A Book Haul, Courtesy Of the Local Park

I was cycling through the local country park very early this morning to do some shopping, when I came across a bag of books. The park exit takes me across a walkway close to a river and through a small car park. There is a wall that runs alongside the river, the plastic shopping bag with the books inside had been left there. I decided that if they were still there on my return journey, I would have a look.

This was not the first time that I had seen books left in that spot. I assume that a local resident, having read the books, had perhaps put them there so somebody else could have the pleasure of them. A sort of book recycling. It's also possible that they were just a litterbug, someone who couldn't be bothered to take them to a charity shop. I'd prefer to think it was the former. 

I did have a quick look and decided to take them with me. There were clouds gathering, the possibility of rain. If I left them there, they would get a soaking. I thought that if I had no interest in them, I could recycle them to the local charity shop. One way or another, someone would appreciate them.

When I got back, I took the books out of the bag. There were four books, all fiction. Now, I am more of a non-fiction reader, I probably should make an effort to read more fiction than I do, especially as right now I am trying my hand at writing fiction. The last time I did that was at school, years ago. I don't think I was very good. 

Here are the four books that I found.

All the ratings are from the Goodreads website. 

1) Listen To Me by Tess Gerritsen.  4.17 average review rating. 14787 ratings and 1339 GR reviews (as of writing).

NATIONAL BESTSELLER — Rizzoli & Isles are back! From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen, this “shocking and fast-paced” (Karin Slaughter) thriller has Jane and Maura investigating a brutal murder with dire implications, and this time, with Jane's intrepid mother, Angela, looking into a mystery of her own.

Listen To Me

2) ALEX by Pierre Lemaitre.  4.09 average review rating. 17009 ratings and 2349 GR reviews.

Kidnapped, beaten, suspended from the ceiling of an abandoned warehouse in a wooden cage, Alex Prévost is in no position to bargain. Her abductor's only desire is to watch her die.

ALEX  

3) The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly.  4.20 average review rating. 78370 ratings and 4321 GR reviews.

Bringing together Michael Connelly's two most popular characters, “The Brass Verdict” is a thriller which reaches for, and then surpasses, the highest level!

Twitter X Analytics: How Do They Work? I Wish I Knew!

One of the mysteries of being on Twitter, or its new name X, is figuring out how the algorithm works and making sense of Twitter analytics. For the last three months I have been getting a message like this.

Now, I have Tweeted, not a lot, but more than zero. I've even posted this as a Tweet complete with the image above and according to Twitter X, people do like photos. Obviously not enough for X (formerly known as Twitter) analytics to pick up.

 It does say on the X (formerly known as Twitter) analytics page that they are working on improvements. They even offer a link to the new version of account analytics beta, but when you click on it, you get taken to Twitter. X analytics remains a mystery.

There are many complaints about how Twitter X works right now, with some thinking that it favours the bigger, paid for accounts. Elon wants to charge us all a quid a year to have access. Right now, I don't think it offers enough to be worth that much.

Not Happy... With Happy.

I'm currently reading a book called Happy by Derren Brown. I bought it a while back in one of my charity shop book hauls. So far I have found it to be an interesting read, yet I am not happy with it. There is something about Happy, that I am not happy about.

It's the actual book itself, not the contents.  It is a paperback and has 558 pages, but the book is one of those that when you hold it, you have to apply constant pressure to keep the pages that you are reading open and in view. If you get too physical with it, the inevitable end result is that you will get a crease in the spine of the book.  I don't like that with paperbacks. 

The local charity shops are full of second hand paperback books with damaged spines. Surely no one buys a book with the intention of damaging it so you can read it comfortably?

Hardback books are more durable, but paperbacks often get abused in this way, but the real problem is why has it been produced like that? Was there no testing beforehand? There are paperbacks where the pages open smoothly and there are no creases on the spine of the book. So far I have managed to resist the temptation to force it open and damage the spine. I'm on page 103, so 425 more to go (not including the index at the end).  

Will I last the course? Brown seems to think that the stoics had some answers to being happy. Perhaps I need to be more Stoic when reading this hefty tome?

Charity shop book haul...another five for a pound haul.

Last Friday, I got another five for a pound haul of books from the charity shop that keeps on giving.

Let's see what I got this time.

All the ratings are from the Goodreads website.

1) QI Second Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson. 3.91 average review rating. This is one of those factual books that you can dive in and out of as and when it suits. Originally published in 2010 it has hundreds of individual bits of trivia like what did Cornish wreckers do, and what is a brass monkey? Like the BBC TV series, many of the answers are not so obvious.

 

2) First Man In by Ant Middleton. 4.02 average review rating and 705 GR reviews (as of writing). The memoir of a Special Boat Services sniper and a No.1 bestseller, which you might be forgiven for thinking that this is a man's book, yet quite a few of the reviews on Goodreads were from women. Maybe because it is about the secretive world of conflict and war, I assumed it would be a “man” thing. GQ describe it as “fist biting fun”, I suspect that at the time it wasn't always fun for the writer.

