Tag Archives: book

Blog

Wilt on High

“Wilt on High” is another one of those books that I read because a number of people said “if you like Douglas Adams, you’ll enjoy Tom Sharpe.” This book was picked arbitrarily by virtue of being available in a second hand bookstore for 50p.

Since it’s the third book in the series staring Wilt and I’ve not read any of the others, there were some references to the backstory that I missed. I don’t think those details were absolutely critical.

Written in the early eighties, there are aspects that have not dated well. There are references that younger readers will miss or not understand. My understanding of some parts was tenuous. And the occasional description, well, let’s just say you might phrase it differently now.

But it mostly stands up. The petty politics and personalities are still relevant and the writing is good. The dialogue, the bickering and characters are all well conceived. The story is a farce, with different threads coming together towards the end. The humour wouldn’t work if the characters motivations and state of mind were not clear. It’s one of those things that looks easier to do than it is, and it appeared effortless here, which I mean as a big complement.

Having said all that, it’s not terribly like Douglas Adams. While humorous, it’s not as clever as Adams and the writing, while good, is not at the same level. The comparison peters out after “funny” and “well written.” Adams’ obsession with digital watches dates his work a little, but Wilt being so firmly set in early eighties Britain does limit its modern appeal.

Blog

How Not To Be Wrong

“How not to be wrong: The art of changing your mind” is a follow-up to James O’Brien’s earlier book, “How to be right.” The idea this time is that he walks through a number of areas where he has been wrong in the past and has changed his mind.

It’s such a simple concept, but, as a society, we have difficulty doing exactly that. Politicians are criticised for doing the wrong thing and then again for doing a u-turn. Tribal loyalty means that people won’t change their minds if that would mean agreeing with “the enemy.” I’m not putting myself above this1, sadly, and neither does O’Brien.

He explores a wide range of subjects, from corporal punishment in schools, to stop and search, tattoos, fat-shaming and trans rights. For some subjects, he admits he was wrong, others we discover that it’s all a bit more complicated than that, and that, perhaps, anyone with absolute certainty is missing something. We’d be better off as a society if people were willing to say “I don’t know” more often.

The debates are a mixture of personal anecdotes and transcripts from guests on his radio show. It’s simply structured and competently written. His earnest, chummy, man-of-the-people vibe, also present in his earlier book, grated on me more this time for some reason. Overall I’d say that I like the idea of the book more than the execution.

Like his previous effort, it’s not a bad book but nor is it an essential read.

  1. “Fortunately,” the current government isn’t giving me much opportunity to reluctantly agree with them. ↩︎
Blog

Jeremy Hardy Speaks Volumes

I have a problem with this book. Now that I come to write some notes on it, I find that there is so much that I want to quote that I may as well copy and paste the whole text.

I’m not going to, but here are a few.

I hate competitiveness, because I know I’m better than that.

And.

People say I’m self-deprecating, but I don’t think I’m very good at that.

While his one-liners are great, his rants are really his trademark. The book includes plenty of those.

The book is structured into categories, from Childhood and Settling Down to Identity Politics and Getting Older. Each subject dips into material from his entire career, placing some mid-eighties standup next to a 2017 rant on the News Quiz. I was initially annoyed that it wasn’t chronological, but as I continued to read it, I found that it worked well. Hardy hit the standup circuit fully formed, and his early routines were as sharp and well-written as his later material.

You think Van Morrison is poor people’s Ocado.

His material is a fascinating combination of cleverness, principles and silliness, and you could never tell which direction the next sentence would go. He’d start talking about family life and twist it into a surreal play on words.

I hate the gym so much. The only thing I like is the resistance training. We blew up a bridge yesterday.

I also enjoyed the pieces by friends. They captured aspects of his personality incredibly well. Like Andy Hamilton noting his playfulness: “The extraordinary mix of purpose, precision and imagination enabled him to develop arguments with total conviction, and yet be joyfully funny.” Or Sandi Toksvig remembering that Hardy heckled her wedding.

It was all a bit too much Boris. Because he’s a character in the sense it would be better if he were fictional.

I don’t remember when I first discovered Hardy, but I’ve been a fan of his work for a long time. I bought the audiobook of a bunch of his “Speaks the Nation” radio show. I was always pleased when he was a guest on the News Quiz, or Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. I never met him, I’m not even 100% sure I ever saw him at one of the many radio recordings I went to, but his passing hit me surprisingly hard.

I don’t get to say this often, but this book genuinely had me laughing out loud. Highly recommended.

Opinion

Programming Pearls

Every year I try to complete the Advent of Code. Every year I fail to finish. I get about halfway through, and the exercises start taking longer to complete than I have time.

Every year I think about Jon Bentley’s Programming Pearls1, because the same kinds of challenges you find in Advent of Code can be found in the book. The main difference being the quality of the answers. At least in my case2. In the words of the preface: “Programming pearls whose origins lie beyond solid engineering, in the realm of insight and creativity.”

