I asked my Twitter friends for recommendations of books to read over Christmas. I said that I’ve already consumed the new Expanse novel and the new Philip Pullman (intended to indicate that I like that style of sf) and I said I like non-fiction if it’s interesting and well-written (e.g., Bakewell’s book on Montaigne, or Holmes’s “Age of Wonder”).

Here’s what they recommended …

• Artemis by Andy Weir (the sequel to The Martian). Recommended by @lancewiggs.
• New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson. Recommended by @lancewiggs and @stojg.
• The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu. Recommended by @lancewiggs, @mceoin, and @obra.
• The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World by Steve Levine. Recommended by @lancewiggs.
• The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams by Sam Walker. Recommended by @lancewiggs.
• Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Recommended by @MattNippert.
• Walkaway by Cory Doctorow. Recommended by @mandysinpson.
• The Way of Kings: Stormlight Archive Book 1 by Brandon Sanderson. Recommended by @mandysinpson.
• Blue Remembered Earth: Poseidon’s Children Book 1 by Alastair Reynolds. Recommended by @teh_aimee.
• Wake by Elizabeth Knox, which is set in New Zealand. Recommended by @teh_aimee.
• Consider Phlebas (The Culture Series book 1) by Iain Banks. Recommended by @teh_aimee.
• Anything by Charlie Stross. Recommended by @teh_aimee and annejohn.
• Anything by Micah L. Sifry. Recommended by @teh_aimee.
• The Killer Angels by Michael Shaaara. Recommended by @rmi.
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Recommended by @rmi.
• Into the Heart of Borneo by Redmond O’Hanlon. Recommended by @rmi.
• Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris. Recommended by @rmi.
• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. Recommended by @rmi.
• No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money by David Lough. Recommended by @rmi.
• Off Armageddon Reef: A Novel in the Safehold Series (#1) by David Weber. Recommended by @VikOlliver.
• Black Marks on the White Page by Witi Ihimaera and Tina Makareti. Recommended by @amscraig.
• Mythos by Stephen Fry. Recommended by @MikeStok.
• The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi. Recommended by @stojg.
• Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. Recommended by @newzedland.
• Anything by N.K. Jemisin. Recommended by @annejohn.
• Penric’s Demon: Penric & Desdemona Book 1 by Lois McMaster Bujold. Recommended by @annejohn.
• The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers by Gillian Tett. Recommended by @RachelProsser.
• Anything by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Recommended by Miraz Jordan.
• Homer’s Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson. Recommended by @auchmill.
• The Bone People by Keri Hulme. Recommended by @tummycom.

Finally:

I caught up with Jesse Robbins at Foo Camp, and he gave me a great line that I remember as being something like: “I’m going on an adventure. The outcome is uncertain, there will be setbacks along the way, so I’ll surround myself with good travelling companions.”

I’m going on a new adventure. This week saw me join the fast-growing Kiwi education startup, Hapara as something like “Head of Partnerships”. I say “something like”, because when Jan recruited me, he said “we’re growing so fast that each fortnight there’s a fresh challenge we haven’t seen before, and there’s always more work than there are people to do it.” In my first week I’ve arranged for us to go to NZ Pycon, met the head of education at Google for Asia-Pacific, and chewed on the coffee at Point England school (Russell makes it strong).

There’s a trend now to question the value of a university education. It used to be that simply possessing a university degree gained you access to a Better Class of Job. That is no longer the case; now you have access to The Same Class of Unemployment Benefit. Even degrees in subjects without immediate business application (classics, art history, etc.) were valued as a sign of studiousness, discipline, etc. at least in so much as they put the possessor into the class of People Who Have A Brain. These days so many people are emerging with degrees that a degree alone isn’t enough to separate you from the herd.

Our band has two gigs coming up in Auckland and we’d love to see you there!

We play The Thirsty Dog on K Rd on Sunday, and the set is shaping up to be a good ‘un: the songs we were playing last year have really bedded down nicely. We are, if I do say so, getting good. That gig is Sunday Oct 2, and we’ll start playing around 4 or 4.30. It’s a 45m set, daytime, easy to get to if you’re in Auckland, just $10 at the door. The setlist features songs from Gillian Welch, Tim O’Brien, and Claire Lynch and some beauties I don’t want to tell you about just yet.

I’ve grown a row of beetroot and now I’m nervously wondering what the hell one does with a row of beetroot. I asked on Twitter, and here are the first 90m or so of responses:

@annaraven: http://bit.ly/G77RQ

@nzfi: @vexus_nexus similar effect on no# 2s too - tho don’t think it is a gene thing (omg can’t believe I’m tweeting this).

@nzfi: oh & don’t forget that the leaves are really yummy too. Chop, Steam, season & drizzle w olive oil. (Can u tell I like beets a lot?!).

I had dinner tonight with my friend Cath Lewis, the awesome real estate agent. She told me that her new company felt right because honesty and empathy were at the top of their values. I think most of us aspire to those, but it was lovely to see them stated so clearly and given such prominence. Think what a pleasure life would be if everyone valued them so.

I found this list on the web and loved it. The ones that particularly rang true with me:

• 5. Being not truthful always works against me.
• 8. Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
• 9. Over time I get used to everything and start taking for granted.
• 15. Worrying solves nothing.
• 17. Everybody thinks they are right.

And while it’s still a little early, (2) and (4) are now in the lead for 2009 New Year’s Resolutions.

I’ll be in San Diego for ETech, arriving in San Diego on Sunday and leaving on Thursday. If you’ll be around, look me up. I’d love to catch up!

I haven’t blogged in a while. That doesn’t mean things are bad. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. Something happened around September, the end of my last trip away for 2006–something good. We just clicked. We went from feeling like strangers in a strange land to feeling like we were home.

It’s weird, I can’t point to anything in particular. It’s just that suddenly it became easier. We had friends, we weren’t unhappy, we were actually enjoying ourselves. At that point we lost the drive we’d had to connect back with the people we’d left behind: Jenine stopped mailing her friends amusing stories, and I stopped blogging.

About two weeks ago, my uncle Zom got a little carried away with some repairs in the cabin and drove the family fishing boat (“Foam”) onto some rocks. Getting it off damaged the propeller and keel, so ten days ago he and I took advantage of the time, tide, and weather to put it up on the sticks and effect some repairs.

For the next two days (during low-tide only, when the boat was out of the water) he bogged the keel with fibreglass while I painted. It was fun! I painted the bum of the boat all by myself, scraping off barnacles and working on the thick viscous antifouling paint. I did one side each day, the first with roller (rollers make it much easier) and the second without (because we only had one roller and it was well trashed by this stage).