(yes, this is an extremely late post. it’s been an, um, eventful winter for me)

Apparently I read 37 (!) books last year 😳 That’s a little less than 2022 (45), but still nearly one a week. Goodness.

Anyway, if you’re looking to pick up something new, I thought I’d list them all out, grouped roughly by vibe and in order read.

Books to Get You Through a Breakup

Because yeah, it’s hard.

• No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz: One of the first books recommended by my therapist. I was skeptical going in, but I’ve found its techniques to be incredibly helpful over the last year.
• Conscious Uncoupling by Katherine Woodward Thomas: Veers awfully close to the cult of achievement (“If you do your divorce just right, you’ll get a gold star!”), but still a useful set of tools for how to limit the damage when your life blows up.
• The Sh!t No One Tells You About Divorce by Dawn Dais: Exactly the kind of cathartic, laugh-out-loud guide to the aftermath that I needed, particularly after having read the previous book.
• The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood: An amazing novel, and a good reminder that men are bastards, and some women are, too.

Books to Put You to Sleep

Sometimes you read before bed for a reason.

• The Great Sea by David Abulafia: I swear, I wanted to like this one. Really! I usually love this kind of big scope history. But ye gods is this one dull. Just…could…not…stay…awake.

Books I Don’t Remember

I think both of these were good? But for the life of me I can’t tell you which one is which, or what I learned. Probably says more about me than the books, though.

• The Invention of Russia by Arkady Ostrovsky: I think this is a blow-by-blow tale of how the media in Russia changed from the latter Soviet years to the early years of Putin. If it’s the book I’m thinking of, it’s very much an insider’s view, that made me feel both the hope of the early years after the fall of the Soviet Union and the disillusionment that set in afterward.
• The Age of Illusions by Andrew J. Bacevich: As Gandalf once said, “I have no memory of this place.”

Books to Radicalize You

In the best way, I mean. A radical for making things better, because you can see how we got to where we are now.

• Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty: Took me a while to get to this one, and I’m sorry I held off on it for so long. A well-researched, readable account of the long-term (200 years!) trends in modern economies, that explains both how things were so different (and good!) in the years just after World War II, and how things have reverted to the mean (which means worse) since then.
• Capitalism, Alone by Branko Milanovic: A fascinating thesis about the role of communism in the development of what used to be called the Third World, wrapped in a large work that is completely in thrall to debunked theories of classical economics.
• The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi: This book, combined with Piketty’s, completely flipped my understanding of the last few hundred years of economic history. Completely demolishes the idea of the “market” as something separate from society, and demonstrates how the pursuit of the impossible dream of a “free market” has resulted in so much destruction and misery.

Books to Catch You Up with The Atlantic

No tea, no shade, but these books are, let’s say, more pop, less substance?

• So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed byJon Ronson: I like to believe that Ronson is coming from a good place here, trying to put a human face on public figures that have gone through a very public shaming on social media. Which is a laudable goal! We should all keep in mind that what’s on the other end of the “Post” button is a human being. But I did some digging on his profiles, and he turns out to have left out a lot of the most damning parts. So, definitely a skewed view.
• Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum: An extremely serious subject, a serious (and good) writer. And yet. A slight book that left little impression on me.

Books to Ruin Your Friend’s Gladiator Viewing Party

Because how are you going to be that jerk if you haven’t done your research?

• The Inheritance of Rome by Chris Wickham: Incredibly readable account of the six hundred years following the fall of the Western Empire. This was a re-read for me, and it’s even better than I remembered.
• Mortal Republic by Edward J Watts: Picked this up after hearing Watts on the excellent podcast “Subject to Change.” An excellent account of how the (very much not inevitable) choices of Rome’s elites led to the end of the Republic.
• Thebes by Paul Cartledge: True, this is about Ancient Greece, not Rome, but bear with me. At least, bear with me long enough to warn you off of this book. It’s readable, it’s written by an expert, but for me it never really gelled into a coherent picture of Theban society.

Books to Fight the Patriarchy

Because patriarchy is a trap, my friends, for all genders.

