Weather and books.

The weather remains well behaved. Rainy at night, bright and dry during the day. The new students are being lulled into the belief that Scottish North Sea coastal weather isn't so dire. Just wait until the end of October and they'll get a surprise. The organizers of the golf tournament must be praying that this sunny spell continues. Last year the rain was torrential from the start of play to the very end. After that the sun came out for two weeks.

At the end of every month we send the university library photos of the books we've read in the last four weeks and don't want to keep. They then come back and say which ones - if any - they would like us to  drop off at the front desk. This keeps our post downsizing bookcases from overflowing and provides the library with some unexpected acquisitions. They probably take 60% of what we offer. In this electronic age I'd thought books might be a thing of the past but the librarian tells me they have 17 kilometers of book shelves. She might have said miles rather than kilometers but whatever it's still a lot.

These are the August offerings. Sh*tty Breaks was a humorous and light hearted  tour of British towns no one ever visits and scored 8/10.  Central Europe was brilliant as was Saudi Arabia. Both get a 9/10. To see Ourselves was all about modern Scotland. It was enjoyable but I'm not sure how it would resonate with non-Scots. It gets a highly subjective 8/10.

On Xi Jinping although exceedingly worthy was troubled by difficult prose. It got a 4/10. The Partys Interests Come First was more accessible and got an 8/10 but was not what you might describe as an easy read. Modern China has had a very troubled history.  The surprise of the month was The Gods of New York which was written in a jauntily accessible style and served as a reminder that Donald Trumps political views and operational style were already set in stone in the mid 80's. One snippet I didn't know was that the Revd. Al Sharpton was ordained as a minister at the age of 10. I'd give this book a 9/10 maybe because I remember the New York of the late 1980's and this catches its Ed Koch, Bernie Goetz essence so well. 

I'd like to recommend India 5000 years of history but 5000 years is a lot to ask any author to pull off. This one spread the net too widely and didn't. More focused was Shattered Lands which gets a 7/10 for dealing with the issue of Burmese independence from India. From Ring of Steel came the snippet that the last Emperor of Autro-Hungary was made a Saint for curing a nuns chilblains. For its analysis of WW1 politics it gets a 9/10. 

The best thing I've read at the start of the State visit :https://samf.substack.com/p/unserious-president-serious-country

Shopping :https://capitaloneshopping.com/research/thrifting-statistics

Things I didn't know about Rotterdam :https://moverdb.com/port-of-rotterdam/

Chatbots are better :https://reason.com/2025/09/15/chatbots-win-the-debate/

Doctors preconceptions:https://www.acsh.org/news/2025/09/15/dont-believe-everything-you-think-49724