recent reads

During my trips in the recent weeks, I managed to read a few books, although nothing spectacular:

Arnaldur Indriðason’s Outrage (Myrká in Icelandic) is a thriller in the Erlandur series, where inspector Erlundur does not appear at all but is replaced with inspector Elinborg who deals with the murder of a drug rapist. And her family problems. The book got a prize in France and its focus on women issues makes it more interesting than the polce story itself, which meanders quite a lot and relies on too many coincidences. But I do like the stuffing no-exit (huis clos) atmosphere. (The above image is the critique in French from Le Canard Enchaîné.) Given that Erlundur has disappeared, this book stands in between other Indriðason’s books, Hypothermia (Harðskafi) and Black Skies (Svörtuloft).

I had mentioned my uneasiness about Hoffman’s The Left Hand of God a few months ago, both because of a very uneven style, a plot borrowing so much to real events and locations, and a highly ambiguous central character. I nonetheless read the second tome, The Last Four Things, following a request from my son. My impression has definitely not improved, mostly again for a high rate of borrowing from existing facts and places (like Chartres used for the papal seat). The title itself is found in many books and comes from a painting by Bosch I missed in Madrid last time I visited El Prado. The characters are mostly the same ones as in The Left Hand of God and they remain shallow and unconvincing. The political plot(s) are of no interest whatsoever. The reunion between Cale and Arbell is botched, to say the least. (And still some people love it!)

Another thriller I quickly read is Susanna Gregory’s Mystery in the Minster, the 17th chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew… In line with the recent chronicles in the series, the book is not worth any level of recommendation. The plots get thinner and thinner, the dialogues and settings less and less realistic for their 14th Century environment, and the resolution is rushed with no even a pretence of disguise for the massive infodump in the Epilogue! It feels like I have already seen it all in previous books: the trip away from Cambridge to gather an uncertain inheritance, the flow of new characters taking an unreasonable interest in Michelhouse affairs, an endless sequence of deaths, poisons, “wanton” nuns, attractive women turning into insane murderesses, fights for life in an abandoned and crumbling church, &tc. Among the many implausible facts in the current volume, the vicar-chorals’ obsession with shoes, speaking of “intelligent, liberal people” as in a 21st Century society, or hiring an actor to play the role of a (long dead) priest for more than a month… I will for certain abstain from buying the incoming 18th chronicle, appropriately planned for April the 1st!

When ordering books from amazon.fr for my daughter, I added Ascension, a manga by Shin’ichi Sakamoto about climbing. I was however quite disappointed by the result, both for the silly plot and for the lack of realism in its climbing connection!

AISTAT 2013

In case you have missed the announcement, the AISTAT 2013 conference will take place in Phoenix, Arizona, on April 29-May 01, 2013.  This is the Sixteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics. Registration and hotel reservation are now open. (Not that this is particularly relevant but I will attend the conference and give a lecture on, surprise, surprise!… ABC. Looking at the past location, it seems this is the first one not taking place on a beach, for which I am grateful! I am looking forward climbing near Phoenix, welcoming any suggestion to this effect.)

brands with a tree logo…

As the cold wave in Varanasi caught me by surprise, I asked the conference organisers for a place to buy a down jacket and they kindly drove me to a nice store called Woodland within the city. I purchased a cheap down-like jacket there (as demonstrated by the newspaper excerpt!) that solved my problem. And I thus discovered a brand that looked surprisingly similar to Timberland, slowly coming to realise this was the whole point: change Timber into Wood, slightly modify the tree in the logo, and you get a local brand that recycles Timberland designs and products to their own profit… (This seems to be a common occurrence in India, judging from this New York Times article.) Anyway, it is rather entertaining to visit the Woodland website, as they mimic major outdoor brand websites like Patagonia or Petzl, but do not offer any material one could seriously consider taking hiking and even less climbing! (Besides the jacket that managed to keep me warm for the rest of the meeting!, I also bought a cheap pair of sneakers and that quickly  proved to be a mistake, as the fit is only approximate and the material of poor quality.)

Odyssey, an Hot Ache movie free for ten days!

On the way back from a good session at the climbing gym, bagging a diedral 6B+, I got an email that Odyssey, the lastest climbing movie from the UK climbing video company Hot Aches was available for free viewing till November 20. Enjoy, this is Brit trad climbing at its best! (And here is the conversion chart, for they use UK grades…)

Ben Nevis (by Jim)