• Trojan Horses by Page DuBois: Fantastic explanation of how so many of the ways ancient societies are presented are based on flawed, racist, assumptions.
• The Once and Future Sex by Eleanor Janega: Accessible and short corrective on some of the many (many!) myths we moderns hold about gender in medieval society.
• Femina by Janina Ramirez: More medieval history, this time bringing to life the stories of women — warriors, rulers, saints — who shaped the Middle Ages in Europe.

Books to Get Lost In

Sometimes you just need a good story to dive into and not come up for a few days, yeah?

• Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan: Fantastic world-building, a passionate and ass-kicking heroine, with a story that puts the fate of several heavenly kingdoms on the line. Looking forward to the sequel.
• How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix: Scarfed this down in a single day’s binge read. Warning: Puppets.
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes: A classic I re-read for a book club. Still hits me right in the feels, but, um, beware the very-60s treatment of its female characters.
• Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky Brothers: Classic Soviet-era sci-fi. VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series is basically a re-telling of this book. In my opinion, the original (this one) is better.
• The Searcher by Tara French: Every novel I read by French leaves me wrung out and gut-punched, in the best way.
• Middlemarch by George Elliot: This might become a yearly read for me.
• Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty: The first of a new series by the mighty Mur. It’s a noir murder mystery set on a sentient alien space station, need I say more?
• The City & The City by China Miéville: Wow. Felt like an allegory for Israel/Palestine, Europe/Africa, and the latter stages of the Cold War, all wrapped in a paranoid thriller where archeology plays a starring role. Not sure anyone but Miéville could pull this off (but he does).

Books to Rediscover Your Inner Hippie

In these days of shifting climates and ecological loss, there’s never been a better time to reconnect with the natural world (so we can save it).

• The Arbornaut - Meg Lowman: Fascinating recount of a career spent literally in the trees, to explore the top of the forest (an area which is still not fully understood). Made me look up more, past the trunk of the trees around here, to their crowns.
• Finding the Mother Tree - Suzanne Simard: Another career retrospective from a top-class scientist (who happens to be local to my neck of the woods). I loved the descriptions of her research, and her findings (about how linked up the trees in a forest are, how interdependent) changed the way I see anything that grows.

Books to Help You Understand Others

Because sometimes the only thing you need to stop arguing with someone is to see things from their perspective.

• The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman: As I move through my fourth decade of life, I find myself interested in learning more about what was happening in the larger world while I was growing up. I was hoping for both a memory boost and a larger viewpoint on the decade. I definitely got the memory boost, but the larger viewpoint was lacking.
• High Conflict - Amanda Ripley: Got this because I was in a high conflict situation with a co-worker, and hoped it would help with that. Book turned out to be a bit deeper than I expected based on its business-suit packaging; actually shed some light on how society in the US (and other places) has split since 2016, and how such conflicts can become self-sustaining, long past when the initial grievance occurred. Well worth the read.
• Tribe - Sebastian Junger: I picked this up thinking it would be “just” a look at soldiers and PTSD, but it turned out to be much more. An interesting study in how humans in groups react under extreme stress, from Londoners during the Blitz to trapped miners as well as soldiers returning home after war. One of those I’m going to have to re-read, I think, to fully absorb everything in it.

Books to Pass a Lazy Afternoon With

Curl up with one of these (and a blanket and some tea) on a rainy day.

• Danubia - Simon Winder: The second of Winder’s three books on middle European history, which I read out of order. Rambling in the best way. I retain almost nothing of the history of the period or the region after reading this, but I was never bored, either, and he doesn’t shy away from the problematic history he has to cover.
• Germania - Simon Winder: The first book of Winder’s series, and the most apologetic of the bunch. He seems compelled to apologize, both for being bold enough to write a narrative history at all, and then to write about Germany (which his generation, and mine, were raised to see as inherently suspect). Once past the throat-clearing, though, we’re off to the same rambling (but entertaining) stories as the other two books.

Books to Make You Want to Write More

If you need that kind of motivation, that is.

• The War of Art - Steven Pressfield: If you’ve ever wanted a drill sergeant to yell at you about your writing, this is the book for you. If you get turned off by such gung-ho chest-beating approaches, this is not the motivational book you want.

