newsonaut
Turning inner space into outer space
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
I seldom own my books
#julyreply
Michael Harley prefers to read books on an e-reader, and makes sure he truly owns them by stripping off the DRM if possible.
This is not a problem for me because I mostly borrow books from the library with an app called Libby. The library system where I live has a great selection. If a book is popular and hard to get, I put in a hold even if it means waiting months. There are plenty of other books to read in the meantime.
Sometimes, I download an out-of-copyright book from Standard Ebooks. These books are carefully edited and nicely presented. You can get many hours of good reading from Agatha Christie alone.
If I buy a book, I usually buy a used paper book and, when I’m done, I put it in our little free library for someone else to enjoy. There’s really no reason to keep it, so why not pass it along?
I do occasionally buy a new book, but again it will be a paper version and only if it’s a book I think I might read more than once, or use as a reference. I’ve got my eye on Face with Tears of Joy: A Natural History of Emoji for this reason.
But what about Amazon exclusives? I would rather be dipped in the Amazon River with a swarm of piranha fish.
More posts in the Books category
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
My top rated books for 2025
I’m on track to read 46 47 48 books this year — up by four five six from 2024. I was lucky enough to find eight books I felt were worthy of 10 stars out of 10, plus three others that didn’t quite make it with 9.5.
The reason for the strike-throughs is that I managed to squeak in a couple more books before the end of the year. One was an epic that I was determined to be done with after several months, and the other was a page-turner that I devoured in five days.
10/10
A Truce That Is Not Peace
by Miriam Toews
Memoir
Jennie’s Boy
by Wayne Johnston
Memoir
Etta and Otto and Russell and James
by Emma Hooper
Fiction
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
by Agatha Christie
Mystery
A Two-Spirit Journey
by Ma-nee Chacaby
Memoir
The Other Valley
by Scott Alexander Howard
Speculative fiction
Fifteen Dogs
by André Alexis
Speculative fiction
Red Team Blues
by Cory Doctorow
Science fiction
9.5/10
The Ministry of Time
by Kaliane Bradley
Science fiction
How the Light Gets In
by Louise Penny
Mystery/thriller
I Will Ruin You
by Linwood Barclay
Thriller
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Monday, May 5, 2025
Burning through books in a good way
It’s been a month since my last blog post, but that doesn’t mean Newsonaut hasn’t been updated recently. Check out the books section for lots of recent updates. I’ve been ploughing through some excellent reads.
I finally took the plunge with Louise Penny, a much-recommended author. How the Light Gets In is two mysteries in one — major stakes for all of Quebec and Canada, and personal stakes for a few good friends. Rating: 9.5
I put Fifteen Dogs in the fantasy category because it does, after all, involve Greek gods and talking dogs on the streets of Toronto. We can learn a lot from those dogs about what it means to be happy. Rating: 10
Linwood Barclay was a panelist on Canada Reads, which made me curious, so I read one of his many thrillers — I Will Ruin You. It is indeed a page turner, although a bit frustrating because the main character makes obviously bad decisions. Rating: 9.5
The Martin Hench trilogy by Cory Doctorow proves that forensic accounting can be an exciting and dangerous profession. In the first one, Marty is a jaded old man — something I could more easily identify with. By the time we get the the third book, he is young and idealistic, making mistakes but making them for the right reasons. Red Team Blues: 10, The Bezzle: 9, Picks and Shovels: 8.5
All of these books are by Canadian authors, but only the first two take place in Canada. Barclay may have thought the level of violence in his thriller seemed more believable in the U.S., but I would have been OK with it happening in, say, Peterborough, Ontario. Doctorow’s stories take place in the early days of computer technology, which is associated with Silicon Valley. Still, I could see them plausibly happening in Toronto.
That brings me to Untold Tales of Old British Columbia, a collection of historical snippets about my home province. Some are more entertaining that others, but each taught me something I didn’t know, and I’m glad I learned them. I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t know there was a major gold rush on the Fraser River in 1858. Rating: 7.5
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Saturday, March 15, 2025
That tracks
From the novel Red Team Blues, by Cory Doctorow, published in 2023:
From there, I maneuvered to this year's car listings, checking the box for all-electric and unchecking the box for Teslas. I just don't like the man. I've spent enough years around enough bullshitters that I can spot them a mile away. In his case, I could spot him from orbit, using one of his overpromised, underdelivered satellites.
More posts in the Books category
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Here they are — the books I read in 2024
I’ve been tracking the books I read with an iPad app called Book Tracker since the beginning of the year.
The app has an export function, so I was able to get all that data and put it on the web for everyone to see.
The books are in order of how I rated them, from best to worst. If I finished a book with the feeling of “mind blown”, I gave it a 10. Piranesi and The Wager both did this. When Breath Becomes Air almost did it, but was spoiled by the epilogue.
At the bottom are books that I slogged through with the hope that they would get better. They never did. I was especially disappointed with The Night Circus because I had heard it was similar to Piranesi. Maybe in a superficial way, but not really.
