Category: Books

As the name suggests, this is where you’ll find everything I’ve written about books, publishing, authors, book stores and more. I’ve had the pleasure of talking to some renowned novelists and thinkers including Joe Hill, Jared Diamond, David Brin, Naomi Wolf, Kim Stanley Robinson and Matthew Reilly.

But it’s also been a way of exploring some big ideas facing technology, society and the economy, whether it’s the lack of contact from interstellar civilisations, the role of pornography not just in technology but human communication overall or how graphic design is changing in the web age.

I’ve also turned the spotlight back on the book industry itself, looking at everything from the challenge of keeping boys interested in reading to the latest innovations in distribution to fiction sales’ dirty little secret about the genre that keeps it afloat.

Human Errors

It’s written with a lot of personality and is often laugh out loud funny, but the uniquely lovely message at it’s heart is that we’ve endured aeons of poor design, agony and death only to rise above it and make our world according to our vision, while a perfect organism would sit quietly and achieve little. … Continue readingHuman Errors

Ready Author One

Cline considers the internet, video games, cinema and television to be wonderful things that can enrich our lives, and neither the book nor the film are about unplugging completely but striking a balance between reality and fantasy. “If there’s any message in the novel and the movie I think it’s that escapism is essential, but the real world is the only place where you can find true happiness.” … Continue readingReady Author One

In Pursuit of Memory

Like cancer, it’s not even a single disease. The bizarre Posterior Cortical Atrophy, also known as ‘visual Alzheimer’s’, leaves the person’s memory and sense of self mostly intact, instead causing hallucinations, the sudden loss of the ability to read, recognise faces and familiar environments. One sufferer even saw everything compltely upside down. … Continue readingIn Pursuit of Memory