At the beginning of 2021, prompted by Russell Crowe's defense of Master and Commander, I began yet another re-read of the twenty Aubrey-Maturin novels. Or, as the fandom would have it, another cir­cum­nav­i­ga­tion. It's probably my fifth or sixth cir­cum­nav­i­ga­tion, since I bought the complete boxed set as a Christmas present to myself in the early aughts.

I completed the twentieth book, Blue at the Mizzen, yesterday, and also the few pages of the final, unfinished novel, 21. (I also read about 120 other books in 2021, down from a stupendous 200 books in 2020, but that's neither here nor there.)

I think I'm due for another re-read of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin …continue.

I've read hundreds of technical books over the last 40 years. Crafting In­ter­preters is an instant classic, and far more readable and fun than many of the classics.

Nystrom covers a lot of ground in this book, building two very different in­ter­preters for Lox, a small dynamic language of his own design. He takes us through every line of jlox, a Java-based tree-walk in­ter­preter, and of clox, a bytecode virtual machine written in C.

For the first im­ple­men­ta­tion, jlox, he covers such topics as scanning, parsing ex­pres­sions with recursive descent, evaluating ex­pres­sions, …continue.

I've been waiting longer than most for George R.R. Martin to finish the A Song of Fire and Ice series: I read the first book when it was newly published in paperback in 1997. Fire and Blood is a new addition to the series, but it is a prequel and does not advance the plot at all. This book is a history of the first half of the three hun­dred–year reign of the Targaryen dynasty, the dragon riders who conquered Westeros with their fire­breath­ing dragons. The Game of …continue.

Two years ago, just after the death of Richard Adams, I reread the book of Watership Down for the first time in many years, having originally discovered it when it was new in the mid-1970s. There's a beautiful new adaptation, an animated miniseries made by the BBC and Netflix.

This adaptation is largely faithful to the original book: The brave young rabbits striking out on their own before their home warren is destroyed; creating a new warren on Watership Down; the war with the to­tal­i­tar­i­an warren of Efrafa; the peaceful aftermath. One short­com­ing is that although the …continue.

Before I begin to describe The Heart's Invisible Furies with abundant spoilers, let me say two things. Despite what I describe below, the book is very funny, as Cyril recounts his frequent fuckups. You would never know, from reading the back cover or the excerpted reviews inside, that Cyril is gay. Yet Cyril's sexuality is the central theme of the book. I can only assume that this is a marketing decision, with which I strongly disagree.

16-year-old Catherine is forced out of her Cork village by the parish …continue.

Coco is another delightful movie from Pixar: It's a magical tale of a Mexican boy who pas­sion­ate­ly wants to play music, even though his shoemaking family has rejected music ever since his great-great-grand­fa­ther pursued his own musical ambitions and abandoned his wife and child—the eponymous Coco, who is now ancient. Miguel discovers that his despised ancestor is none other than Ernesto de la Cruz, the most famous musician of his time. In order to enter a talent com­pe­ti­tion on Día de los Muertos, he steals Ernesto's guitar from his mausoleum, whereupon he is trans­port­ed to …continue.

Joey Perrone is very surprised to find herself thrown off a cruise ship on her second wedding an­niver­sary. After a night of swimming, she washes up on a small Florida island in the company of a pre­ma­ture­ly retired in­ves­ti­ga­tor. Joey persuades Mick Stranahan not to report the attempted murder, but instead to in­ves­ti­gate and torment her worthless husband, Chaz, who turns out to be a biostitute for a major polluter of the Everglades, as well as a relentless pussyhound, an inept killer, and an all-round shitheel.

Hiaasen has a lot …continue.

The Italian Job movie is worth your time. One of the quin­tes­sen­tial movies of the Swinging Sixties, its British sen­si­bil­i­ty wears well, almost 50 years on. The humour still works. And it's probably the best ad­ver­tise­ment that the Mini ever had.

Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) has inherited a plan to rip off $4 million in gold bullion from Fiat in Turin. He and the lads are going to help the balance of payments by bringing the loot back from the Common Market. (They're proto-Eu­roskep­tics.) And they're going to do it by causing the …continue.

A jealous husband engages a private detective-cum-killer for hire (Simon Pegg) to follow his wife. Upon proof of her infidelity, he orders a hit, which triggers a comedy of errors and double crosses, which ultimately leaves most of the cast dead at each other's hands.

There's not much to like about this Australian noirish comedy. It's bloody but not that funny. The characters are thinly drawn and unengaging. They're a far cry from Taran­ti­no's gonzo mo­tor­mouths or the Coen Brother's quirky killers.

Tiffany Aching is now the overworked and overly re­spon­si­ble Witch of the Chalk. People everywhere are fearing and dis­trust­ing witches more. When her patient, the ailing Baron dies, she is blamed. Other troubles multiply. Eventually she realizes that the Cunning Man, a long-dead witchfind­er, is seeping poison into people's hearts. Aided by the trou­ble­mak­ing Nac Mac Feegle, she defeats him.

Rec­om­mend­ed.

I Shall Wear Midnight follows The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, and Win­ter­smith.