So how did January go?

I completed six novels and an excellent critical biography of George Orwell, by Robert Colls. The novelists came fom five different countries, but following my own perverse rules, I won't count them towards the 2014 Global Reading Challenge, nor will The Chatelet Apprentice, by  Jean-Francois Parot begin at the 2014 TBR Pile Challenge as I forgot to add it to my list. 

Christmas Holiday, by W Somerset Maugham (UK)

 Number five in my list of WSM novels, and not very Christmassy. 6/10

The Late M Gallet, by Georges Simenon (Belgium)

Maigret Number 2, and already much better then Pietr the Latvian, but unnecessarily complicated. 7/10  

The Chatelet Apprentice, by Jen-Francois Parot (France)

Have been meaning to read Le Floch for quite a while and wasn't disappointed. Fascinating period detail of Eighteenth Century Paris, again too complicated towards the end. Will read more from this series 8/10

He remembered a sentence of Pascal’s that he had learnt at school: ‘Words arranged differently have different meaning and meanings arranged differently have different effects.

The Company of Angels, by Thomas E Kennedy (US)

Read because it is set in Copenhagen, and makes interesting comments about Danes. Some of the recollections by Chilean torture victim were harrowing...  7/10

Safe as Houses, by Simone van der Vlugt (Netherlands)

Woman and young daughter held captive in their home by escaped murderer. A straightforward thriller that wasn't as interesting in plot or setting as The Reunion, but worth £1.37 on Kindle. 6/10

Getting a good interview requires special skill. Anyone can fire off a series of questions, but you need to be able to do more than this to have a good conversation. Many journalists make the mistake of talking too much themselves, when all they really need to bring to the room is empathy. The only way to think up good leading questions is through trying to understand the interviewee – and the self-knowledge prompted by such questions will lead the interviewee, in turn, to give answers that make for remarkable reading

Wolves, by Simon Ings (UK)

Bought on the strngth of a Toby Litt Guardian review, which it didn't quite live up to. Ings' The Story Behind.. description shed fascinating light on a complex story. 8/10

This is what AR stands for: Augmented Reality. ‘We turn newspapers and magazines into rich media. Every newspaper photograph becomes its own TV channel . . .’

 

"Basically,’ I tell her, ‘it’s advertising. It’s about laying an advertising layer over the physical world.’ ‘Is it difficult?’ ‘Not especially. Mathematically it can mess with your head but intellectually it’s on a par with casting a ghost onto a sheet of glass. An old stage trick.’

 

The core of our AR business is a billboard system. Image recognition software running on a smartphone or a pair of web-enabled spectacles sews moving pictures over a static target. Someone walking past an ad for the latest movie will see the hoarding spring to life, screening its trailer. ‘And everyone can see your ghosts?’ ‘Anyone stood behind some web-enabled glass."

 It’s only a matter of time before the web becomes wearable, just another form of clothing between you and the world.’

 

‘Bloody hell,’ she says. I put what gloss on it I can, ‘With AR, you can thread private and public spaces through each other. You can turn public spaces into private screening rooms. Augmented Reality will change how space is used.’ ‘You mean you’re privatizing it.’ ‘What?’ ‘You’re privatizing civic space.’ ‘No—’ ‘Yes. That’s what you’re doing. You’re doing away with personal perception. You’re directing people to see things a certain way. You’re telling people what to pay attention to.’ People who know nothing about advertising always assume people are defenceless against it. ‘That’s not going to happen.’ ‘Really? Why not?