"My Mother Was a Computer explores how the impact of code on everyday life has become comparable to that of speech and writing: language and code have grown more entangled, the lines that once separated humans from machines, analog from digital, and old technologies from new ones have become blurred."

Subtitled "On building Flipboard for iPhone and Finding Edges for Our Digital Narratives", this is a great essay on the process of building things digitally, documenting it, and what's left behind of art.

Usula K. Le Guin: "As for books themselves, the changes in book technology are cataclysmic. Yet it seems to me that rather than dying, “the book” is growing — taking on a second form and shape, the ebook." "It looks to me as if people are in fact reading and writing more than they ever did. People who used to work and talk together now work each alone in a cubicle, writing and reading all day long on screen."

"The behind-the-scenes story of the readers and booksellers who launched the Hunger Games franchise." An interesting look at how the book was a hit at the publishers and with influential readers and librarians long before it was on sale, let alone a popular adult book.

"The e-book, by eliminating all variations in the appearance and weight of the material object we hold in our hand and by discouraging anything but our focus on where we are in the sequence of words (the page once read disappears, the page to come has yet to appear) would seem to bring us closer than the paper book to the essence of the literary experience. Certainly it offers a more austere, direct engagement with the words appearing before us and disappearing behind us than the traditional paper book offers, giving no fetishistic gratification as we cover our walls with famous names."

"By taking the space suit as a topic, then, de Monchaux stakes a claim for architecture as a wider pursuit — one that does not presuppose buildings. In the same period as the Apollo space suit’s production, architecture was undergoing changes of its own. Technical professions like engineering came to develop more and more of what might be thought of as the real machines for living: standardized components, HVAC systems, tempered glass — the real architecture." A good review of my favourite book of last year.

Aaron Bady's fantastic review of a book examining debt: 'It’s an invitation to read the world differently, to see different possiblities in the here and now, and to argue not only that “another world is possible,” as the slogan/cliché has it, but that other worlds are present.' It's now on my (growing) reading list.

"it was coined in Germany only in the second half of the 19th century and was first used in English several decades later with the classical sense of “hetero” (“other, different”), making it initially a term of opprobrium. Only in the first decades of the 20th century did it settle into its present niche, cushioned with overtones of romance, pleasure, health and normalcy."

"What we saw is something unique in the history of American social movements: a mass conversion to free-market theory as a response to hard times. Before this recession, people who had been cheated by bankers almost never took that occasion to demand that bankers be freed from "red tape" and the scrutiny of the law." An extract from Pity The Billionaire by Thomas Frank.

An extract from a book about Simon Phillips Norton, mathematics, group theory, buses, riding trains, Cambridge, and community.

"I made another book: an atlas written by robots." James Bridle, being wonderful again.

It looks like William Stout may continue to be dangerous.

"New York / London / San Francisco 2010 is a self-initiated publication documenting my travel during 2010. The aim was to communicate my experiences to others by outlining my daily activities and exhibiting my photography." Looks interesting (particularly the map design and the London photos).

"We can all expect to have to pull into a motorway service station from time-to-time." An interview with the author of Food on the Move.

"Here is one of those books which defies the current bookworld gloom." This sort of sums up what I'd write about the book.

"What makes a place? Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit's brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area."

"What makes a place? Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit's brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area." The biggest round of applause of the day? The author's praise for her publisher prioritising local bookshops over Amazon.

"Using New York City as its point of reference, The Works takes readers down manholes and behind the scenes to explain exactly how an urban infrastructure operates." If it hadn't have been for this book, I'd never have realised there were still steam networks (naturally, NYC's is the largest, but apparently Paris has one also).

"What makes a place? Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit’s brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, searches out the answer by examining the many layers of meaning in one place, the San Francisco Bay Area."

"Lost and Sound was simply crying out to be translated into english. Aside from the fact that English is the lingua franca of techno culture, the majority of the people that this book is about – producers, djs, tourists – hardly speak German. But these are the people responsible for the altogether more pleasant associations Berlin now triggers – after ‘Hitler’s city’ and ‘the walled city’ comes ‘the party city’."

"The visual work of Otto Neurath and his associates, now commonly known as Isotype, has been much discussed in recent years. This short book explains its essential principles: the work of ‘transforming’, or putting information into visual form."

An annotated, free, online version of Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Discipline. I've only really read the nuclear chapter so far but that one alone is good stuff.

"If we are serious about curbing climate change, what would actually help? More people in cities, lots of nuclear power stations and lashings of GM crops, urges Stewart Brand. Unless green activists embrace the benefits of all three, they are not part of the solution, but part of the problem." A review of his new book in the Guardian.

"“For most people, most of the time, suburbia is as good as it gets,” [Barker] writes."

"We love to hate the suburbs but for Paul Barker they are places of humanity where individuality flourishes, says Rachel Cooke."

Ian Jack reviews "When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies" and remarks that the decade has probably been unfairly maligned.

A review of Sam Tanenhaus' The Death of Conservatism. "American conservatives have transformed themselves into latter-day Jacobins—slogan-spouting ideologues who want to destroy government rather than reform it." Let down by the conclusion, but worth a look.

"[England] don’t lose all that often [...] In fact, the national team does a little better than you would expect, given the country’s size, wealth and experience in international football. Fans hope for more. The data, alas, are against them." A good review of what sounds like an interesting book.

