70.
Busy About the Tree of Life - Pamela Zoline. Wise and weird collection of science fiction from all sorts of strange angles. Formally experimental in a way that bewildered but never bored me

69.
Confucius in Silicon Valley - Zumak. Gripping, well-detailed tech thriller about a social media company using Chinese Social Credit surveillance data to build a frighteningly accurate AI.

68.
Everything You Ever Wanted - Luiza Sauma. Reading like a hybrid of two projects I’m currently writing, I had to grab this from the library. A lucky number of people are given the chance to start again on a new, unpopulated planet but what will they leave behind?

67.
Becoming a Writer - Dorothea Brande. Considering this is nearly a hundred years old, it was actually quite enjoyable and certainly encouraging advice on the writer’s life, if a bit dated.

66.
Flesh & Blood - Chris Geary & Simon Lewis. Graphic novel of minimalist art and a grim tone, mixing the supernatural with realism in a taut crime thriller of a paramedic’s search for her husband’s killer.

The Home Office should be scrapping the use of this dangerous and discriminatory tool of surveillance, not expanding it.

www.itv.com/watch/news/h...

They’re rarely well done

65.
Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates. Finally got round to reading this important work and noticed halfway through Equalizer 2 that Denzel was reading it so I’m in good company

Cannot hear any normal way for that ‘Ohh…’ at the beginning to work

We let him cook, but his players couldn’t pass.

@coldwarsteve.bsky.social ?

19.
Vue Westfield Stratford
🎥🎥🎥

One Battle After Another (2025)
🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿

Should have called this shopping centre Eastfield, but I braved it to tick off a new cinema to watch this movie and I’m glad I did. An absolute ride of a film, from start to end.

64.
Lanny - Max Porter. A village is turned upside down when an eccentric local boy goes missing. Kind of like a broken mirror reflecting different views of England

63.
Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata. The story of a neurodivergent woman who finds herself working a routine retail job. Deadpan and very relatable the way she struggles to relate

It’s a bit Inspiral Carpets (with the Car- and -al)

62.
The Long Tomorrow - Leigh Brackett. Wise post-apocalyptic old-west sci-fi about a finding a hidden city that retains the banned scientific knowledge after a nuclear war, written by the screenwriter from Empire Strikes Back.