The Monday Mix (20/12/2021)
Hi friends,
Not much to report this week other than Christmas is now five days away!! As you might have guessed, I really like Christmas, so I can’t wait for it to arrive. It’s great to be with family and a brilliant excuse to watch all the Lord of The Rings and not feel guilty!
I’m going to take a break from this email until January, so no update until then. Have a Merry Christmas and you’ll see me again in the new year. In the meantime, here’s what I want to share this week.
52 Snippets From 2021
I came across this intriguing little post today and had to share it. There are some really cool little facts in here and some nuggets of information that will make your eyes pop. Number 41 blew my mind!
Best Books I read in 2021
This is a post I recently put together on Medium. You can probably guess the subject from the title. If you’re interested in the books I enjoyed the most over the past year, head over and give it a look. If you’re feeling kind, leave a few claps too so more people can see it! :)
Top 10 Science Stories of 2021
Continuing the theme of roundups from the year, here’s a piece on some of the most interesting science stories of the past year. As you might imagine, the mRNA vaccines feature in this, as do the extreme weather events we’ve seen, but there are some fascinating stories in there too. Including one about a meteorite, I was unaware of until I read the article.
George Orwell and The Whale
In my opinion, George Orwell is the greatest writer in the English language, bar none. This is a bold statement but I don’t think there is any other writer, dead or alive, able to convey their message as well as Orwell. Whether it’s a story about the lower classes considering whether to spend money on books or cigarettes during the Second World War or his fantastic novels Animal Farm and 1984, his writing is magnificent.
This article is written by another brilliant writer, Ian McEwen and looks at how Orwell’s life can inform our time. The necessity of being politically active and maintaining your imagination in a modern world enraptured with increasing efficiency and convenience.
Book I’m reading - Psychopolitics by Byung-Chul Han
I read this book recently and it’s an interesting look into the modern world that blends psychology and politics together. Some of the insights are really interesting such as platforms like Facebook being digital forms of the Panoptican. It’s only a short at less than 100 pages, so if these topics are you’re a thing I highly recommend reading it!
Quote I’m pondering: “I think that the task of philosophy is not to provide answers, but to show how the way we perceive a problem can be itself part of a problem.” – Slavoj Žižek
That’s all for this week.
Until next time,
Tom