Book Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon

Despite how this book is advertised, it's not a murder mystery. Well, there is a murder mystery within it but it's just a small part of the overall story. The primary theme running throughout the book is the main character's relationship with his parents and the strain that his autism spectrum disorder has had on his parents' relationship.

Regarding style, the book has some maths and logic sprinkled throughout it. You'll like that or not like it depending on whether you like maths and logic. The author also slips in – through the voice of the main character – arguments for the non-existence of God. Except – in both chapters where this occurs – it doesn't read like the voice of a 15 year old Christopher John Francis Boone but the voice of a 40 year old Mark Haddon. It came across as out of place and forcefully interjected.

Overall this was an okay read but not what I expected it to be. I expected a math-based murder mystery. I found a mildly emotional family drama.

Book Review: The Catcher in the Rye, by Jerome David Salinger

Three days and three nights in the life of a teenage boy – Holden Caulfied – who has escaped school and is wandering around 1940s New York. That's the backdrop of this book. The focus of the book is Holden's state of mind and volatile emotional state. Chief among his emotions is the belief that almost everybody – with the clear exception of his younger sister Phoebe and his younger brother Allie who passed away three years before the events of the book – is a phony.

I found this book very readable and I enjoyed Holden's sweeping statements littered throughout the book. You can't take this book too seriously but it is a serious book! It is quite dark at times so bear that mind before picking it up.

Below are my favourite passages from the book:

It's partly true, too, but it isn't *all* true. People always think something's *all* true. 

He was always asking you to do him a big favour. You take a very handsome guy, or a guy that thinks he's a real hot-shot, and they're always asking you to do them a big favour. Just because *they're* crazy about themself, they think *you're* crazy about them, too, and that you're just dying to do them a favour. It's sort of funny, in a way. 

I didn't answer him straight away. Suspense is good for some bastards…

He gave out a big yawn while did he said that. Which is something that gives me a royal pain in the ass. I mean if somebody *yawns* right while they're asking you to do them a goddamn favour. 

That's something else that gives me a royal pain. I mean if you're good at writing compositions and somebody starts talking about commas… He wanted you to think that the only reason *he* was lousy at writing compositions was because he stuck all the commas in the wrong place. 

That was one good thing about Stradlater. You didn't have to explain every goddamn little thing with him, the way you had to do with Ackley. Mostly, I guess, because he wasn't too interested. That's really why. Ackley, it was different. Ackley a very nosy bastard.

…he didn't answer me right away. He was the kind of a guy that hates to answer you right away.

He always had to know who was going. I swear, if that guy was shipwrecked somewhere, and you rescued him in a goddamn boat, he'd want to know who the guy was that was rowing it before he'd even get in.

When I really worry about something, I don't just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don't go. I'm too worried to go. I don't want to interrupt my worrying to go.

He was always stroking his stomach or his chest. He was mad about himself.

He hated it when you called him a moron. All morons hate it when you call them a moron.

That's just the trouble with all you morons. You never want to discuss anything. That's the way you can always tell a moron. They never want to discuss anything intellig–

I felt so lonesome, all of a sudden. I almost wished I was dead.

My mother gets very hysterical. She's not too bad after she gets something thoroughly digested, though.

…you should've seen her. I had her glued to her seat. You take somebody's mother, all they want to hear about is what a hot-shot their son is.

You take a guy like Morrow that's always snapping their towel at people's asses – really trying to *hurt* somebody with it – they don't just stay a rat while they're a kid. They stay a rat they're whole life.

…I tried to get them in a little intelligent conversation, but it was practically impossible.

I thought the two ugly ones, Marty and Laverne, were sisters, but they got very insulted when I asked them. You could tell neither one of them wanted to look like the other one, and you couldn't blame them, but it was very amusing anyway.

The Navy guy and I told each other we were glad to've met each other. Which always kills me. I'm always saying 'Glad to've met you' to somebody I'm not at *all* glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.

One of my troubles is, I never care too much when I lose something – it used to drive my mother crazy when I was a kid. Some guys spend *days* looking for something they lost. I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I'd care too much. Maybe that's why I'm partly yellow.

If you want to know the truth, I can't stand ministers. The ones they've had at every school I've gone to, they all have these Holy Joe voices when they start giving their sermons. God, I hate that. I don't see why the hell they can't talk in their natural voice. They sound so phony when they talk.

The goddamn movies. They can ruin you. I'm not kidding.

What I really felt like, though, was committing suicide. I felt like jumping out the window. I probably would've done it, too, if I'd been sure somebody'd cover me up as soon as I landed. I didn't want a bunch of stupid rubbernecks looking at me when I was all gory.

I used to think she was quite intelligent, in my stupidity. The reason I did was because she knew quite a lot about the theatre and plays and literature and all that stuff. If somebody knows quite a lot about those things, it takes you quite a while to find out whether they're really stupid or not.

He was enjoying the conversation about tennis and all, but you could tell he would've enjoyed it *more* if I was a Catholic and all. That kind of stuff drives me crazy. I'm not saying it ruined our conversation or anything – it didn't – but it sure as hell didn't do it any good.

