Neil Hopcroft

[audiobook] Knowing what we Know, the Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic by Simon Winchester This is a slightly incoherent book, it covers a lot of topics mostly around the creation and transmission of knowledge, somehow without a continuous thread through the book. It jumps around exploring the history of education, the […]

[Audiobook] A field guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit, read by Rebecca herself. She has a lovely voice, calm, melancholy, soporific, and absolutely dreadful to listen to while driving. I have listened again because her words got lost in the sound of the diesel engine first time around, it will get another listen too, […]

[Audiobook] A history of the Amish by Steven M Nolt (available from archive.org) A colleague told me about an Amish supermarket, which didn’t fit with my understanding of their culture. So wanting to find out some more I listened to this book. It contains a detailed history of the origins and migration of the Amish […]

[Audiobook, listened with Adelle] Eagle Dreams, Searching for Legends in Wild Mongolia by Stephen Bodio Wanting more writing about travels in tundra I chose this book – it recounts a fascination with falconry from childhood and a desire to visit lands where nomads use eagles for hunting. Once Mongolia started down the path to independence […]

[Softback, read aloud to Adelle] Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä This is a short book, part diary, part memoir, about the settling of Tove and Tooti on the island of Klovharun, and their subsequent life there. It starts with the discovery of a desolate island and their choice to move […]

[Read aloud to Adelle, although my pronunciation of the Icelandic words and place names leaves rather a lot to be desired] The Raven’s Nest, an Icelandic Journey through Light and Darkness by Sarah Thomas This book follows the discovery of a new land by the writer, a land of wonder, of love, of darkness and […]

[audiobook] Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit is a collection of essays and articles about the interactions between the sexes. The headline essay collected the thoughts into a coherent whole that turned into an understanding of what we now know as mansplaining, although the author did not use that portmanteau and does not […]

[Audiobook] Final Destination, Riding Britain’s Trains to the End of the Line, by Nige Tassell This book follows a tour, north to south, of the railway lines of Britain, taking the train to the end of sixteen train lines and exploring what he finds at each. In each case he describes the journey, the train […]

[Audiobook] The Book, a Cover to Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of our Time, by Keith Houston I was looking for an audiobook about marginalia but failed miserably (recommendations, anyone?). Instead, I found this. The history of the book is long and storied, this book goes into a lot of detail about the […]

[Read aloud to Adelle] Queer Georgians by Anthony Delaney This book collects some stories about gender non-conforming people in Georgian times, from before we had the understanding and rich language we now have to describe people outside the heteronormative world. We have been handed down little in the way of unbiased information about these people, […]