What I'm Reading #6

The latest in an irregular series of posts on what I've been reading.

Books

Mr Mercedes

by Stephen King

A pretty decent crime thriller, showing that Stephen King can write a lot more than just horror. I recently read his novella, The Colorado Kid, and learnt from the foreword to that book about the Bill Hodges trilogy. Having read this, the first novel in the series, I'm looking forward to reading the rest, and also watching the TV series.

Star Wars: Aftermath

by Chuck Wendig

This Star Wars novel was recommended by a number of people to me, and I have to admit, I found it well written and even moving at times as it imagined the massive changes following the supposed end of the Empire. But in the end, it just didn't keep my attention, and I don't plan to read the rest of the series.

Fragile Things

by Neil Gaiman

I picked up this collection of short stories simply for the first story, 'A Study in Emerald'. This is is cross-over of a Sherlock Holmes mystery and Lovecraftian horror, and it is just excellent. I tried to read a few of the other stories and gave up - I find Neil Gaiman pretty self-indulgent at the best of times, and this collection confirmed it. As much as I enjoyed the re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes, I really can't recommend this book.

Heart Shaped Box

by Joe Hill

A simply fantastic read. You aren't just reading this horror story, you feel you are living it.

Dreaming in Code

by Scott Rosenberg

Again, a book highly recommended by others, but one I felt was ultimately disappointing. While this exploration of an open-source project was interesting, the project's initial technology choices meant it was ultimately doomed, and this was compounded by weak project leadership. Some of the meta-discussion about open source and technology was interesting, but I ended the book wondering what the point of it all was.

Articles

Facebook’s battle for domination

by John Naughton

John Naughton's review of An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang reads like a long overdue indictment of Facebook, and I've added An Ugly Truth to my reading list as a result.

One Bad Apple

by Dr. Neal Krawetz

This long and forensic article takes apart some of the claims made by Apple in defence of their proposed (and now postponed) Child Sexual Abuse Material solution.

Desperate graduates rush to study ‘panic masters’ after job rejections

by Rachel Hall

This article on the jump in applications to 'panic Masters' courses due to the uncertain economic climate caught my eye.

Why Elon Musk Isn’t Superman

by Tom O'Reilly

This article dissects exactly how Elon Musk got so amazingly wealthy despite owning an unprofitable car maker.

Carl Lentz and the Trouble at Hillsong

by Alex French and Dan Adler

My wife and I recently watched the Storyville documentary, Hillsong Church: Church goes viral. As Christians, we found it an extremely unsettling film. One of its themes was the double standards that operated in the Hillsong church movement - this article looks at (only) one instance of this, the scandal around one of the more well known pastors, Carl Lentz.