He was the kind of a phony that had to give themselves room when they answer somebody's question. He stepped back, and stepped right on the lady's foot behind him. He probably broke every toe in her body.

Girls. You never know what they're going to think.

She was about as kindhearted as a goddamn wolf. You take somebody that cries their goddamn eyes out over phony stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart. I'm not kidding.

These intellectual guys don't like to have an intellectual conversation with you unless they're running the whole thing.

The thing he was afraid of, he was afraid somebody'd say something smarter than *he* had. He really amused me.

People never give your message to anybody.

…they had this goddamn secret fraternity that I was too yellow not to join.

…you don't have to be a bad guy to depress somebody – you can be a *good* guy and do it. All you have to do to depress somebody is give them a lot of phony advice…

That's something that annoys hell out of me – I mean if somebody *says* the coffee's all already and it isn't.

You hate to tell *new* stuff to somebody around a hundred years old. They don't like to hear it. 

5-day family trip to Marrakesh, Morocco 🇲🇦

Here's a write-up of my trip to Marrakesh, Morocco last week with family. We were a group of 14 with a mix of ages from toddlers to seniors.

Accommodation 🏡

We stayed in the south of Marrakesh around 20 minutes by car to the centre. We booked a villa which we had exclusive access to. The villa had a decent size swimming pool and a large garden. We booked it via Airbnb.

Expect to pay £400 to £600 per night for a villa which has a decent size swimming pool and a decent size garden. The earlier you book and the further you are from the town centre, the more you'll get for your money.

Flights ✈️

We flew with Ryanair from London Stansted to Marrakesh Menara Airport. Our flight both ways was an afternoon flight which was just perfect. (Early morning and late night flights are the worst!) We booked our flights six months ahead of our trip and it cost us around £200 per person.

Getting around 🚐

We used a company called Tours R Us Morocco to transport us around by minibus. They charged us around £50 for a two-way trip to the town centre. We asked around and that was the price that different transport providers were quoting.

We used TTC Morocco for our airport transfers. We booked it via Travel Supermarket (which is powered by HolidayTaxis) for £65 (there and back).

Both transport companies were great. We used two different companies for the sake of experimenting and matching prices.

Food 🥘🥤

We did a big shop at Carrefour in Menara Mall on our first day because we had no grocery stores near us and so that we wouldn't have to go grocery shopping again after.

For meals, our routine was as follows:

1. Make breakfast ourselves in our accommodation.
2. Keep it simple for lunch with bread and cheese from a local bakery.
3. Go out for dinner or order in from a local restaurant.

For dinner, we stuck to the recommendations of our accommodation host and they were bang on the money. The restaurants which we got food from and enjoyed were Venezia Ice, Bladna and Toubkal. Expect to pay around £5 to £8 per person at these restaurants.

Book Review: Prisoners of Geography, by Tim Marshall

This book contains a nice succinct recent history of the modern world. Perhaps it is oversimplified in parts but that's what makes it so readable in my opinion. One of the recurring discussions in the book is the greater role that natural geographic features such as mountains, rivers and coastlines play in identifying and shaping ethnicities than lines on a map. We see a number of examples where an ethnic group identifies more with the people on the other side of the border than with those with whom it shares a country. The Pashtun people of north-west Pakistan and south-east Afghanistan are a good example of this but there are plenty others. Another recurring discussion in the book is the role that a nation's natural geographic makeup plays towards its successes or its struggles. To summarise: This is an insightful book. Get it. Read it.

Below are some quotes from the book.

"... political realities are shaped by the most basic physical realities."

"The colonial powers drew artificial borders on paper, completely ignoring the physical realities of the region."

"Although 75 per cent of its [i.e. Russia's] territory is in Asia, only 22 per cent of its population lives there."

"When the Soviet Union broke apart, it split into fifteen countries. Geography had its revenge on the ideology of the Soviets and a more logical picture reappeared on the map, one in which mountains, rivers, lakes and seas delineate where people live, are separated from each other and thus how they develop different languages and customs."

"For Russia this [i.e. the control of Crimea] was an existential matter: they could not cope with losing Crimea, the West could."

"It doesn't matter if the ideology of those in control is tsarist, Communist or crony capitalist – the ports [to the north and east of Russia] still freeze, and the North European Plain is still flat."

"It remains a feature of China to this day that when China opens up, the coastland regions prosper but the inland areas are neglected."

"Demographics and geopolitics oppose Tibetan independence."

"If we take Europe as a whole we see the mountains, rivers and valleys that explain why there are so many nation states. Unlike the USA, in which one dominant language and culture pressed rapidly and violently ever westward, creating a giant country, Europe grew organically over millennia and remains divided between its geographical and linguistic regions."

"Geographically, the Brits are in a good place. Good farmland, close enough to the European Continent to trade and yet protected by dint of being an island race – there have been times when the UK gave thanks for its geography as wars and revolutions swept over its neighbours."

"What is undeniable is that the water around the island, the trees upon it which allowed a great navy to be built, and the economic conditions which sparked the Industrial Revolution all led to Great Britain controlling a global empire."