Until You Realise, It's Just a Story

43 years ago today, the band Teardrop Explodes released their debut album Kilimanjaro. An unofficial Twitter fan account describes their music as bubblegum trance music, psychedelic soul music. Not sure what it is, but it is very pop and melodic, very 1980s post punk, new wave. It was music that I had long forgotten about until I listened again today.  

Music is subjective, so just to say that having rediscovered this today, it is like finding something new. I will be reacquainting myself with their back catalogue of music for a few days now. It seems to have stood the test of time.

As they say. Until you realise, it's just a story.

Is it Christmas Yet?

Clearly not, but I was in a local charity shop earlier today and I noticed that the music playing in the background was a Christmas tune. At the front of the shop was a table set out with potential Christmas gifts, including a box of books, all of which had a Christmas theme.  The saving grace was that there was that they had not yet put up a Christmas tree.

The music was coming from a CD player, the CD that was playing being a Christmas greatest hits compilation album. Track number one was Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody. In merry old England, you always know that Christmas is just around the corner when shops start playing the Christmas hits of the past.

Except it is the 6th of October, the sun is out and this weekend into next week is expected to be sunny and warm.  Might even be hot. 

For the shops, even charity shops, the time to sell for Christmas just seems to be getting earlier. I have to say I wasn't tempted to do any Christmas shopping just yet.

These Boots Are Made For Walking: Including a Secret Book Review

I wrote a couple of posts a while back about finding an almost new pair of walking boots. I needed a new pair and there they were, lying at the side of the road, just waiting for me to find them. Furthermore, I contemplated the mystery of how lucky I had been to just find a decent pair of boots, it was as if I had manifested them to appear out of nothing. I should be so lucky! 

There then followed even more boot related strange events.

A few weeks later, I was shopping in a charity shop, looking for books. I've written a couple of posts about this shop, as it regularly has a five books for a pound offer. When writing about the boots, I had mentioned the Law of Attraction. Now, I can't say I'm a believer in it, but I'm intrigued by strange coincidences that life often throws up. Another one was about to present itself.  

As I was looking through the books on offer, one that caught my attention was The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.  Now, this is a charity shop with a relatively small selection of books on offer, yet here was a copy of the Law of Attraction bestseller that was very popular in the mid 2000s.  I can remember being at a friend's house and the Law of Attraction was being discussed on the Oprah Winfrey show. Oprah was really into it.  So, I had to buy it.

I have now read it. It is an easy read, in part made up of quotes from Law of Attraction practitioners. It's all very positive and destiny in your own hands kind of stuff, but the idea that it is science based I have never found convincing. More spiritual than science. One of the chapters tells us how we are responsible for any medical condition that we may have, which I am tempted to say is hogwash. The overall impression is that to succeed with the Law of Attraction, you have to believe.  Any questioning or deviation in believing will be the reason you fail. It's also quite religious and Christian based. What if you are not religious?

My series of coincidences continued in that same charity shop visit as another book that I picked up that day was Happy, by Derren Brown. Brown is an English entertainer, magician, mentalist, illusionist, and writer.  Happy is his attempt to address the question that we all ask at some point in life, perhaps often, what makes us happy? 

Little did I know when I bought Happy that chapter two would question the Law of Attraction and The Secret.  Needless to say, Brown is sceptical about the claims made in The Secret. I have not read the whole book yet, it is 528 pages long, quite an effort from someone who does not claim to be an expert on the subject, but so far, I have found it to be a good read. So did many others, as it became Sunday Times bestseller. Like The Secret, Happy found a market, although I doubt that Brown spent too much time trying to manifest sales.

But what about those boots?  I do wear them frequently and they are a perfect fit. There is certainly something unusual about them, a magical quality.  I was wearing them the other day on a long trek when I looked down at the ground and there was a £2 coin looking for a new home. I obliged. 

I wonder what the next mysterious coincidence will be?

A Little Admin: Setting Up a Twitter "X" Feed

I've been meaning to set up a Twitter feed to the blog (I know Musk has decided to call it X, but hardly anyone does, so I think I will stick with Twitter). But I only got around to it yesterday. In itself, it was quite straightforward to do once I had found the instructions on the web. So, the Twitter feed can be seen at the bottom right of the blog.

However, there are one or two problems with it, thanks to Elon's new Twitter rules.

First, I noticed today that the Twitter feed was not showing any Tweets. When you click on the Twitter link, it simply takes you to the Twitter login.  This is Musk's new rule, to see any Tweets you have to be logged in. However, I noticed that when I logged in to Twitter, the tweets on the blog can be seen, but I assume that if anyone else clicked on them, you will still be presented with the Twitter login. 

So, I don't think there is anything that can be done about that.  Musk has his new rules, including plans to charge everyone a monthly fee to use “X”.  

I think if that happens, I probably won't be using Twitter “X” anyway, but we will see.