The format of the book involves presenting a programming problem and then iterating on the solution while discussing the trade-offs involved at each step. It’s quite an old book by computing standards – the second edition was published in 1999 – and you may be put off by the use of C to illustrate the solutions. I would urge you to continue anyway, even if you are not an expert in C. You may also find some of the solutions to be hard work. Honestly, that’s part of the fun. If you don’t like having your brain turned inside out, this isn’t the book for you!

As you work your way through the chapters, you realise that the key for most of them is not esoteric optimisations or low-level hacking made possible by the C programming language. Instead, it’s data structures. If you somehow manage to store your data in the “correct” way, the algorithm to process it becomes simpler, clearer and faster. It’s almost miraculous.

Of course, there’s a lively debate about “computer science” and whether it should be the subject of developer interviews. What I would say is that the kinds of people who like to attempt Advent of Code are very likely the kind of people who will also enjoy Programming Pearls.

  1. Not to be confused with Programming Perl. ↩︎
  2. In my defence, I usually use Advent of Code to learn (or brush up on) a new programming language rather than solve the puzzle in the best way. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it. ↩︎
Blog

The Art of Leadership

Before you ask, yes, it is weird that I’m reading a bunch of “management” books.

You can watch Michael Lopp’s career by following his various books. Start with “Being Geek,” the software developer’s career handbook. The move into management resulted in “Managing Humans.” And his promotion from manager to director and executive gets you “The Art of Leadership,” which is the book I recently finished.

My career has not followed the same trajectory. I continue to be an “individual contributor,” so why would I read this book?

Two basic reasons. First, Lopp is a great writer. He wraps the lessons around relatable stories, even if they don’t exactly mirror my experience. Secondly, to use a cliché, leadership comes from everywhere. I may not manage people, but I do have to lead. As a consultant, my whole job involves influence, persuasion and strategy.

In short, I don’t think you have to be a manager to get something out of this book, but if you like to sit in the corner and code all day, it’s unlikely to be your thing.

The book is structured into three sections, manager, director and then executive. Within each section, there are a bunch of small things that, done well, will result in great results (hence the sub-title). There are so many great parts that it would be easy to quote the whole book. I’ll refrain, but here are a few highlights and observations.

There are parallels with other books I’ve read recently. Chapter 15 “Saying the hard thing,” covers a lot of the same ground as “Radical Candor,” with many of the same positives.

The “faux zone” is very relatable. There are certainly times when I feel incredibly busy, but at the end of the day, I don’t feel like I got anything done. There are insights here that make me feel better about it.

A “Precious Hour” reminds us that being busy is not the same as being productive.

And, finally, this is so me: “I love to start new things, but I often lose interest when I can mentally see how the thing is going to finish, which might be weeks or months before the thing is actually done. Sorry. I’m getting better at this.” I remember I did one of those “type indicator” tests a long time ago, and one of the categories was “completer-finisher.” I immediately knew that I was the opposite of that.

As with all books like this, some of the suggestions I already do while others are not relevant; however, taken as a whole, there’s plenty of good advice.

Blog

Crisis? What Crisis?

Empty shops, rising prices, the laughing stock of Europe, our place in the world in question, people out of work and fuel shortages. But that’s enough about late 2021, I decided that I wanted to learn more about the Seventies, the decade that brought, well, me, the Winter of Discontent, power cuts, the three day week and shocking fashion sense. There are a few books that cover the same timeline, but I decided on “Crisis? What Crisis?”[affiliate link] by Alwyn W. Turner.

The book is in roughly chronological order, with occasional jumping around to make certain aspects make sense.

Despite being such relatively recent history, there are surprising volumes of material that are shocking, or at least uncomfortable. I know the name Enoch Powell and the phrase “rivers of blood,” of course, but even then the more detailed background is both depressing and familiar. The parallels with the modern anti-immigrant movement are obvious.

On the other hand, it made the rise of Margaret Thatcher more understandable to me. I’m not a fan of her politics but you can appreciate the desire to shake things up. Having said that, I thought her victory in the 1979 election was assured so it was fascinating to read that it wasn’t, and that had the election been called just a few months earlier things might have turned out differently.

Those looking for a change with Thatcher may not have realised what they were letting themselves in for. I guess I’ll have to read the next book about the Eighties to find out.

Looking back, the Seventies is often seen as a “lost” decade, which is why it’s nice that the book concludes with the upsides that we often don’t consider:

For most of the country, for most of the decade, times were really quite good. In retrospect, the 1970s can look like a period of comparative calm and stability. It was still possible for an average working-class family to live on a single wage, very few were required to work anti-social hours, and housing was affordable for most.

Almost by definition, I can’t say how complete the book is but I do get a much better feeling for the decade than I had before, which makes it worth the read.