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  • Books read: 2022

    30 Jun 2022 • books

    1. On Directing Film by David Mamet ★★☆☆☆
    2. The Mabinogi by Matthew Francis ★★★★★
    3. Through Two Doors at Once by Anil Ananthaswamy ★★★★☆
    4. Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan ★★★★☆
    5. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy
    6. A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro ★★★☆☆
    7. There Are Places in the World… by Carlo Rovelli ★★★★☆
    8. The Embassy of Cambodia by Zadie Smith ★★★☆☆
    9. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro ★★★☆☆
    10. Monkeys with Typewriters by Scarlett Thomas ★★★★☆
    11. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel ★★☆☆☆
    12. Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath ★★★☆☆
    13. The Imagination Chamber by Philip Pullman ★☆☆☆☆
    14. Dawn by Octavia Butler ★★☆☆☆
    15. The Orchard on Fireby by Shena Mackay ★★★☆☆
    16. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones ★★☆☆☆
    17. Selected Poems by Sylvia Plath ★★★★☆
    18. Touching the Void by Joe Simpson ★★★★☆
    19. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher ★★★★☆
    20. How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu ★★☆☆☆
    21. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf ★★★★★
    22. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard ★★★★☆
    23. The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu ★★☆☆☆
    24. Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman ★★★☆☆
    25. Bedouin of the London Evening: Collected Poems by Rosemary Tonks ★★★☆☆
  • The Chemical History of a Candle

    19 Jan 2022 • science

    An outstanding series of five short videos (~10 to 20 minutes each) based on Michael Faraday’s lectures The Chemical History of a Candle.

    In these lectures Michael Faraday’s careful examination of a burning candle reveals the fundamental concepts of chemistry, while at the same time superbly demonstrating the scientific method.

    The lectures

  • Quote: Shaun Tan

    2 Sep 2017 • quotes

    “So you want to hear a story? Well, I used to know a whole lot of pretty interesting ones.
    Some of them so funny you’d laugh yourself unconscious. Others so terrible you’d never
    want to repeat them. But I can’t remember any of those, so I’ll just tell you about the
    time I found that lost thing…”

    Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing is a thing of beauty. Wonderful art woven with an evocative narrative that’s inspirational and fun. Do watch it.

  • The Alley

    5 Jan 2016 • poems

    Rain falls,
    Darkening red brickwork
    Featureless apartments
    Of five floors.
    A lone street light’s shadow falls
    Into the alley.

    There are two men there
    Face to face
    Trench coats
    Fedoras
    Rivulets running.
    A fumbling of hands,
    Damp and dextrous,
    A brief exchange.
    Back to back.
    One back into the black.
    The other heads this way.
    Echoing footfalls
    Bouncing off the side walls.
    A glance to right
    A nose tip
    A dart to the left
    Evasive.

    Read on →

© 2022 Marc Cooper