Reading list [Toby Atkin-Wright]

1. Netflix announces deal to buy Warner Bros. and HBO: (tags:WarnerBrothers HBO netflix )
2. Did Rachel Reeves mislead the public ahead of the Budget?: (tags:budget UK FactCheck politics )
3. Visualising Klotski (fantastic 3d visualisations of possibilities): (tags:video game viaSwampers visualisation )
4. 'Forks Out': A Benoit Blanc Sesame Street Mystery: (tags:muppets mysteries video satire )
5. Wall Street races to protect itself from AI bubble: (tags:AI investment insurance )
6. Original version of Star Wars Returns to Theaters for 50th Anniversary: (tags:StarWars movies )
7. Several teams of female gamers have dropped out of the Dead by Daylight Women's World Cup after trans women were banned.: (tags:LGBT bigotry transgender gaming women )
8. Adenosine as the metabolic common path of rapid antidepressant action: The coffee paradox: (tags:depression )
9. The USA is officially removing itself from positive engagement in world affairs.: (tags:USA politics diplomacy NATO )
10. Edinburgh confirms Visitor Levy affordable housing spend: (tags:Edinburgh housing GoodNews )

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1. Detroit finally has a RoboCop statue: (tags:police robots movies detroit usa statue )

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Opening up my YouTube Recap so I can find out what nonsense Gideon has been watching this year.

(Sophia is on her own account, but for technical reasons Gideon can't be yet.)

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1. Humble Comic Bundle: Image Comics in the '10s (175 trade paperbacks, many of them awesome, for cheap): (tags:comics charity )
2. Gaelic and Scots gain official status on St Andrew's Day: (tags:Scotland language )
3. Shingles vaccination caused a 29.5% reduction in deaths due to dementia: (tags:dementia vaccine )
4. The real reasons why courts have a massive backlog: (tags:UK law austerity organisation OhForFucksSake )
5. HBO Max's 'Mad Men' Vomit Scene Proves 'Remastered' Doesn't Mean 'Better': (tags:TV resolution fail )

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In case I haven't posted this here before ... and checking back I think I have posted this before, but hey, again doesn't hurt!

This is the sort of font I read on my Kindle. On the left is what it started up with by default when I set up a new Kindle a while back. On the right is how I adjusted it for my preference. I don't need a humungous font for visual impairment so much as brain impairment (cognitive).

Two screenshots side by side of Kindle Paperwhites. On the left is a Sherlock Holmes story, in the default font, with nearly 20 lines of text visible. On the right is the same story with just 9 lines of text, much bigger and more spread out.

Two screenshots side by side of Kindle Paperwhites. On the left is a Sherlock Holmes story, in the default font, with nearly 20 lines of text visible. On the right is the same story with just 9 lines of text, much bigger and more spread out.

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My current main reading, on my Kindle, so I can read with the utterly gargantuan font that helps me keep reading with my progressive neurological illness. The 6 books shown are the ones I'm currently mainly cycling through. A mix of fiction and non fiction reads.

Screenshot of a Kindle Paperwhite e-reader in portrait mode with a black and white screen. The view shows 6 book covers, in 2 rows of 3. At the top are "The King of Elfland's Daughter" by Lord Dunsany, "Stone & Sky" by Ben Aaronovitch, and "Echolands: In Search of Boudica" by Duncan Mackay. Then on the second row are "Wintering" by Katherine May, "Restoration London" by Liza Picard, and "The Black Archive #72: Silence in the Library / The Forest of the Dead" by Dale Smith. Each book has a percentage number showing progress so far. Some are further through, e.g. 26% on "Wintering" and 17% for "Restoration London", while others are newer started.

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Squeezing in another of these before my end of year final post.

Got through another 8 books since the last update.

