Final books of 2025
Dec. 30th, 2025 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiCollecting up the last few months' reading into a single post. With the passage of time some of the details are a bit vague.
The Victorian Internet, by Tom Standage
A very readable history of the telegraph, starting with the optical versions but focussing mostly on nineteenth century innovations. While Cooke and Wheatstone bickered in the UK, Morse and others ploughed ahead in the US. The technology sustained an information revolution that was only superseded by the telephone.
Democracy: Eleven writers and leaders on what it is – and why it matters
A brief book containing essays by female writers on the nature of democracy, past and present.
Consciousness Explained, by Daniel C Dennett
A tricky book that I should probably have paused. Dennett had some ideas to do away with the "Cartesian theatre" - the concept of a single controlling entity somewhere in the brain. Disappointingly there was no attempt to join this "multiple drafts" model up with quantum physics.
Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie
A classic, and a lighter read. The entertainment nowadays is in the story-telling, rather than the conclusion.
Lost Realms, by Thomas Williams
Williams visits the skimpy evidence for nine kingdoms in post-Roman Britain. Despite seeking to avoid the English heptarchy, he includes Essex and Sussex in his choice. There are some telling points for our current politics, if people would choose to read them: for example, the assimilation of the Roman way of life into the post-Roman world, evidenced by amphorae and other traded goods in excavations in Cornwall and elsewhere; or the reminder that "English" are immigrants, the native "Britons" are now mostly Welsh. The inclusion of Fortriu definitely makes the Picts out to be a people apart, though Roman influences can be found even there.
The Victorian Internet, by Tom Standage
A very readable history of the telegraph, starting with the optical versions but focussing mostly on nineteenth century innovations. While Cooke and Wheatstone bickered in the UK, Morse and others ploughed ahead in the US. The technology sustained an information revolution that was only superseded by the telephone.
Democracy: Eleven writers and leaders on what it is – and why it matters
A brief book containing essays by female writers on the nature of democracy, past and present.
Consciousness Explained, by Daniel C Dennett
A tricky book that I should probably have paused. Dennett had some ideas to do away with the "Cartesian theatre" - the concept of a single controlling entity somewhere in the brain. Disappointingly there was no attempt to join this "multiple drafts" model up with quantum physics.
Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie
A classic, and a lighter read. The entertainment nowadays is in the story-telling, rather than the conclusion.
Lost Realms, by Thomas Williams
Williams visits the skimpy evidence for nine kingdoms in post-Roman Britain. Despite seeking to avoid the English heptarchy, he includes Essex and Sussex in his choice. There are some telling points for our current politics, if people would choose to read them: for example, the assimilation of the Roman way of life into the post-Roman world, evidenced by amphorae and other traded goods in excavations in Cornwall and elsewhere; or the reminder that "English" are immigrants, the native "Britons" are now mostly Welsh. The inclusion of Fortriu definitely makes the Picts out to be a people apart, though Roman influences can be found even there.