Miner Willy

Thanks, bought!

26. Failures of State: The Inside Story of Britain's Battle with Coronavirus by Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott. While there's not much here that you wouldn't be aware of if you've been reading a lot over the past 15 months, it is nevertheless an incredibly powerful and detailed account of mistake after damning mistake made by the government, with Johnson, Hancock and Sunak (unsurprisingly) all coming out especially badly. There are some truly dystopian threads to this in terms of the scoring system used to determine access to ICU support, continual blatant misinformation for political

More 99p Adrian Tchaikovsky you say? I'm in! Great work as always @Stopharage.

@ZOK I recently read his other book, Butcher's Crossing. It's very different and the consensus is that Stoner is his best, but I also really liked that.

Yes, you're right. Cortana is the level I was thinking of. Shudder.

Finished my run-through as far as Reach and, 2 aside, loved every bit of it. I'm going CE (10), Reach & 3 (9), ODST (8), 2 (5). Reach sneaks in ahead of 3 on the grounds that the connect with CE is really nicely done, and it doesn't have a level like fucking Gravemind. This was all on Heroic. I'm torn on whether to move on to 4 and 5, or just try to tackle CE on Legendary.

16. A Month in the Country by JL Carr. A simple story very well written. I liked it. 17. Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth. I keep reading books to try to understand economics better, but am always left feeling I'm not smart enough, or lack a foundation level of knowledge, to really absorb them fully. 18. The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey. This sounded great but I was a bit disappointed. An interesting premise, but I didn't love the story. 19. Bear Head by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I thought this was great. It's a follow-up to Dog

Bought too, thanks. I was doing a good job of working through my Kindle library, but too many good deals lately.

I basically always drink classic daiquiris - as it's my favourite and pretty much impossible to get wrong. But I recently discovered how to make passion fruit daiquiris (dry, not frozen) and it's fucking amazing.

I used to see him around a bit when I was about 14, which would have been around his Arsenal peak. He would say hello and call me "big guy" when we passed each other - always seemed very nice and down to earth.

10. The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton. Read this after it was mentioned on Rllmuk, and found it fascinating. I am pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff, so while it all seemed to make sense (and I'm clearly not a million miles from the author in terms of political leaning) I had no way of challenging any of the arguments she puts forth. 11. Butcher's Crossing by John Williams. This is by the author of Stoner (which is excellent), but is very different indeed. I thought it was great. At times it reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's border trilogy, though it's not as bleak.

I'll probably watch it, but after the last two seasons and The Bodyguard my expectations are pretty low.

Thanks, was going to buy The Mermaid of Black Conch when I finish my current book. The Adam Kay book, which I assume everyone has read anyway, is great. I saw him do it live as well shortly before Covid hit, which was surprisingly good. (The performance, not the pandemic).

I bought this on your recommendation. About 3/4 through and loving it. So far it's perhaps my favourite book of this year.

Great! Check out her earlier novel, Burnt Shadows. For me not quite as good, but still great.