I’m still fascinated by the computers of the eighties. Without well known standards, every machine was different, not only from those of other manufacturers but also older machines from the same company. As as user it was terrible. Back the wrong horse and you’d be stuck with a working computer with no software and no one else to share your disappointment with.

But looking back, there’s a huge diversity of ideas all leaping onto the market in just a few years. Naturally, some of those ideas were terrible. Many machines were rushed and buggy, precisely because there was so much competition. Going on sale at the right time could make or break a machine.

“I have read just about enough about a large enough number of things to be wrong about nearly everything.”

It took me a long time to read “I’m a Joke and So Are You” by Robin Ince, but you shouldn’t take that as a reflection of the book itself. Instead, it’s more about timing and other distractions.

If you’re familiar with Ince’s work on the Infinite Monkey Cage, the structure of the book should make sense. The theme is “What makes comedians a special breed?” He asks comedians and scientists about various aspects, throwing in thoughts, quips and stories of his own,

I met a man once. He was tall and dark, with straight hair in parting on his left side. His smooth, fair skin contrasted with his choice of a dark, tailored suit. He rarely wore a tie, but in a small concession to whimsy his cuff links bore small images of Daffy Duck. When anyone noticed, he’d laugh it off, saying they were a gift from his youngest.

Sat in his office on the fifteenth floor of an anonymous office block in the City of London he had a realisation, one that would change his life forever.

I rate William Boyd as one of my favourite authors, so when I say that “Sweet Caress” [affiliate link] isn’t his best work you have to calibrate it appropriately.

As a structure, it’s almost identical to “Any Human Heart” [affiliate link]. It’s a journal or memoir of an interesting character, covering pretty much their entire life. In this one, Amory Clay is born early in the twentieth century and lives a full life as a photographer in Europe, North America and Asia. The timing allows her to see the World Wars, the rise of fascism, the Vietnam war and much more besides. It covers her successes and failures, and the consequences of them both.

As with 2019, I had the goal of reading twelve books in 2020 and, again, I missed that target by one book. I finished “How To” on New Years Eve so I can’t even claim to have got close.

If I have a defence for missing the target, other than it being 2020 of course, it’s that a few of the books were quite long. Discussing politics apparently takes a lot of words.

“If you convert [your car] to run on copies of this book instead of gas, it will burn through 30,000 words per minute, several dozen times faster than the word consumption of a typical human.”

If you thought that “How to“ [affiliate link], the follow-up to “What if…” would be more practical, then you’d be wrong.

Whether it’s chasing a tornado without getting up from your couch or moving your house with jet engines, Munroe takes another fun, inventive journey through science and maths. While it doesn’t quite hang together as well as “What if,” it still manages to amuse, educate¹ and entertain.

If there’s one thing to take away from “The Problem With Men” [affiliate link] is that there is an International Men’s Day and it’s on November 19th. Is that two things?

But you probably knew that.

The problem with this book is that it’s very much preaching to the choir. If you’re un-ironically asking when International Men’s Day is on March 8th, this book is not likely to be on your radar.

You can’t say that it lacks ambition. Ian Dunt’s “How to be a Liberal“:

tells the forgotten story of the advance of liberalism and the events which led to its current retreat.

And, by and large, it succeeds. I’m not qualified to say how complete it is — he may have missed out half of the story for all I know — but from Descartes to Mills, to Keynes, Orwell, Trump and Brexit, the history is here, right up to events of 2020. It’s well researched and mostly easy to read¹. Having heard the author on various podcasts, I might have expected more swearing.

I learned about this book on Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast (RHLSTP!). One of my favourite nineties comedy performers interviewing one of my favourite two-thousands comedy performers. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not entirely impartial; I was predisposed to like “Come Again” [affiliate link].

Webb’s first book was a kind of a memoir. This is a novel. I’m pretty much the perfect demographic. The lead character went to an English university in the early nineties to study Computer Science. Even though it was a different university, so much was familiar.

This book isn’t what I was expecting. I know Sara Pascoe’s standup and thought this [affiliate link] might be some fun, light reading.

To be fair, the writing does have fun bits but the subject matter? Not so much. Relationships, power dynamics, tesosterone, prostitution. Heavy stuff! She’s clearly done reseach and quotes interviews¹ she’s conducted. This is no “memoir” as many comedians have done. But nor is it an academic treatise. There are still personal bits, as she discusses the struggles she had grappling with some of the more challenging concepts or how her opinions had changed over time. It’s a refreshing approach as most authors push the solution rather that the journey to it. Sometimes the route is more interesting than the destination.