Words and Pictures - April

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This month I got stuck in a tome, and I found it hard to leave the office during the day, which meant my lunchtime Instapaper routine didn’t happen very often, which means there aren’t so many smaller articles for recommendation this month.

Notable reading:

  • All Hell Let Loose - Max Hastings. A large and well written book on WW2 events focusing more on government and society than units, movements and generals. The material is excellent and informative but I did not enjoy it, so I stopped about half way through. In another place, with more mental and emotional energy, I would have completed it. I suspect my war reading will remain in the sanitised combat-centric genre, even though Hastings reminded me of the horrific effects of war.
  • Ain’t No Reason - Lex Friedman. Insight into pidgins, creoles, grammar and prescriptive linguists, in the context of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Articles like this are the reason I keep reading Marco Arment’s The Magazine (he’s the guy who wrote the Instapaper iPad App that I so regularly use).

Movies:

  • Skyfall. If it weren’t for the last 15 minutes and the rooftop bike scene, I’d have forgotten it already. Pithy, explosive enjoyment.
  • Bullitt. Come for the car chase, stay for the cinematography. My only expectations were of the green Mustang Fastback so I was surprised to find myself captivated by the scenes without dialogue and the periods of silence, which reminded me of the amazing safe-cracking scene in Rififi. Far more artsy than I expected, and very enjoyable.

Having just loaded a bunch of articles from Longform, and recently added the RSS feed from The Browser, I suspect I’ll have some prize articles to list next month.