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Notes -
Recently (as in yesterday) finished The Lone Samurai, which is a biography of Miyamoto Musashi. Have just begun the Dune series.
The most interesting book I have read in the last couple of years was probably Seeing like a State. In particular, there was a section about how surnames arose due the state needing a more precise naming convention to track down specific people. There are many Johns in England, there are fewer John Smiths, there's probably only a couple of John James Christopher Smiths. While we, or at least I, thought surnames were common throughout history it is apparently a fairly recent phenomenon outside of royalty.
It also delved into failed attempts from states at making the world 'legible' to themselves, like how it tries to homogenize a forest to extract lumber, but removing all other tree species, plants and animals create a perfect condition for a disease to devastate this new orderly forest. This 'short-slightness' extends to city-planning as well as farming and many other areas.
I have a rule to finish at least one book per month and think this is a rather languid pace, but my bookshelf is steadily filling up.
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