Christmas books 2017

This year, my main Christmas present was the Kinetic Fit turbo trainer that I got back in later November and which I am totally delighted with in every way (even if it won't connect by bluetooth to my laptop and I have to use the tablet instead)

But as usual, there were also a number of books.

I have been quite disappointed with Tim Moore's book so far.  The main problem is his apparent total lack of prepardness that he continually boasts about.  Not knowing so much about road bikes is good for the comedy of the book, but I am rather hoped it would be a little more serious.  I also hadn't realised that he was carrying everything in panniers, so it is hardly a serious road bike experience.  My mistake for not realising this, given the other books he has written.

I haven't started the Kepler book yet, and actually have another book on the same theme as this one.  But I more or less always buy anything Kepler related and am looking forward to reading this in the spring perhaps

Wife had selected two Very Short Introduction books while we were in Blackwell's in Oxford and they were on a 3 for 2 offer, so I selected this one on numbers, which Wife then decided I should have on Christmas day, instead of straight away.  I am always keen on books about numbers - primes, irrationals, transcendentals, reals, complex, etc.  The sort of book I will carry in the car as emergency reading should I need something for whatever reason.

I have just finished re-reading Beevor's book on Stalingrad and thought I might like to read something else on the history of the Nazis.  We also saw the movie Denial the other week about the David Irving holocaust-denial libel trial and Richard Evans featured in this.  I read his book In Defence of History when I did my MSc also, so a big fan of his already.

I keep coming back to French Philosophy and have recently been reading Bakewell's Existential Cafe so this book was another in that sort of reading - to follow up quite a few similar other books I have read over the last few years.

Nice cover design I thought!

Another recent read was Ott's Heidegger: A Political Life, and this last Christmas book was prompted by that, especially as Ott hadn't had access to the Black Notebooks when he wrote his book in the early 1990s. 

And this is what a page or two of the black notebooks actually look like - looks indecipherable to me, but then it is in German.