Endless Love by Scott Spencer

* Beyond Blade Runner : Los Angeles And The Imagination Of Disaster * by Mike Davis

This one is a bit special as the original book in English is "Ecology Of Fear" but for the French edition, they only edited/translated the last chapter (called "Beyond Blade Runner" thus). So it's somehow incomplete but it can stands on its own (160 pages long) as it's an essay on the urbanism and sociology of Los Angeles in the late 90's. It basically tells some stories behind the development (or decay) of several L.A. neighbourhoods, mostly based on poverty, crime, the need for security (as the book was written several years after the 90's riots) and how it shaped the city into some divided society both geographically and sociologically. At its core, I think it's an interesting subject but I would only recommend it only if you know L.A. in real life as you would get a better real point of view of the areas an how they evolved since then.

* The Journalists Slash Themselves To Die * by Lauren Malka

The title is a wordplay between the french title of the TV series "Thorn Birds" (which was translated as "the birds hide themselves to die") and the "slash" chraracter which is used in internet URL links.

This book is a kind of essay on the ideal of journalism and the challenges it faces against the new rules of information in the current age of Internet. The surprise here is that instead of being a "traditional" essay, it's written like a fiction as it tells the conversation between an old historian who has a deep knowledge of the early days of the press and a young student who is naturally more aware of modern technologies like Google Trends/Analytics and such. The two exchanges their points of view on whether the "quality" of the press has diminished with the rise of the Web or if its technical and financial/marketing constraints have always been there. It's quite an interesting and nice-to-read book and it has an extensive bibliography for those who want to dig deeper. Recommended.

https://www.amazon.fr/journalistes-slashent-pour-mourir/dp/2221137051/

El mago con cara de vidrio...A book made from an exiled writer of my country, oh and "Un estudio de la ceguera"

I don't know the traduction but a family has been giving me books weekly to read, I do slow but I can manage, in fact, I was gifted a book from them from Juan Rulfo: Pedro Paramo "El llano en llamas"

Last night, I finished Knife of Dreams (Robert Jordan). After the very slow Crossroads of twilight (in hindsight), this book felt refreshing. Still a lot to read, but the ending chapters really finished a few long-running threads, setting up a lot for the conclusion in the process. After pausing with another book, I intend to finish this series in August.

Books finished in 2016:
#1: Winter's Heart, Robert Jordan
#2: Dune, Frank Herbert
#3: Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
#4: Tower of the Swallow, Andrzej Sapkowski
#5: Knife of Dreams Robert Jordan

Red Hot Steele - Alex P. Berg
nice fantasy/mystery let down by weak mystery and weak world building. Quick read and some chuckles.

So far I've finished three books.

Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!
A Clash of Kings
Dune

Currently reading Dune Messiah and I may read either Children of Dune or Stephen King's The Stand afterwards.

The Lost World (Jurassic Park)

Like a more scientific sequel to Jurassic Park than the film version was. Other than a few large points like there being a second island with dinosaurs on it, it was almost a completely different story to the Steven Spielberg film. It acted as a much better sequel than any of the movie sequels.

I like light reading thriller novels, this was a fine one. I'm going to keep an eye out for Congo also by Michael Crichton.

Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie. I muscled my way through it. I didn't really like it that much. I was expecting something mind-blowing, but it was a pretty simple story, told with some literary gimmicks. And some strange mid-book obsession with tea (*I think actually at one point the protagonist interrupts her tea-drinking to go drink more tea*).

Finished the Mordant's Need duology by Stephen R. Donaldson over the last week. Consists of the books The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through. I love his works and had read this one years ago when it was first released. Upon a second read it's not as great as I once thought, but still quite entertaining.

Now moving on to Reamde by Neal Stephenson.

* Legends and Tales from Provence * by Nicole Lazzarini and Jean-Noël Rochut

Provence is a region in the south-east of France. It's an illustrated book with 4 traditional local tales. It's aimed at children but I tought some of the vocabulary used was maybe too "advanced" for them but overall it was a good short read between more serious readings. The illustrations were nice too.

An example of some famous local tale in English:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasque

The Silence of the Lambs.

* Ways Of Seeing * by John Berger

"Ways Of Seeing" was initially a BBC art program of 4 episodes shot in the 70's. The book is a written version of those episodes with 3 extra chapters consisting only of pictures. There are thus 4 shorts essays. It goes about the difference of perception of paintings through the modern means of reproduction, the female nudity, the notion of property/possessions conveyed and the parrallels between publicity ads and traditional paintings. As said in the introduction note those essays are intended to be tought-provoking to the reader. As such, it accomplishes to give new possible insights to the readers but from a pure reading point of view , I thought it lacked developments as the chapters are short, the writing is too dense and it gives a general feeling of ideas being imposed as ultimate truths. In this regard, I find that the TV episodes were better suitable to convey the ideas as the pacing through the montage is different and better thought with the viewers in mind. So I would better recommend to watch the TV series (around 2 hours in total).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GI8mNU5Sg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7wi8jd7aC4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTUebm73IY

The Long Earth (Terry Pratchet en Stephen Baxter) was finished yesterday. A wonderful book, with great writing, characters and an ending that raises many questions. I'm looking forward to the next one!

Books finished in 2016:
#1: Winter's Heart, Robert Jordan
#2: Dune, Frank Herbert
#3: Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
#4: Tower of the Swallow, Andrzej Sapkowski
#5: Knife of Dreams, Robert Jordan
#6: The Long Earth, Terry Pratcher en Stephen Baxter

* Manual for Complex Negociations * by Marwan Mery

As the title says, it's about negociating. The focus is mainly in a B2B context and most of the book is written and structured like it can be re-used and be teachable in seminars. Most of the book is a rehash of classic stuff you have already probably read in business books with tips inspired by the NLP and so on. The novelty is in the last parts which deals with psychology and intense discussions where threats, insults and such arise and how to deal with it. So for me as I was already familiar with all the concepts, the reading was dull and only the last part got my interest as it goes beyond the usual "let's hug". I'm currently reading his follow-up book which is more interesting as it focus only on psychologically-ill profiles.