A review of 'Anthony Flint’s well-carpentered but breezy “Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City.”'

"With this unique traveler's guide, you'll learn about 128 destinations around the world where discoveries in science, mathematics, or technology occurred or is happening now."

"The Accord is not only Brooke's best novel to date, but one of the finest to broach the subject of virtual reality."

I'm not sure how well this will go down, but when I got the bit about snap-in content, I suddenly thought this sounded remarkably like a Filofax. There are differences - in audience, in binding - but the basic concept feels remarkably similar. Definitely Interesting stuff.

An idea that came up at papercamp was to build a prototype of a book community out of photographs of them on Flickr. Turns out there's already a book machine tag namespace in use. Now to see what's worth formalising out of it.

'global warming could change the planet for the next 100,000 years, which is how long it may take for igneous rocks to "breathe" back in all the carbon dioxide we've released over just a few centuries'

In constrast to yesterday's news story about a 3D virtual high street, Phil Gyford's look at ebook interfaces on the iPhone has some sensible suggestions for using 3D to give useful cues, without going too far down the road of pointlessly recreating the real.

The first section of BBC Radio 4's latest Book of the Week sounded pretty good when I heard it before the shipping forecast last night. How to: wash clothes. "Read by Shaun Dooley" who sounds just right.

Collected changes from the aforementioned James Bennett's book, Practical Django Projects, to make the examples work with the Django 1.0 release.

The book's subtitle is "How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science". From the review: "200 years ago, poets, writers and scientists shared a common vision of Nature. There is no reason why they should not do so again."

Could be a good read for fans of Younghee Jung's talk on lavatorial practices around the world at Interesting '08: “George passionately believes we should take her subject seriously instead of being embarrassed by it. She laments the lack of academic research into toilet culture.”

A review of the book of the website of Derelict London, via Things Magazine. Looks like it might actually be worth getting- the design of the site was impenetrable enough to put me off.

While we're in nature mode, here's a good analysis of the threat to the honeybee, which did the rounds last year (and now seems to be a Doctor Who running joke).

That title, subtitle and author in full: "Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World's Most Revolutionary Structure: A Gordon". US import, with a quite nice cover.

A review of Naked Airport, as seen on Boris Anthony's Flickr page. Sounds like it could be an interesting book.

I've walked both north-south and east-west, and it's certainly an interesting experience. This chap sounds like he's done a much more interesting job of documenting his walk than I did, though. Sounds like he chose the same vertical too. Well well.

Free PDFs of stories by Ken Macleod and Greg Egan, who, handily, are two of the people whose work I particularly enjoy. Hurrah!

From the "Whatever Happened To" section, the first (of four) chapters on JPL, the Java-Perl bridge, from the Perl Utilities Guide book. Ten years ago now. Crumbs.

Jonathan Meades on "The Endless City", a collection of articles on urbanism. He doesn't like it very much.

candace's pocket review of The Red Men, a sci-fi novel set in Hackney that she just finished. I suspect I'll borrow this and finish it off; sounds good (if badly proof-read).

A lovely little PDF booklet. I might have to print bits of it out. Reversed, so they don't use up all the toner.

"Matthew Brzezinski and Patrick Wright evoke the isolation of the Soviet Union with a pair of cold war studies, Red Moon Rising and Iron Curtain, says PD Smith"

Two days, two O'Reilly books to add to the purchase list. "a manifesto of ways to stay creatively alive; a portfolio of stunning photographs, with commentaries describing her experiences and thought process"

Very nice (small) notebooks. Nice paper too (or so candace, who cares about such things, tells me). Cheaper than the three-stack Moleskines too.

The full text of the (very good) O'Reilly book is now available online. Legally.

Special advice on buying DSLRs. Excerpt from one of the TidBITs online books. Seems generally sane (unlike that awful ten point thing that made it to digg and slashdot).

"London's handwriting, the development of Edward Johnston's Underground Railway block-letter"

"Out of the Shadows provides an accurate and authoritative description of the women who made original and important contributions to physics in the twentieth century, documenting their major discoveries and putting their work into its historical context."

Reading this (interleaved with other books) at the moment. London's transformations in the late Victorian era have some interesting mirrors with third world slum megacities today.

On inheritance (or, to its critics, "death") taxes and their (partial) repeal in the US

"It's not just gangs in hoodies who are bullies, says Decca Aitkenhead" - football lubricated by alcohol has spread yobbism throughout British culture. But why are we so discontent?

"Polly Toynbee is aghast at the fat-cat culture that has overtaken the world as revealed in Barbara Ehrenreich's Bait and Switch and Stewart Lansley's Rich Britain" - why do Americans still believe in the Dream?

Sara Wheeler on Denys Finch Hatton and the imperial British (English?) in East Africa / Kenya

I've noticed this about for a bit, but the chump reminded me of its existence. Alton Towers is part of the Tussauds group; down with anti-science celebrity-promiting "fun"! Up with bunkers!

Lots of stuff about Strange and Norrell, if I ever get time

Short story by Susanna Clark

with Susanna Clarke

I'm enjoying Strange and Norell, so here are the obvious interviews

Sounds nicely areligious