I'm working out of a co-working space in town today, and walked into a bookshop during my lunch break. Yes, a physical bookshop. You know they still exist, right?
Unfortunately there is only one independent bookshop left in Swansea and that one is in the lovely seaside village of Mumbles, not in the town centre. I was walking around in Waterstones, one of the larger bookstore chains in the UK. The one in Swansea is inside the old Carlton Cinema, a historic building with a beautiful glass facade.
They do have a pretty extensive collection of books, and I noticed the following ones which piqued my interest:
If you have an e-reader/Kindle, and you haven't yet had a look at Standard Ebooks, do yourself a favour and go there now.
Depending on where you are in the world, copyright only expires 50 to 100 years after the creator's death – crazy if you really think about it. In any case, that means hat you won't find any recently written books on Standard Ebooks, but you will find some great classics. Here are some that I still want to read, in no alphabetical order by author:
I'm a little bit behind on my 2018 Goodreads Reading Challenge, but as we're now a month past the halfway mark of 2018, I thought I'd do a quick roundup of my favourite three books of the first half of the year:
The Divide, by Jason Hickel: I think about this book very often. It clearly explains why there is global inequality and that development aid is not the solution.
The Year of Less, by Cait Flanders: A delightful little book that describes our struggles with consumerism, why we do it and how to stop.
Jupiter War, by Neal Asher: the final book in the Owner trilogy, a heavy sci-fi series full of chaos and destruction. Not for the faint of heart.
“In the US, the portion going to the top 1 per cent more than doubled from 8 per cent in 1980 to 18 per cent today. Britain witnessed a similar jump during this period, with the share claimed by the richest growing from 6.5 per cent to 13 per cent.” ― Jason Hickel, The Divide ―
I can't quite remember how I came across this comic series called Incredible Doom, but it's brilliant. It's about a group of '90s kids getting up to things on the early internet. I feel I can relate ;)
It's created by Matthew Bogart, and the best way to get them is by supporting him on Patreon. I only joined his Patreon recently, but was able to get the back issues in his web shop[1].
You can read all the issues online for free, but I would seriously suggest you join his Patreon as the print issues are so cool! The printed format reminds me a lot of Field Notes, and is similar in quality. Each issue has a “feely”, an artifact from the comic brought into the real world.
He also gives regular updates on his Patreon with work-in-progress videos, and you get access to a bunch of e-books with some of his older work. I was very surprised to even get a personalised video message when I joined. If you were a '90s kid on the early internet, do yourself a favour and read the first issue online.
There has been a noticeable trend from people reading blogs towards reading e-mail newsletters instead. I use Feedly to subscribe to blogs[1], but if you don't use a blog reader I guess e-mail makes more sense. Here are a few newsletters that make it into my inbox, even if I prefer blogs.
Offscreen Dispatch is a once-a-week newsletter with an assortment of products and articles on design and the web by Kai Brach, maker of Offscreen magazine. Coincidentally Offscreen is also my favourite magazine at the moment.
The Prepared is a manufacturing newsletter targeted at engineers and entrepreneurs by Spencer Wright, who also hosts The Prepared podcast.
Sunday Dispatches is a little bit of everything by Paul Jarvis. He usually writes about freelancing and small businesses.
Hint: You can subscribe to this blog by clicking the Subscribe link at the top of the page. ↩︎
I use Goodreads to keep track of the books I've read. You may notice on my Goodreads profile that I joined their 2018 Reading Challenge. This is the second year that I've done it, as it gives that extra bit of motivation to continue my reading habit:
Just by building a tiny habit of reading at least 30 minutes per day I have already read 21 books this year ✊ https://t.co/Fuw2wc56MZ
I prefer to get my books from the library, but sometimes being able to immediately start reading a book I just found is great on Kindle. I also use the highlight function on Kindle, and receive a daily digest of recent highlights in my inbox, courtesy of Readwise.io. And of course, when I finish a book on Kindle, it automatically gets marked as read on Goodreads! That said, nothing beats holding a physical book in your hands.
