Just Finished Reading: How to Survive a Crisis – Lessons in Resilience and Avoiding Disaster by David Omand (FP: 2023/2024) [315pp] 

Crisis seems to be THE word of the 21st century, be it economic, environmental or political. Crisis is everywhere and those without direct experience of its effects are becoming quite the rarity. But if crisis is becoming more common, which seems to be the case, what can be done about it? This is the question raised, and largely addressed, in this interesting book. Somewhat disappointingly, however, it doesn’t look at things from the street level as I’d hoped. Instead, the author, who REALLY knows his stuff, looks at crisis survival from the level of governments and business leaders which is understandable given his expertise. 

Despite the disappointment I felt on putting the book down I did find many parts of it quite fascinating. Not only did the author range over a huge landscape of crisis after crisis – from nuclear accidents (and near misses), to various wars (Indo-China, Vietnam, the Falklands, Ukraine, Iraq/Afghanistan), Covid-19, Cyber-attacks, depressions and supply chain failures, Brexit, and much else besides – he was actually ‘in the room’ for some of it actually advising the UK government and other agencies about how they should cope with an emergency (to avoid it becoming a crisis), how to clean up afterwards or how to prepare for things ahead of a crisis.  

As you might imagine a lot of this was high-level and theoretical, calling on real-world events where applicable. The author worked through the ‘arc’ of a crisis pointing out break points, areas of opportunity when an emergency could be prevented from becoming a full-blown crisis and most definitely not a disaster! He looked at ways that organisations and states could increase their resilience to weather the initial shock so enabling them to respond to events in a co-ordinated planned manner. He looked at the difference between a slow-burn crisis and one that arrives completely out of the ‘blue’ and how to monitor the slower burning one so it doesn’t end up sneaking up on you. To drive the points home, at the end of each chapter are ‘takeaways’ to enable the building of plans and strategies to cope with, recover from and (hopefully) avoid any crisis coming our way. 

Although this was more interesting than useful this was still worth the effort of reading. The main themes of watching for the often overlooked slow-burn crisis and the building up of resilience (in practical terms as well as psychologically) are important ones that can be applied even down at ‘our’ level at the individual shallow end. If you’re a member of a larger organisation, and most especially if you’re involved in any kind of support role, there are many lessons that can be taken on board here and applied to your profession. One of the things I did find particularly interesting – with several crisis events ongoing – was regarding media use. Seeing/hearing various organisations using the playbook the author mentioned when using various types of media was instructive especially when hearing the same type of language used by very different organisations dealing with apparently very different circumstances. Recommended for a number of reasons.  

Happy World Logic Day............... Yeah, good luck with that... [lol]

I'm old enough to remember 'life' before remote control. It was the age of the smallest kid in the room being tasked to change channel at an order from the parent (or older sibling). Kids of today have NO idea what it was like back then.... THREE channels and if you missed the show or showed up late you missed it - FOR EVER...... 

Just Finished Reading: The Wild Girls by Phoebe Morgan (FP: 2021) [303pp] 

It was an invitation out of the blue. After two years, after the trauma, Felicity was back in touch and with her usual flamboyant style. She was celebrating her birthday and wanted to get the gang back together, her closest friends, the Wild Girls. But this wouldn’t be just any celebration, she was really pushing the boat out. This was going to be an all-expenses paid safari in Botswana! How could her friends possibly refuse – despite being a teacher, despite being a young mother, despite being desperate and broke... One by one each of her friends replied with a positive and then started talking to each other again. Maybe this was the start of them all getting their lives back on track, maybe each of them could now start putting the past behind them. Maybe... Although when of then had other ideas, one of them had decided to bury the past for good – along with her so-called friends. 

Over the last 5 years or more I’ve been picking up the odd modern/contemporary thriller/crime novel. What I haven’t been doing, generally, is actually reading them. With the New Year still in sight over my shoulder I thought it was a good time to start. Unfortunately, I started with this one... If I hadn’t already DNFd one book so far this year, this would’ve been my first. But, instead of throwing it across the room towards the nearest bin I gritted my teeth and finished it. Overall, it wasn’t THAT badly written despite a few ‘continuity errors’ I noticed sprinkled throughout the story. What I really didn’t like about the book (or should I say mostly disliked) was the characters – ALL of them. These where a group of four ‘friends’ who had apparently known each other since age 9. Yet, throughout the book they seemed to neither know very much about each other nor to actually LIKE each other all that much. Living inside each of their heads – the PoV was constantly changing as was the move from 1st to 3rd person – even for a short time was both painful and frustrating. One particular bugbear I have in stories is when a character has an important piece of information that can save lives and yet they don’t share it for stupid reasons. Here we had that in spades – repeatedly! Its lucky that my hair has strong roots (even at my age) or I’d be bald around now. 

The scenes in Botswana were particularly annoying as the ‘victims’ struggled to understand what was going on and the danger they were in and repeatedly failed to make even the most basic attempts to protect themselves or survive what was coming at them. If I had been with them at the resort I would’ve happily left them to their fates and left by the simple act of lifting a phone.... [screams in frustration]. Needless to say, I am NOT recommending this and will be dropping off my copy at the local charity shop along with any other books by this author that I might have also bought (I think I *might* have one, but I’m not 100% sure). Hopefully my future reading of contemporary ‘thrillers’ will be better, but we’re definitely not off to a good start!   

