A collection of short stories on the subject of memory by an assortment of authors. The book has been created in memory of Terry Pratchett and most of the stories contain themes that he would be familiar with. All of them relate to the importance of memories. An enjoyable read – but in bits rather than trying to read it like a novel – each story being self contained and quite different in character from the others.
Cognition
So What Really IS Important?
We are only a few days into the new year and already items in the news have shocked me – have inspired me – have worried me – have surprised me – have saddened me – have ….. What we find out about the happenings around the globe has the capacity to affect us in a huge number of ways. What about – and this is entirely in keeping with the blog theme – the things we don’t know about?
Shoot The Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression
Perhaps not the happiest book to read at Christmas!! I wouldn’t say that I enjoyed reading this book, but I will say that I am glad I read it. It gives an insight into living with and coping with (or not) depression that I would not have expected. Much of it I already ‘knew’ intellectually – however having the story told at first hand – straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak – carries a huge amount of impact.
Discworld – The Next Chapter
Just yesterday I wrote about how I like to visit different “worlds” when I am reading. Last night I got to the end of the story of one of those worlds. Knowing that it was his last novel, getting to the end of Sir Terry Pratchett’s “The Shepherd’s Crown” was always going to be tinged with disappointment – not in the story itself, but because we will never know what happens next to the many characters that we have met through the Discworld series.
Just – WHY?
As we progress through life there is – at least for me – an increasing realisation that there are things that we do – that we enjoy doing – that are seemingly unproductive, unnecessary or just a “waste of time”. Yet we persist in doing them. For some people these can be harmful – to themselves or others – for others they are entirely benign – and yet the question remains – WHY?
A Matter Of Taste
A recurrent theme on the blog is the matter of “taste” in regard to the arts – especially in regard to music. It is well understood that “what you like” is determined by all sorts of factors and quite naturally varies from person to person – that song that “brings tears to your eyes” may well “bring tears” to someone else’s eyes for very different reasons!
Its Not Just Me
With a huge shout out to Confirmation Bias I am always ecstatic (OK maybe that is a bit too strong) when I find that others are speaking similar messages to my own. Have a look at this video – What is the Speed of Dark – and see how it mirrors many of the underlying themes of this blog site.
Is There Such A Thing As Friendly Manipulation?
It is no real surprise that when blogging on a reasonably regular basis there is a tendency for similar themes to recur. Anyone who has read through some of my posts will have seen some of these repetitive refrains and this post is yet another angle on the recurrent theme of “there is a lot of grey between black and white”!
Summer Of ’71
This morning I got into the car and was immediately transported back in time to Castle Toward – July 1971 – Rimsky Korsakov’s Scheherazade – a little treasure chest full of memories of a dozen days spent in intensive learning of a couple of orchestral works chosen to expand our musical horizons and to provide an exciting and entertaining concert for all those family members and friends who turned up in Dunoon.
More On Changing What Is Acceptable
The previous post on acceptability talked about some reasons why things become unacceptable over time and raised a point regarding the width of the “boundary of acceptability”. In this follow up I want to discuss a bit more the grey areas surrounding acceptability – from a number of viewpoints including cultural and personal.