Books I Couldn’t Fit Anywhere Else

Not everything fits neatly into a category.

• The Medieval Archer - Jim Bradbury: A bit dry, but still an interesting counter to several myths about archery as represented in popular media. Not least of which is that women weren’t hunters; not enough books print medieval illustrations of women hunting with bows, but this one does!
• The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe: Okay, so I picked this one up because I read The Devil’s Candy, which is the (fascinating) story of how making the movie version of this went completely off the rails. After reading that take, I watched the movie (which is indeed a hot mess) and decided to read the book. Which I bounced off of, several times, before deciding to force myself to finish it. It’s, um, a very 80s thing, which is both the best and the worst thing I can say about it. I can’t really recommend it, though it was better than the movie, I suppose.
• How to Astronaut - Terry Virts: Exactly what it says on the tin. Runs through Virts’ recruitment, training, and experiences as an astronaut over the last few decades of space flight. Virts sometimes reads like a high school jock made good (which is a trigger for me personally), but his love for his work and his pride in his part in advancing our understanding of the environment of space shines through.

We made it, everyone! Congrats and welcome to 2024 🎉

So much has changed. So much is going to change.

I’ve been away from the blog for a long time, and for that I apologize. I’ve been going through some life changes, culminating in a split from my wife.

I’m also been in therapy for several months now, for the first time. It’s both cause and consequence of everything I’m going through. Therapy for me is like going to the gym, but for my emotions. It’s hard, and I’m always sore afterward, but I’m stronger and glad I went. Would recommend.

Some things haven’t changed, though. I’m still living in Victoria, BC, and still feel incredibly lucky to be here. This city has welcomed me in so many unexpected ways. I’m grateful, and I can only hope I can pay it back someday.

I’m also still working my day-job as a programmer, and toiling away at my novels and short stories on the side. Still living without a car. Still trying to get the right amount of seasoning on my roasted vegetables. Still buying way too many books (I know, “too many books” is a category error. There are never enough books).

I want to start this year off with gratitude. Both of what I’ve accomplished over the last year, and for what’s to come. So, as 2024 rises and stretches, like a cat waking from a nap in the sun, let me list the things I’m grateful for:

• My writing group, with whose help I’ve finished editing a novel for the first time. And not just finished, but synopsis written and everything ready to submit to agents, starting this week.
• The organizers of the Surrey International Writers’ Conference, who put on such a welcoming and stimulating conference. And because of whom I was able to meet an agent that gave me the injection of confidence I needed to finish up that novel synopsis.
• My co-workers at Cisco, who every day demonstrate to me how a non-toxic technical culture can work.
• The folks at IRCC and BC’s Provincial Nominee Program, who gave this middle-aged guy a shot at permanent residence in Canada.
• My D&D group, who opened their gaming table and their arms to this immigrant.
• Dan, David, Baamonde, Alex, and Haywood, friends who have stuck with me over many years, through many ups and downs.
• My family, particularly my mom and older sister, who have never held my lack of phone calls or texts against me.
• The Victoria Creative Writing Group, without whom I would not have met my writing circle.
• The Victoria Bowmen Club, who taught me what’s it like to really wield a bow (after years of me writing about it).
• The folks on social.linux.pizza, mstdn.ca, and tenforward.social, who helped me find my footing (and friends) in the fediverse.

So many gifts, from so many people. Thank you, all, for everything you’ve given me, everything you’ve taught me.

May your new year be a bright one.

“Our party needs to be entirely about what our members want, what our constituency associations want, and that comes up to the provincial board and that makes the policy and the decisions and the direction gets set,”

This is a chilling quote, to me. Political parties are run by the membership, sure, but in a competitive democracy, they’re supposed to be about what’s good for society. All of it, not just those who happen to be party members.

Not to be too alarmist, but a “party run only for the good of its members” is how we describe communist and fascist governments.

www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/al…

Socialist: “Tailors are more vital to a community than bankers.”

Capitalist: “Nonsense. The community is the economy, and there’s no economy without banking. And without banks, how will anyone save for their retirement? Or start a business? Lest they get the money from their parents, of course. Are you suggesting we go back to relying on inherited wealth? I thought you were against that sort of thing.”

