Photo: Two-up on a scooter, just outside of Holland Park. London, UK 2022 Credit: The Author

Interoperable readers! Maybe you're new here or have forgotten about my 2022 Reading Challenge, there are some rules/goals I set for myself.  Basically, I want to try to complete five books each month for all of 2022.

Here are the books and some notes for March:

1. The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World By Simon Winchester OBE (non-fiction, history)
Another in the loose "history of science" category I've been reading. Simon Winchester's The Perfectionists follows a simple premise: how has the development and availability of precise measurement tools shaped our world? This was a great audiobook listen though it would have been less confusing to see some of the figures written out (the chapter titles especially!), I might pick up the dead-tree version of this book to help make sense of some of the things that were lost in the audiobook. (✶✶✶✶)

2. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (Novella)
This one was a real kick in the teeth, a 116-page soak in an ice bath. In some ways, it reminded me of the Robert Eggers film The Witch, perfectly balanced on a similar ever-so-slightly supernatural knife edge. Desolate and arresting, steeped in sooty and bloody Americana. The book follows the life of Robert Grainier, who from the outset of the story seems to have been cursed. A small masterpiece. (✶✶✶✶✶)

A quote from the author: 

3. Swiss History In A Nutshell by Grégoire Nappey (textbook)
I'm pretty sure this is meant to be a high school or maybe undergraduate level textbook for basic Swiss history, it was a delightful little book! Plenty of cute little cartoons and detailed maps, I wish there was a bit more in the way of illustrations and photographs. I've always had a bit of an affinity for the Swiss, they seem to be the sort of fussy and detailed type of people that I strive to fit in with but always fall a little short. Anyone ever gifted a Swiss Army Knife must think to themselves about Switzerland's famous neutrality and what they're doing with an army. A few years back I read John McPhee's La Place De LA Concorde Suisse which is a first-hand account of the Swiss Military, but being published in the early 80s it is showing its age and in bad need of a modern re-telling. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, I can put some of this Swiss research to good use and pay the county a visit. (✶✶✶✶)

4. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Novel)

Sad to say I had not read this until my early thirties, having read and my life's trajectory changed by  Slaughterhouse-Five in my late teens. It's completely unique and obviously, a must-read especially when paired with Robert B. Weide's recent documentary Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (yes that Robert B. Weide) 

5. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (Biography)
This is another in my loose "history of science" theme I've been following. Sparked by Christopher Nolan's upcoming film Oppenheimer and having previously read The Making Of The Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes this Pulitzer prize-winning biography of J. Rober Oppenheimer "the father of the atomic bomb" was an obvious next choice. I started this 26 hour audiobook in late January(!) fascinating and meticulously researched, this one definitely earns a spot on the "need to re-read" shelve to pick up on all of the details I must have missed the first time through (✶✶✶✶✶)

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I'm Tyler Dickey, and this is my newsletter Interoperable. In this space, I celebrate my never-ending love for reliable, available, and maintainable systems like RSS and telephony and write about topics that interest me: art, making things, and technology. Consider subscribing or following me elsewhere on the internet:
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