded that no one is perfect.

I’ve been following and participating in the twenty books in twenty days hashtag on Mastodon. It’s described as follows:

20 books that have had an impact on who you are. One book a day for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews, just book covers.

I’m going to cheat. I am going to explain my choices. The posts that follow are all part of the challenge. As with my annual reading lists, these are not reviews per se, more notes, observations or thoughts that occur to me as I read them.

For a while, this book [affiliate link] was everywhere. It was recommended on podcasts. Every second person on the Tube was reading it. Friends suggested I take a look.

In the end, I added it to my queue at the library but its popularity meant that I had to wait six months for it to become available!

For various reasons, I wasn’t able to read it in the three weeks loan period. I could have waited another six months to read the end, but I was invested enough to buy a copy.

Those with extraordinarily good memories will recall that I read a couple of John Scalzi book a few years ago and enjoyed them (“Redshirts” and “Fuzzy Nation”). In fact, it took me longer to pick up another one of his books than I expected, though, to be fair, when I did it, I did it in style: I bought a “Humble Bundle” of them. “The Kaiju Preservation Society” is the first of that bundle that I’ve read.

“Make Something Wonderful,” a collection of Steve Jobs writing and photos is… well, it’s a good thing that I write these notes for myself. You’ll already know if you’re interested.

I’m not sure there’s much new and undiscovered here, but it’s nicely collated and fascinating reading.

One highlight is the script from his Stanford commencement speech. But what I enjoyed most were the notes. The speech was almost perfect, but the notes allow you to see the process that led there. The common perception of the lone genius having a eureka moment is a lie. Jobs worked and practiced and iterated and sought feedback. Much of his work he attempted to make everything look simple and obvious, but the reality is that ‘effortless’ takes a lot of hard preparatory work. Some might argue that this detracts from his achievements, but I’d say that the exact opposite is true.

William Boyd is one of my favourite authors. He specialises in doorstop novels that document the entire life of an interesting individual. His most famous is probably “Any Human Heart” and “The Romantic” [affiliate link] follows in its footsteps.

The story crosses the globe, starting in Ireland, moving to England, Belgium, the US, Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Italy, Austrian and others I’m probably forgetting. And it begins in 1899, so covers an interesting time in history. (I did some quick Wikipedia fact checking and it stands up!)

In a turn of events that surprised even me, I managed to exceed my reading target of twelve books this year.

I managed a decent mix of fiction and non-fiction. More politics than usual, but even that was mostly on the lighter side.

Highlights would be “Jeremy Hardy Speaks Volumes” and “How Westminster Works.” I don’t think any of the books were bad so I’m not going to share a “worst of.” You can see from the notes which ones I enjoyed the most.