Just Finished Reading: The Victorians – A Very Short Introduction by Martin Hewitt (FP: 2023) [119pp] 

 

We do seem to have a fascination with all things Victorian – I know I do! To be honest they were both a fascinating bunch of people – the good, the bad and the dangerous to know – as well as a fascinating cultural phenomenon.  

As with most studies (especially modern ones!) the opening question is exactly who the Victorians where and when exactly did the Victorian Age/Period happen. The answers to both questions – linked as they obvious are – are not as straightforward as first appears. The obvious answer is that the Victorian age exactly corresponds to the era when Queen Victoria sat on the throne of Britain and the every expanding Empire. But did people become Victorians the moment she sat down and ceased to be such the moment of her death? Clearly no. Likewise someone born around the middle of her reign (20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901) could still be called 'Victorian' well into the early 20th century. As a person example, my grandmother was born in 1911 yet had distinctly Victorian attitudes and beliefs. Was she a Victorian despite being born a decade after Victoria herself died? Its not an easy question to definitively answer.  

Looking at the Victorians is also made somewhat more difficult by the attitudes of more modern historians and media interpretations resulting in 'Victorian' acquiring a hint (or more than a hint) of the pejorative. Victorian society is 'known' for its hypocrisy – especially around sex – and its rigidity especially around class and gender roles, but its also known for its innovation, forward thinking and enterprise. Then we have the Empire... What can be said about the British Empire without offending someone, somewhere? One thing that cannot be done is ignore it. Although the Victorians did not create the Empire it was certainly the age where Imperial rule reached its greatest extent.  

There was no way that such a short introduction could do much more than approach the edges of such a huge subject and to highlight some of the more obvious themes. This it managed very well and left me intrigued to know MUCH more – which is what I've found the VSI books to be SO good at. I will most certainly be looking into this iconic civilisation in the next few years. I've already started shuffling various books out of random(ish) piles into more orgainsed(ish) stacks of Victorian themes – Crime and Empire are ever popular! - so some of them will be showing up soon(ish). I'm looking forward to it. This will give you an idea/appreciation of who the Victorians were and, as always, will give you a good grounding for further reading. Recommended.

Welcome to November.... We Made It! As usual (being the creature of habit that I am) this month is dedicated to rebels everywhere in recognition/celebration of Guy Fawkes who, along with a few friends, tried & failed to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. Celebrating historic failure is a BIG part of the British psyche and we have SO many to choose from.... Enjoy!

The Last 10 Books (I added to my Wish List) - October 2026  

I've been pretty good this month – at least in the number of books added to my ever-lengthening Wish List. I've been pretty good in keeping my BUYING down to reasonable levels too! Of course, all of that will be blown out of the water by my planned trip into 'town' next week to visit my local Indie bookseller. There are no great surprises here. I wonder if my butterfly mind if finally slowing down? Surely not... 

1976: The Year that Scorched by Christopher Sandford  

Disruption: Why Things Change by David Potter 

The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era by Gary Gerstle 

Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know by Erica Chenoweth 

The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart by Bill Bishop 

The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic by Malcolm Gladwell 

Betrayal: Trump, Putin and The New Age of Conquest by Luke Harding 

On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear by Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer 

Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalries, Private Tech and the Future of Modern Warfare by Steve Feldstein 

Generation Maybe: Why We're Having Fewer Children, and What It Means for Us All by Camilla Cavendish   

Politics dominating of course, but that's the world we're living in I guess... As usual I've zero idea when (or even if) any of these will be purchased or read. Sometime in the next 10-15 years if the Universe is willing. 

Happy Birthday: Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and baroque. His Snow Crash (1992) was included on Time's list of the 100 best novels since 1923.

Stephenson has explored mathematics, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy, currency, and the history of science in Cryptonomicon (1999) and The Baroque Cycle (2003-2004). He also writes nonfiction essays about technology in publications such as Wired. He has written novels with his uncle, George Jewsbury ("J. Frederick George"), under the collective pseudonym Stephen Bury.