"... geography tells us that if humans do not constantly strive to overcome its 'rules', its 'rules' will overcome us."

"Almost the entire continent [of Africa] developed in isolation from the Eurasian land mass, where ideas and technology were exchanged from east to west, and west to east, but not north to south."

"Much of the land [in Africa] consists of jungle, swamp, desert or steep-sided plateau, none of which lend themselves to the growing of wheat or rice, or sustaining herds of sheep."

"Africa's rhinos, gazelles and giraffes stubbornly refused to be beasts of burden..."

"Most of the continent's [i.e. Africa's] rivers also pose a problem, as they begin in high land and descend in abrupt drops which thwart navigation."

"The continent's [i.e. Africa's] great rivers... don't connect and this disconnection has a human factor. Whereas huge areas of Russia, China and the USA speak a unifying language which helps trade, in Africa thousands of languages exist and no one culture emerged to dominate areas of similar size."

"... the Europeans... took maps of the contours of Africa's geography and drew lines on them – or, to take a more aggressive approach, lies... These lines were more about how far which power's explorers, military forces and businessmen had advanced on the map than what the people living between the lines felt themselves to be, or how they wanted to organise themselves."

"... the European idea of geography did not fit the reality of Africa's demographics."

"The notion that a man from a certain area [in the Middle East] could not travel across a region to see a relative from the same tribe unless he had a document, granted to him by a third man he didn't know in a faraway town, made little sense. The idea that the document was issued because a foreigner had said the area was now two regions and had made up names for them made no sense at all and was contrary to the way in which life had been lived for centuries."

"To this day most people [in Latin America] still live close to the coastal areas..."

"Until recently the riches [in the Arctic] were theoretical, but the melting ice has made the theoretical probable, and in some cases certain. The melting of the ice changes the geography and the stakes... The hunger for energy suggests the race is inevitable..."

"There are going to be a lot more ships in the High North [i.e. the Arctic], a lot more oil rigs and gas platforms – in fact, a lot more of everything."

"... wars are started by fear of the other as well as by greed..."

"... we have neither conquered our own geography yet, nor our propensity to compete for it."

"... geography does not dictate the course of all events. Great ideas and great leaders are part of the push and pull of history. But they must all operate within the confines of geography."

"... although we have broken free from the shackles of gravity, we are still imprisoned in our own minds, confined by our suspicion of the 'other', and thus our primal competition for resources."

Book Review: Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

This is a must-read. If you didn't have the pleasure of reading this book at school, do your self a favour and get it and read it. It's a short book (100 pages roughly) so it won't take you long to read at all. I found myself reading it twice over back-to-back. The standout themes in the book for me were companionship and loyalty. In particular, the companionship and loyalty that the two main characters – George and Lennie – display towards each other. We see how companionship and loyalty gives these two characters a sense of completeness. We see how other characters in the book who are missing this have a sense of incompleteness about them. To summarise: It's a top-drawer book. Get it. Read it.

Here are my favourite quotes from the book:

Slim: "Guys don't need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus' works the other way around. Take a real smart guy and he ain't hardly ever a nice fella."

Crooks: "You go on get outta my room. I ain't wanted in the bunk house, and you ain't wanted in my room... They play cards in there, but I can't play because I'm black. They say I stink. Well, I tell you, you all of you stink to me."

Crooks: "S'pose you didn't have nobody. S'pose you couldn't go into the bunk house and play rummy 'cause you was black. How'd you like that? S'pose you had to sit out here an' read books. Sure you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody—to be near him... A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya... I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick."

Crooks: "A guy sets alone out here at night, maybe readin' books or thinkin' stuff like that. Sometimes he gets thinkin', an' he got nothing to tell him what's so an' what ain't so. Maybe if he sees something', he don't know whether it's right or not. He can't turn to some other guy and ast him if he sees it too. He can't tell. He got nothing to measure by."

Crooks: "I seen too many guys with land in their head. They never get none under their hand."

Walk: Otford station to Kemsing station in Kent, England

I walked yesterday from Otford station to Kemsing station along the North Downs Way. You can find my route on the Ordnance Survey Maps app here. Some details to call out:

1. If you're going from London, get a return ticket for London Victoria to Kemsing via Otford 🚆🚆
2. The train each way is hourly and it does not run on Sundays. Factor that into your planning ⏱⏱
3. Navigating pathways was a bit of a challenge at times. Have a compass and map to hand 🧭🗺
4. It was wet and muddy in places. If you go outside of summer, wear waterproof footwear 🥾🥾
5. If you go in April, look out for and enjoy the bluebells.

Book Review: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Jay Fowler

Warning: spoiler alert

This book had some good ideas about memory. Specifically, when we revisit or narrate an old memory again and again, does that memory start to take a life of its own which is distinct from the original event? Other than this, the book was pretty okay: Not too great, not too bad. It's the story of the protagonist (Rosemary) and her family struggling to come to terms with the "loss" of her sister. The final page – when Rosemary finally meets her sister after years apart – was strong:

"I didn't know what she was thinking or feeling. Her body had become unfamiliar to me. And yet, at the very same time, I recognized everything about her."