Book Review: Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan

Making it the 17th book I've read this year, this week I cover Robert Jordan's Lord of Chaos.

So it turns out I was wrong, and I could actually finish another book before the end of the year. All this driving to and from Canberra recently has been an opportunity to make good headway on listening through audiobooks.

Lord of Chaos - Robert Jordan

Image credit: Amazon, you can buy it there in a number of formats

The sixth book in the Wheel of Time series follows a number of story arcs. Escaped 'false dragon' Mazrim Taim swears to the Dragon Reborn and is given the task of finding and training other men who can wield the one power; the rebel Aes Sedai and the White Tower both send emissaries to court Rand's allegiance; Nyaneve and Elayne are sent to find a powerful relic to try to break the Dark One's hold on the weather; Egwene's training with the Wise Ones is cut short when she is summoned without warning to the rebel Aes Sedai; Perrin is pulled to Rand, feeling that Rand will need him; Queen Morgase is detained by the Children of the Light; and Mat is caught in the middle of a lot of plots, and is generally shoved this way and that.

Book Review: Battlers and Billionaires by Dr Andrew Leigh

Is there a strain on the Australian social fabric? Battlers and Billionaires looks at the historical trends in inequality in Australia to find out.

I usually wouldn't make a post for just a single book, but it's getting close to the end of the year and I'm not sure if I'll finish another between now and then. That, and I've still got some catching up to do on my blog posts - so yay for extra content.

As much as I love my Kindle, sometimes you want to read a real bookbook. So I went down to my local library over the weekend, procured a library card and borrowed Battlers and Billionaires. As an aside, libraries are seriously underrated - I will have to write about this at a later date. Anyway, I had a bit of extra time to read this week because I was travelling for work, so I was able to knock this one over pretty quickly.

Image credit: Amazon, you can buy it there for Kindle or on Paperback.

I've got a fair bit of respect for Andrew Leigh. He's one of only a handful of federal MPs that I can think of who has a PhD, and I think he's one of the only ones that doesn't distance themselves from it for fear that being seen as an academic will somehow make him less relatable to ordinary folk. In fact, probably because he is an academic, you get the sense that he values data and evidence, and can be objective; other MPs might talk about 'evidence-based policy', but - for me at least - he walks the walk. It also helps that he has a passion for the dismal science - economics - so that gets points in my book.

Battlers and Billionaires, as the subtitle neatly describes, is the story of inequality in Australia; firstly looking at inequality over time through the lenses of income, wealth and consumption, then examining its drivers, effects and possible solutions. And it does this in a relatable, conversational tone which makes it easily readable, and easy to grasp his arguments. Note that Leigh doesn't argue that we should pursue perfect equality, or that we should attempt to recreate the 1970s-1980s. His main point is that inequality is an issue worth discussing and addressing, and that we could apply lessons learnt from this period to today.

A couple of things struck me while reading this book. The first being that your perspective of Australian inequality very much depends on when you were born; Leigh's anecdote is that older Australians have mostly experienced falling inequality throughout their lives, with the last few decades being "an aberration", whereas those in Generation Y have only seen increasing inequality.

The second was how high tax rates were during the War periods. In the later years of World War II, the top marginal tax bracket was 93%. Clearly this was required to shift resources from the private sector to the public sector to assist the war effort, but it also shows that Australians can withstand much higher tax rates providing it is linked to the national interest. This is quite relevant today, despite political rhetoric that 'Australians are paying too much tax'.

Overall, I thought it was worthwhile reading.

An issue I have with Facebook

Face facts: You probably have a lot of people on Facebook that you don't interact with. If you don't interact with them, why do you remain "friends"? Does Facebook hold relationships in stasis?

You're probably most likely reading this because of a link that I posted (automatically) on Facebook. If so, congratulations - you made the cut. Yesterday morning I shortened my friends list on Facebook by more than half; from about 150 to less than 75. I culled, and I culled hard. My guiding rule was that if you are not family and I haven't spoken to you (outside of a work environment) in the last 6-12 months then you're out. And I feel lighter for it.

My interest in Facebook was already waning, and especially since I did a month without media at all. I've stated before that the only useful features of Facebook now are messaging and events. In fact, with the Facebook Messenger app and integration of Facebook events with my regular calendar app, I pretty much have no need for Facebook's news feed and no desire to check it, except if I'm bored, procrastinating or looking for something to do that doesn't require much thinking or effort. Hypothetically then, if I've dramatically reduced the number of potential sources that populate my news feed, and if those who are left are the contacts that I value most, shouldn't the outcome be a news feed that I am more interested and engaged with? Maybe, but this doesn't take into account whether the stuff that people post is interesting. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