I won’t get into the details, but if you want to create something similar, it involves exporting the data as a CSV file, converting it to JSON, and using the JavaScript fetch() function to grab it.
Some of the data was either missing or formatted poorly so I spent some time fixing it up.
More posts in the Books category
Sunday, December 13, 2020
The Shadow of the Past
Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.
I wish it need not have happened in my time,
said Frodo.
So do I,
said Gandalf, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
— J.R.R. Tolkien
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Monday, October 19, 2020
My belated discovery of Farley Mowat
A Canadian who hasn’t read Farley Mowat should be ashamed. So it’s with a red face that I admit to finally getting around to reading my first Mowat book — The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be.
I’m about halfway through, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Mowat was a great Canadian storyteller. He had a wonderful command of the English language, and he knew how to spin a spellbinding yarn.
The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be has me laughing out loud at regular intervals. I love the fact that it takes part in Saskatoon — a nice change from foreign locales I don’t identify with.
This is a book that sat on a shelf unread for more years than I care to admit. The good news is that there are two others — People of the North and A Whale for the Killing. They’re next on my reading list.
And it turns out that Mowat wrote dozens of books. I could be in Mowat mode for years!
More posts in the Books category
Friday, October 2, 2020
Did the Lord of the Flies bring about this pandemic?
I came across The Lord of the Flies in our collection of books, and decided it was high time I read this classic. I knew the basic plot — some boys are stranded on an island, and descend into savagery — but I didn’t know what “Lord of the Flies” referred to. Now I do.
In the story, some of the boys kill a wild boar for its meat. They decide to cut off its head and put it on a spike as a way of placating a “beast” that they believe lurks somewhere on the island. After awhile, the head is covered with flies feasting on the rotting flesh.
One of the boys has a hallucination where the boar’s head speaks to him, and identifies itself as the Lord of the Flies. Being covered in flies, this makes sense at one level. But this also refers (according to a note at the end of the story) to Beelzebub, the Hebrew word for the devil. Translated literally, the word means Lord of the Flies. Translated less literally, it refers to a general state of decay, falling apart and general mayhem — the type of thing the devil would bring to civilization if we are not on our guard.
Reading this in the middle of a pandemic, I can’t help but wonder if the ancients attributed mass misfortunes such as this to the devil. When thousands of innocent people die and suffer for reasons that come out of the blue, it’s not hard to believe that the devil had a hand in it.
Of course, as it turns out, the real evil on the island was within the boys themselves. It’s a bit depressing to think that we humans are the inevitable source of all our ills. But it’s also heartening. We have the ability to make choices for the better.
The Lord of the Flies exists only if we allow it to exist.
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Saturday, October 3, 2015
Now that we've seen the movie, it's time to go to Mars
The most popular movie this weekend would never have seen the light of day before the Internet.
Andy Weir, an author with a background in computer science, couldn’t get The Martian published the old-fashioned way, so he put it on his website instead — one chapter at a time.
The story involves an astronaut using physics, chemistry and biology to survive after being stranded on Mars, and Weir wanted the science to be as realistic as possible. He did a ton of research, but readers of his website also chimed in with corrections that made the story even more science-y.
The next step was to publish a Kindle version. Even though they could read the story for free on his website, 35,000 fans bought The Martian for 99 cents each and made it a best-seller.
That’s when a paper-and-ink publisher finally took notice. The book sold many more copies and is now a blockbuster starring Matt Damon and directed by Ridley Scott. Variety estimates the movie will make $50 million this weekend.
The movie doesn’t go into as much detail on how the main character is able to pull off scientific wonders such as creating water or growing food on a desolate planet. But it does maintain the can-do spirit that serves as inspiration regardless of whether you’re into gadgetry.
I found the book a bit tedious at times because we really are given full explanations for everything. I was tempted to skim, but didn’t want to miss anything important, so I kept forging ahead to find out he solved one crisis after another.
It’s too early to say at this point, but The Martian could be the science fiction movie that helps define this generation. Yes, there is human drama, but it is tempered with solid logic that is fitting for our times.
Compare this with 2001: A Space Odyssey. That movie was all about the wonder and mystery of space exploration. It seems we’ve moved past that and see space travel as simply a more complex version of driving a car or flying an airplane.
This becomes especially true now that we know so much about the destination. NASA and the European Space Agency have been bringing back ever more detailed extraterrestrial photos and analysis. We now know there is flowing water beneath the surface of Mars and have stunning photos to prove it.
As we come to understand the reality of Mars, Pluto or a passing comet named Philae, movies like The Martian seem less fictional and more aspirational.
More posts in the Books category
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Recommended: Indian Horse
Some historical context for anyone covering issues related to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada is provided by a moving novel written by Richard Wagamese — Indian Horse. Recommended for anyone who wants to explore relations between whites and natives.
As a newsonaut, I look to the future of journalism and how we can get there, but remembering and understanding our past is just as important.
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