Reading - February 2026

Hello World by Hannah Fry (2018)

Subtitled "How to be human in the age of the machine", this is an interesting but possibly already slightly dated look at how algorithms affect our lives in the 21st century. The main thing that dates it is, of course, the rise of AI in the last 3-4 years. Then again, the LLMs (ChatGPT et al) are essentially just very sophisticated algorithms and the ethics and issues raised by using them haven't changed, even though their use has become more widely known and, to some extent, accepted. In her conclusion, Fry suggests that the main developments needed to accommodate algorithms into human life is to firstly make them more open, rather than proprietary black boxes, and secondly to properly understand and work with their limitations rather than just blindly accepting their results as truth - both suggestions that make perfect sense but sadly seem a little far away at the moment.

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig (2024)

I'm not normally particularly fond of magical realism, but Matt Haig's books have always hit a reasonable blend for me: not too fantastical, but just enough to make the metaphor work and the points come across. Here, however, it's just a bit too much and the main character just a bit too magical. Why this should be so when I am quite happy to watch MCU films that dress up the same kind of superpowers with "science", I'm not sure, but there we go. The narrative is always good - Haig writes with a deceptively simple clarity that I reminds me a little of Alexander McCall Smith - but the points being made, despite being ones I can't possibly disagree with, seem a little heavy-handed.

The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary (2019)

The ostensibly high concept of this novel ("Tiffy and Leon share a bed. Tiffy and Leon have never met ...") is actually largely irrelevant, as exactly the same story could have been told with a two bedroom flat. Luckily it doesn't stop the development of a sweet relationship and a good story. Once I got into it properly I polished the second half of the book off in an afternoon. A very welcome birthday present from K!

When Good Things Happen To Bad Boys by Lori Foster, Erin McCarthy & Helen Kay Dimon (2006)

Three short stories: two not bad, one a bit weird. All showing their age - thankfully we don't think it's romantic when men force themselves on women any more.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (1995)

Superficially, this is a little time capsule from thirty years ago - mixtapes, smoking in pubs, recording things off the telly, remember that? At a deeper level, of course, it's timeless: about a certain type of man who never really grew up. I can remember enjoying the novel when I last read it - probably only a couple of years after it came out, when I was in my mid-twenties, ten years younger than Rob is in the book - as I recognised a kindred spirit, someone a little too obsessive about music and prone to feeling lost in an adult world. But ten years later, I was that man in a suit with a good job, wife and kids that Rob finds so intimidating when he meets one of his ex-girlfriends (an episode that forms a much smaller part of the plot than I remember, interestingly). And now I'm twenty years older again, I just find him a bit irritating - a self-centred child who can't understand why people are annoyed with him. The book's still a good read though.