One element that I dislike about Facebook is that it preserves relationships in some sort of cryogenic stasis. To me, relationships are organic. They are created and sustained by mutual interaction, sometimes they bloom into something bigger that can be sustained over a long period of time, but sometimes they don't, and sometimes they fade. There's nothing inherently good or bad about any of this, but Facebook doesn't allow much for relationships to fade. If you've known someone, anyone, at some point in your life, you can be branded as "friends" by Facebook. Maybe you were at some point, maybe you weren't. But that distinction isn't really separated by Facebook. Being branded as "friends" conjures up a lot of connotations, whether intentionally or not, and this makes it a very hard decision (in the sense of being both difficult and cold) to "unfriend" someone. I visualise the concept of unfriending someone online as the digital equivalent of your primary school self saying "You're not my friend anymore" in the playground - that it is a very hurtful thing to do to another person. Only it shouldn't be. Some relationships dissolve over time - people change and shared interests and situations fall away. And that's okay, in real life and online. But I'd prefer not to be psychologically held hostage and compelled to remain attached to people when I haven't maintained a relationship with them in reality. I'd bet that Facebook would never introduce a feature that reflects your actual social network; one that would automatically unfriend people based on how much interaction you have with them.

And yet, there's some part of me that is afraid of missing out. Afraid that by not using technology to keep in touch with people or to expand my social circle, that I'm missing out on opportunities to refresh those connections or be able to take advantage of them (you know, the I-know-a-guy situation). Unfortunately, this appears to be the cost of a bit more privacy and a bit less inanity.

Book Review: The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan and Mortality by Christopher Hitchens

With the reading challenge surpassed, this week I review Mortality by Christopher Hitchens and The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan.

Well, this is a bit of a surprise - I didn't think I'd be able to read 12 books in a year, let alone 15. There's something a little different too. I thought I may have been reading too much fiction and not enough that was grounded in reality, so I decided to read Christopher Hitchens's final book Mortality.

The Fires of Heaven - Robert Jordan

Image credit: Amazon, you can buy it there in a range of formats.

The fifth book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series follows the beginnings of Rand's campaign towards the Last Battle. Rand pursues the Shaido Aiel across the Spine of the World following the trail of death left in their wake. Long-dead memories help Mat become an adept battle strategist  while he attempts to break away from the Dragon Reborn. Elayne and Nyaneve find their way to the rebel Aes Sedai and Queen Morgase of Andor escapes from a trap of compulsion.

Mortality - Christopher Hitchens

Image credit: Amazon, available in a range of formats.

Christopher Hitchens has long been a hero of mine. His last book before his death is his raw, confronting story of his diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and his observations on the way we think and speak about death in our day to day lives. Part of what is so powerful about this book is because of it's rawness; it is not complete - you can envision that Hitchens had much grander plans for this book, but was cut short. The final chapter is a collection of his jottings and notes, of ideas that he wanted to connect, of chapters he wanted to form - perhaps after doing some more research or reading, or perhaps just that he hadn't yet gotten to writing them. A writer, public speaker and debater without equal - fearless to speak his mind, charismatic and witty; the world has indeed lost one of it's greats.

I'm back (kind of)

My trusty Excel calculation (=weeknum(today(),1))) informs me that the 44th week of the year is coming to an end quickly, and I have a lot of catching up to do if I'm going to meet my goal of writing one blog post a week this year. So then, a quick update of what I've been up to while I haven't been blogging.

Basically, I've been fucking busy. My last post was at the start of October, and since then I've:

• celebrated Jess's birthday (which was a bonanza)
• celebrated Erin's birthday
• played a gig with Tortured
• driven down to Canberra and back twice
• started doing some research assistant work for Jess' mum
• finished a book and started two more and 
• started jamming with Namazu - a new Newcastle band with a bunch of cool guys, including Ian and Scott from my Exploding Clover days (You can check out some of their stuff here.)

All while also working full-time - it's been absolutely hectic. In fact, this weekend is going to be my first that is reasonably clear in all that time, and it's only because I'm planning on celebrating my birthday. I'm heading out to Potters Brewery in the Hunter Valley for lunch and tomorrow I'll be going out to Springloaded in Gateshead - a room full of trampolines - to throw dodgeballs at my closest friends. Followed by a barbecue.

On the subject of birthdays, Jess's birthday went very well this year - we had dinner and cheesecake with her family one night, we went out for dinner at Fortunate Son the next (awesome restaurant on Beaumont Street, by the by), and we had a barbecue with our friends the day after. And she seems to have really enjoyed her gifts, most of which I coordinated.

Last weekend, Tortured played a gig at The Basement in Canberra with Claret Ash, Psychrist and Cruciform. It was a pretty bad-ass show; all the bands were goddamn heavy, and I think we devastated even though we haven't had as much jam time since I moved to Newcastle. We even had our former bandmate Bobby from Wretch join us on stage, so meaty dual guitars topped off our sound for the night. Once again, I've got to give kudos to Aaron from Claret Ash for letting me use his kit; travelling light between Newcastle and Canberra is a huge bonus for me.

In other news, I saw that today was supposed to mark the beginning of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo if you insist. I was considering taking part, however, with how little time I have at the moment, I feel I would be crushed by the weight of the 1,700 or so words that I would need to write everyday to complete the challenge. Next year, mayhap.