( earlier books )

Katabasis by RF Kuang
Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Mr Villain's Day Off volume 1 (manga) by Yuu Morikawa
Born With Teeth (play script) by Liz Duffy Adams
A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
Doctor Who Tales of Terror (short story anthology)
Crossroads of Twilight (Wheel of Time book 10) by Robert Jordan

Of the newly finished books, Katabasis was a lot of fun, with a dark journey into the Underworld, but not as good as RF Kuang's superb Babel or even Yellowface for me. Carmilla was a book club read, and frankly disappointing, and a struggle to read. Though Hammer made a good stab at filming a better version in the early 1970s. Mr Villain's Day Off was a chance find in Angus libraries catalogue, so borrowed that way. Fun manga, but I wasn't inspired to read other volumes. Born With Teeth, the Marlowe/Shakespeare play performed recently on stage by Ncuti Gatwa and Edward Bluemel, was a brilliant read, though it would be better to see it performed in person. Yes, I did my usual Roger Zelazny pre-Halloween reread of A Night in the Lonesome October. Still love it. T. Kingfisher's A Wizard's Guide to Contemporary Baking was fun, but a bit unevenly paced, and younger than I'd usually read. It also took too long to get to dangerous fighting gingerbread men. Doctor Who Tales of Terror is a fun spooky anthology collection, with short stories by multiple authors for each of Doctors 1-12. A bit uneven, but overall fun. Wheel of Time book 10 was the slog that I expected, though still fun in many parts. But I needed a very specific approach to reading to get through it successfully. But things should be better again in the remaining books. Book 10 is generally regarded by readers of the whole series as the worst by a long way.

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I started doing some more work on Upon A Star, and found myself asking "When did these rows stop being symmetric...?"

Dear reader, the rows are all symmetric; I had messed up and missed out a row quite a while ago.

I decided to rip out all of the offending stitches and redo them. It did not take as long as I feared.

The moon looks kind of like an ugly sweater at the moment, but at least it's a symmetrical ugly sweater.

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Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means

karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.

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Almost finished Wheel of Time book 10, definitely a low point in the series for me. But relieved to have got through, albeit with much skimming! Look forward to getting through the rest, though it may take a couple of years to get through the remaining books, interspersed with other reads.

There are just 4 main books left, and I'm expecting to read 2 each in 2026 and 2027. I have them waiting on my Kindle (bought in reduced price sales). And looking forward to finishing them all. But very much need to spread them out. I have been reading this series very slowly since October 2021.

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Onto another story that I cannot remember at all, despite reading through the full Sherlock canon at least three or four times before now.

( spoilers )

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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

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1. How Ferrari's Formula One Pit Stop Team saved the lives of thousands of children: (tags:safety process driving mechanics children healthcare )
2. EU's Top Court landmark judgment: Member States Must Recognise Same-Sex Marriages from Other EU Countries: (tags:Europe LGBT marriage GoodNews law )
3. Suicidality dropped for transgender youth receiving hormone therapy by nearly 70%: (tags:suicide children LGBT transgender hormones research )
4. Justice secretary wants most jury trials scrapped: (tags:law UK labour )
5. Lammy Furiously Backed Campaign for 'Vital' Jury Trials 'To Prevent Bias and Ensure Justice' - before deciding to get rid of them: (tags:law UK labour hypocrisy )
6. Concept Art for Characters That Ended Up as Blonde White Women: (tags:design games racism )
7. BBC accused of censoring Trump line from historian's lecture: (tags:bbc censorship corruption usa politics )

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1. Britain is one of the world's richest countries. So why do a third of its children live in poverty?: (tags:uk poverty children )
2. Brexit costing the UK up to £90bn in lost tax a year, new analysis shows (People are around £3k per year worse off): (tags:uk europe OhForFucksSake )
3. Footage of Japan's new train zooming down the track at 310mph leaves spectators speechless: (tags:trains magnets Japan video )
4. Five pivotal ages in your brain's development revealed in new scientific study (0-9, 9-32, 32-66, 66-83, 83+): (tags:development brain age )

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Toby Atkin-Wright

Interesting Links for 06-12-2025

Interesting Links for 05-12-2025

Interesting Links for 04-12-2025

Life with two kids: Christmas monitoring

Interesting Links for 03-12-2025

Interesting Links for 02-12-2025

How gargantuan a font I use on my Kindle Paperwhite

Current reading, early December 2025 edition

Books finished in 2025, early December edition

One step forward, etc.

Interesting Links for 30-11-2025

Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!

Wheel of Time ongoing progress

Interesting Links for 29-11-2025

Interesting Links for 28-11-2025

Sherlock Holmes reread: The Three Students

Photo cross-post

Interesting Links for 27-11-2025

Interesting Links for 26-11-2025

Interesting Links for 25-11-2025

Links

July