Reading Plans for 2025 and Beyond 

Following the Labels   

There’s still far too many label ‘buckets’ that aren’t getting the attention they deserve with more than a few languishing in single figures. I’ll see what I can do about that and might make a seriously targeted effort to increase their base numbers. That will also prompt me to get out of my UK/Europe/US country focus.  

The ‘Knowledge Streams’  

I’ll be continuing looking at what I’ve called ‘knowledge Streams’ - Britain Alone 1939-41, World War to Cold War and USA: WTF. Going forward I’ll be focusing on an issue I know many of us are scratching our heads about these days: WTF is going on with the (mostly western) world presently? This means I’ll be reading more post-1945 history and looking at works that prioritise analysis over simple narrative.       

Rolling the Dice 

To introduce some randomness into my sometimes too controlled/rigid reading I shall continue to roll a pair of dice after every finished book to see if I’ll be adding something ‘different’ to the mix by rolling a double. An even double will add a work of non-fiction whilst rolling an odd double will add a work of fiction.  

Finishing/Progressing Series 

There are still far too many series I’ve started that have stalled for some reason. I finished a few in 2024 and will be attempting to finish a few more this year. It will also give me an excuse, if I needed any, to read more science-fiction.   

Classics and Re-Reads 

I read a LOT of classics last year including 18 novels, 2 collections of short stories, 6 Sherlock Holmes books and a non-fiction! This year I’ll be easing back a bit and will be concentrating on reading my Imperial War Museum WW2 classics. I expect to manage at least 5-6 of them. There will be, naturally, other classics too but I doubt that the total will exceed 10-12 in 2025.    

Deep Dives 

I will, of course, still be deep diving this year. I have a few lined up already starting off with Bombs and Female Spies. There probably won’t be as many as last year as I have quicker more shallow dives lined up too.  

Ukraine – and More 

I’m sure that I’m not alone in hoping that the war in Ukraine would have been over by now. I’ve been accumulating books on the region and the conflict since it started and was hoping that I could look back after the war to discover exactly what it was all about. Hopefully it’ll all be over THIS year but even if it is (or isn’t) I’m going to schedule in at least a few books on the subject. If I’m feeling brave I’ll also read/review a few on Israel/Palestine I have waiting in a pile and if I’m feeling PARTICULARLY brave I might even read/review a book or two on Gender and Identity...!   

BIG Project 

I’ve been accumulating a number of books for a ‘Big’ project I’ve been thinking about for a few years now. It’s nothing really ‘amazing’ of anything and is much more just a bit of fun. I was hoping to start it early this year but that might have to be pushed back a bit. I expect that the ‘output’ should take about 5-6 weeks. 

Coupling 

As my TBR could be called, without too much hyperbole, IMMENSE I’m always looking for ideas of how to organise exactly what I’m going to be reading next. I find that too much random reading doesn’t satisfy something in my psyche so I need *some* organising principle to salve that need. So, I came up with the idea of ‘coupling’. This essentially means that I’m going to match two books together to be read sequentially. They may be two books on the same or similar topic. They may be simply two books with a similar (or sometimes the same!) title or plays on words. You’ve seen a few already with the last coupling being the two books on brains, music and mood altering “plants”. Definitely expect some more like that. Coming up will be 3 classics coupled with much more modern sequels or reinterpretations.  

BIG event 

Towards the end of the year the Blog reaches a significant milestone. I’m not exactly sure presently how I’m going to ‘celebrate’ that event, but one thing I am thinking of is instituting (from that point) a ‘Year of Reading Radically’. What that will *exactly* mean I’m still mulling on. Some thoughts are: more translated works, more reading about areas of the globe I know very little about and climbing out of any of my ruts into completely new areas. I expect to throw in some books that will surprise me as much as it should surprise me.  

I think that lot should keep me busy for another year!   

Happy Birthday: Carroll Hall Shelby (January 11, 1923 – May 10, 2012) was an American automotive designer, racing driver, and entrepreneur.

Best known as a designer for his involvement with the AC Cobra and Mustang for Ford Motor Company, he also developed the Ford GT40 with racing legend Ken Miles, the car that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1969. As of 2024, it remains the only American-built car to win at Le Mans. His and Miles's efforts were dramatized in the 2019 Oscar-winning film Ford v Ferrari.

As a driver, he was a co-driver in winning the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans driving an Aston Martin DBR1 with Roy Salvadori. He also won the 1960 Sports Car Club of America United States Auto Club Road Racing Sports Car Championship in 1960 by winning the round 1 race at Riverside International Raceway driving a Maserati Tipo 61 "Birdcage", and winning round 2 at Continental Divide Raceways driving a Chevrolet Scarab Mark II.

As an entrepreneur he established Shelby American in 1962 to manufacture and market performance vehicles. His autobiography, The Carroll Shelby Story, was published in 1967.