Stephenson has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (founded by Jeff Bezos) developing a spacecraft and a space launch system, and also co-founded the Subutai Corporation, whose first offering is the interactive fiction project The Mongoliad. His work for the Long Now Foundation inspired his novel Anathem (2008). He was Magic Leap's chief futurist from 2014 to 2020. A collection of his essays and lectures was published as Some Remarks (2012).

[Only read two by this author (so far) - Snow Crash & The Diamond Age, both of which I enjoyed. I'll see if I can get around to reading some of his total chunksters at some point!]

Anyone else NOT surprised in the least......?

RIP Sir Patrick Stewart (13 July 1940 – 28 October 2026).

Jeeeze.... Is there a Star Trek Curse we don't know about! He was quite a change of starship captain but he definitely grew on me. FINE acting... "Tell Starfleet we have ENGAGED the Borg" still sends a shiver through me..........   

Just Finished Reading: The Great Wave – The Era of Radical Disruption and the Rise of the Outsider by Michiko Kakutani (FP: 2024) [197pp] 

One of the things that has long fascinated me is periods of transition, those eras when it seems that everything changed. Of course, things are changing constantly (at least in modern times), and some change is only perceived in hindsight but there are times like the Renaissance or Industrial Revolution when time itself seems to speed up. I have held the idea that the present era is just one such time. Frankly I don't know how such a thought could be argued with. It's not just social media and 24-hour news accelerating our perception of events it's the events themselves. 

So, when I saw this book in my Indie bookshop a few months ago, I snapped it up and looked forward to some interesting insights and analysis. I was, however, more than a little disappointed. What the author did – mostly except for a strange and rather boring side quest into her area of expertise in modern Lit Crit – was to catalogue some of the broad changes sweeping the world presumably for those amongst us who haven't been paying attention. She outlines the feeling that most of us have (no doubt) that things are changing and that they are not returning to 'normal' any time soon. The old systems of the post-1945 world have progressively been undermined by outsiders and the consequences of this have magnified and cascaded across political and economic areas. Grassroots activism (aided by breakthroughs in communications technology) and disruptive forces (ditto) have increasingly made the slow moving and slow adapting support structures creak audibly to anyone who is listening. Attempts to cope with these factors increases their effects causing further disruptive change. All of this gives fast thinking outsiders from across the spectrum the opportunity to use the right fulcrum in the right place at the right time to significantly change things. 

Of course, most of this should be obvious to those watching any decent news channel. Things are indeed changing and people are taking advantage of the opportunities presented by that change. But if you want to understand exactly WHY that change is happening and why it's happening the way it is... then you might want to read something else. Whilst the author does do a creditable job of cataloguing the changes – mostly in the USA to be honest – she doesn't move much beyond that - apart from a few interesting brief flashbacks to broadly similar disruptive historic eras - which is what I was looking for. Not a total waste of my time but overall rather disappointing. 

As I all too often say.... Giant rocks falling from the sky made us what we are today.... 

Hail to the Chief (2) 

As this is my first update for FIVE years (!) I think you can honestly say that my 'Reading the Presidents' is not going well... But, saying that, I am being slowly inspired (or should I say shamed?) by Stephen over at Reading Freely who has taken Presidential reading to his heart – BIG STYLE! So... I have made a few additions and have a few more in the pipeline. I'm expected to get to ONE this year and a few more next. Promises, promises... 

General 

The Myth of the Strong Leader – Political Leadership in the Modern Age by Archie Brown 

The American Presidency – A Very Short Introduction by Charles O Jones 

The Forever War – America's Unending Conflict With Itself by Nick Bryant 

Ronald Reagan (40) 20th January 1981 – 20th January 1989 

1983 – The World at the Brink by Taylor Downing 

Richard M Nixon (37) 20th January 1969 – 9th August 1974 

All The President’s Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward 

John F Kennedy (35) 20th January 1961 – 22nd November 1963 

One Minute to Midnight – Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the brink of Nuclear War by Michael Dobbs 

Franklin D Roosevelt (32) 4th March 1933 – 12th April 1945 

Franklin and Winston – An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship by Jon Meacham 

Whilst still FAR from anything to write home about this is a (slightly) better place that last time. What I need is more focus and more actual biographies rather than books which simply included Presidential history. We'll see where we are in 12 months and go from there... The only way is UP.