Socialist: “Not at all! Though your confusion of the economy of money for the entire community of people is typical.”

Capitalist: scoffs

Socialist: “What I’m saying is that if all the banks were to close tomorrow, your tailor could extend you some credit, and mend your clothes. But if all the tailors shut down, there’s no banker in the world that’ll darn your socks.”

Happy Friday! And thank goodness for the first weekend of summer 😎

As you can see from the title, I’ve decided to swap out Keeping Score for Writing Circle for these updates. I think the latter is closer to what I want these to be, for several reasons:

• It implies a circle of trust, which is what we build when we write; we invite the reader into our circle of trust, because when we write we’re vulnerable, in ways we can’t always see at the time.
• The writing process itself is a circle: idea, draft, edit, new idea, new draft, new edits. There’s no real beginning or end, only calling time on a current project.
• As we travel on a circle (working on a project), the idea of “winning” or racing doesn’t really make sense. There’s no where to go, really, other than forward, no destination to arrive at where we can compare ourselves (favourably or unfavourably) to others.
• A circle is bounded, which (hopefully) will keep us from wandering too far astray.

With the last point in mind, I think I want to start exploring a different aspect of writing each week. Share something I’ve learned from other writers, in the hopes that it’s helpful to someone else. Small tricks of the trade, if you will. I’ve got ideas for the first few (starting next week), but if there’s something you’d like to discuss, let me know!

As for my own projects, I did manage to wrap up the second round of novel edits last weekend 🎉✍️

So now it’s on to the stickier bits. The relationships I didn’t properly flesh out before and the background characters that exist as little more than a name right now (if even that). For those, I’ve just been brainstorming this week: Opening my notebook to a fresh page, writing a question at the top, and then listing out all the different possible answers I can think of in fifteen minutes. Yes, I do set a timer, and yes I do make myself keep jotting down progressively silly ideas until the time is up 😊

This weekend I’ll make time to go back through all of those, pick out the ones I like best, and then start planning how to work them into the story. I’m hoping to make more targeted edits this time, adding these new parts of the story as extra scenes or flashbacks or dialog where appropriate, instead of having to read the whole thing through again.

That’s the plan, anyway. We’ll see if it works 🤞

Switching out the naming convention here. Keeping Score hasn’t really applied for some time now; I don’t track words written so much as chapters or scenes completed, and even then I’m aiming for time at the keyboard more than anything else.

And the old name is starting to feel a little too competitive, for me. A little too much like I’m trying to outpace myself or other writers, when really I just want to remind myself every once in a while of how far I’ve come, and maybe — if I’m lucky — give some comfort to my fellow writers, full-time or part-time, that are struggling.

That said, I haven’t settled on a new name/theme just yet. Going with Writing Update for now, which is very on the nose, but will do for a first draft. ✍️

Speaking of drafts, I’m almost done with the second-run edits of the sci-fi novel. Fingers crossed I might actually wrap those up this weekend!

Word count is holding steady at just over 87k, though I think next I’ll tackle the missing scenes, and fill in some plot holes, which’ll bump that up a bit. Ditto the fleshing out of some background characters I need to do. Hard for readers to get attached to folks that just pop in and out of the narrative.

And that’ll probably take me through the end of the month, if not longer. Still, once this second round is done, then the book-wide edits are basically finished. The rest will be more targeted changes, so I won’t have to keep going through the whole draft every time. At least, that’s what I hope 🤞

How about you? Where are you at, in your own projects?

In 2018, I’d filed near-identical FOI requests to each of Canada’s 14 federal, provincial and territorial prison agencies asking for data from their correctional databases. I figured there might be interesting stories hidden there, particularly in the relationships between peoples’ sentence lengths, age, sex and race…What ensued was a detailed discussion [between provincial ministries] about how to block me from getting what I wanted.

A damning indictment of the current Freedom of Information process in Canada.

The whole Secret Canada project is fine reporting, and well worth your time. I wanted to highlight the above story, though, because it’s so personal. Also the surprising fact that Alberta denied every FOI request The Globe and Mail made as part of the project, the only province to do so.