Meriel Schindler (2021)

A vivd memoir of pre-war Central Europe and the café culture that so much defined it (and still does). The Schindlers of the title are not the now-more-famous branch of the family, but they attained centrality by their catering and social status centred around their Innsbruch café.

This is both a family history and a broader social treatment of how confused and interwoven the various stories from that period and location can be. Schindler starts on her quest to understand her own family after the death of her awkward and domineering father leaves her with access to tantalising clues as to his own involvement in the events, as well as her memories of her refugee relatives, their allusions to their previous eminence, and her own childhood memories of running from her father’s creditors. In the process she uncovers the ways in which Jews integrated into Austrian society – and were then expelled and victimised, amid much confusion, when the political tide turned.

The inclusion of recipes in the back of the book is just a joyful addition to an already quite fascinating tale.

4/5. Finished Monday 19 June, 2023.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Alison Gazzard

A look at the BBC Micro through a very academic prism: I’ve never seen some popular games dissected or considered as topics for post-modern readings! In this sense it’s a very different treatment to the more common histories of computers from this era, and one that I suspect for most people will be a lot less satisfying.

3/5. Finished Friday 9 June, 2023.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

William Gibson (2020)

The follow-up to The Peripheral, where the plot gets weirder and the motives of everyone become more murky. I don’t think it holds together as well as its predecessor, and there’s none of the pace or surprise that made the earlier book so enjoyable. It might make good material for a further TV adaptation, though.

2/5. Finished Saturday 3 June, 2023.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Adrian Tchaikovsky (2022)

A thoughtful and well-paced sequel to Shards of Earth. It’s notable for its ambitious premises, but also for its incredibly flawed protagonist and genuinely alien aliens. These include humans hybridised to increase their longevity and robustness, the Parthenon group of cloned female warriors, the Architects dismantling planets seemingly at random and the Originators who developed artefacts that prevent this, and the far more advanced (and inscrutable) Essiel.

The complexity and richness of the book come from the lack of knowledge that everyone seems to have about everyone else and their motives. Why are the Architects destroying planets? Why did the Originators develop ways to stop them? And what exactly are the Essiel up to at all? It makes the plot somewhat akin to a detective story as well as being classic space opera, and that’s unusual: science fiction that ventures into the essential un-knowability of aliens.

4/5. Finished Saturday 3 June, 2023.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Oliver Bullough (2022)

A searing indictment of how Britain operates as the world’s largest tax haven.

OK, maybe not directly. But despite frequently seeming to champion global tax reform and the fight against evasion, the UK sits at the centre of a network of facilitators, aided and abetted by laws and customs that make it an attractive site for dirty money.

One can start with the “real” tax havens, many of which are British Dependent Territories. Could their behaviour be changed? – well, the clue is in the name. It could be changed tomorrow, giving them the choice of co-operating with international tax authorities or being cast adrift as newly-independent countries. Some might choose that route, but the fat remains that there’s clearly something attractive in dependency, including access to a legal system that’s largely trusted.

That same legal system is also a facilitator, though. All sorts of ancient laws pop up in unusual circumstances and allow smart accountants to create tax-evading shells, ranging from Scottish partnerships to “carried interest” arrangements originally designed for 16th-century sea captains and now used to shield hedge fund managers. Put enough complexity in place and the trails become impossible to follow.

The question obviously arises as to why this situation isn’t cleaned up, since it’s simply a matter of cleaning-up the law. This is where Bullough’s tale is at its most shocking: the deliberate desire to keep the dirty money flowing through London both to provide revenue and to encourage the network of tax and legal professionals who attract other, hopefully more legitimate, business. Doiing so may make narrow financial sense, but it comes at the cost of protecting money looted by the criminal and the corrupt, and of makinf further looting more likely by making the perpetrators less likely to be caught. It’s a dirty business that’s being encouraged by Brexit and the need to maintain a global presence.

4/5. Finished Friday 2 June, 2023.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)