Author Archives: Daniel (@MKNN)

Reading Well: Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan

Infinite Detail (2019) is the debut novel from Tim Maughan, a journalist of some note. It’s a good read, focusing on the relatively cataclysmic aftermath of an extended Internet outage. The setting is the near future, a world just slightly … Continue reading

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WWC2019: The First Round of Games

Notes and thoughts on the first games in each group. GENERAL NOTES I really want to highlight the difference between Argentina, Italy, and Brazil on one hand and Spain on the other. Twenty years ago, none of these countries cared … Continue reading

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WWC2019: Predictions & What-Not

Scrambling to get these out there before kickoff tomorrow. Remember, the top 2 teams from each group, plus the next 4, make the knockout rounds. It’s hard for the key match to not just always be the clash between the … Continue reading

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WWC2019: It’s Almost Time

Gosh, it feels like 1200 days since we were here last … I’m not sure what I plan to write about the World Cup about to kick off in France, but I’m sure I’ll probably match my output for WWC2015. … Continue reading

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Reading Graphically: Five Graphic Novels & One Comic

Another interlude between the novels … Paul Kirchner‘s Hieronymus & Bosch is an amusing distraction, detailing the torments of a medieval ne’er do well (Hieronymus) and his toy duck (Bosch). While some of the inspiration is obvious from the names, … Continue reading

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Reading Well: Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

Lisa Halliday‘s Asymmetry arrived to much acclaim in 2018. It’s a novel in three parts, really two parts and a coda. The first part details a relationship between a young woman who works at a publishing house and an older … Continue reading

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Reading Well: The Power by Naomi Alderman

Published in 2016, Naomi Alderman‘s The Power attempts to answer a fundamental what-if: what if something happened to give women a physical advantage over men? In this case, it’s a chemical added to the water supply in WWII that, over … Continue reading

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Reading Well: Silence is My Mother Tongue by Sulaiman Addonia

{This post published early by mistake, so some of you may have seen it before. Apologies for the misclick.} Sulaiman Addonia‘s Silence is My Mother Tongue (2018) tells the story of Eritrean refugees displaced into a camp in the Sudan. … Continue reading

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Reading Well: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

I had never heard of Shirley Jackson before, yes, Marlon James mentioned her (this is the last of the books I bought from James’ interview). But, evidently, many of us have read her, as the introduction claims that her short … Continue reading

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Reading Well: As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann

I think As Meat Loves Salt (2001) is another book that found its way into my life via an interview with Marlon James. He described Maria McCann‘s debut novel as compelling as a study in how to maintain sympathy for … Continue reading

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