Breath – Tim Winton The title of this novel is very clever, with the idea of breath popping up in various ways throughout the book. It begins with Bruce (a paramedic) on a callout then flashes back to his childhood in a small, West Australian coastal mill town. He falls into a friendship with Loonie, bonding over various adventure-seeking activities. As they range further afield they are befriended by a local surfing legend, who takes them under his wing as they seek out increasingly risky challenges. This is beautifully written, I often found myself circling back to enjoy certain paragraphs again. This coming-of-age tale takes a bit of a shocking…

Starsight – Brandon Sanderson This is the second book in the Skyward series. Spensa is flung into a whole new world in this book in the series. While I missed the characters from the first book, it was good to find out more about the universe beyond the confines of the protective layer around Detritus. Spensa makes all new friends, and some more enemies, of course. Partway through reading this, I wondered to myself why I was finding it so hard to stop reading and go to bed, and then I realised that almost every chapter ends with a cliffhanger. Great for my enjoyment, but not so great for my…

After finishing no books in November, I finished five in December. Several were shorter books so that lifted my total. The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger I didn’t like this book. Nothing happened, Holden was annoying, and because of this and the fact that the whole book was written in Holden’s “voice” there was no let-up. But, I can see why this is put on school reading lists. It grapples with some important themes and often left me thinking about it after I had put it down. I bought a secondhand copy of this in New York as my souvenir of the city and the city did…

I didn’t finish any books in November with all our travel but here’s the books I read in October The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays – Wendell Berry (5 stars) I read this book over several months and I know I will go back to it. I have reams of highlights that I need to trawl through. This is a collection of essays offering an agrarian alternative to our urban culture. Now, I’m not planning to take myself off to the country, but there are still plenty of things I can do from where I am. He offers a challenging critique of modernisation and industrialisation and their disruption…

Exhalation – Ted Chiang I finished this in August but missed putting it in that month’s posts. This set of science fiction short stories looks at some of the big questions, grappling with what it means to be human, free will, consciousness and time and our place in it. I found the stories thought-provoking. 4 stars. Lines of note (there were several but this was one that really stood out to me): Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough. p36 Wandering With Intent – Kim Mahood This book of essays covers various topics related to the…

Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology – Chris Miller So maybe I’m showing my nerdiness here, but this was great. A fascinating look at the chip industry from its beginning to now. Espionage, intrigue and science all rolled into one good read. Explains who the big players are in the chip industry, how they came about, the current choke points in the supply chain and the international tension surrounding the industry. Hilariously, the company that was an FBI front to entrap employees of Hitachi trying to steal industrial secrets had the same name as our small business. Be Still: A Simple Guide to Quiet Times –…