rabbitprincess has a Master-ful 2024 part 2

I will be embarking on a master’s degree in 2024. Because I’m combining part-time studies with a full-time job, I don’t imagine I’ll have much time for pleasure reading. But I couldn’t NOT do a category challenge of some kind, so here I am. I might just be lurkier than usual :)

Every year I recycle the same categories, which cover everything I could possibly read. This year, I’ve replaced the group reads category with one for my reading for my master’s.

Previous years’ challenges have featured Doctor Who in one form or another. This year, each of my categories is named for an actor who has played the Doctor’s archenemy, The Master.

2024 ROOTs ticker:



2024 2-for-1 TBR ticker:

General fiction - Roger Delgado
The first Master (from the era of the Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee) and arguably the most iconic.

1. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, by Satoshi Yagisawa (translated by Eric Ozawa)
2. The Defector, by Chris Hadfield
3. Elevator Pitch, by Linwood Barclay
4. The Satan Bug, by Alistair MacLean
5. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
6. Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, by Hwang Bo-reum (translated by Shanna Tan)
7. The Last Murder at the End of the World, by Stuart Turton
8. More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, by Satoshi Yagisawa (translated by Eric Ozawa)
9. The Trojan Horse, by Hammond Innes

General non-fiction - Anthony Ainley
Ainley had big shoes to fill after Roger Delgado and took the Master in a different direction, more camp and arch than sinister. He was the Master for the rest of the classic series, facing off against the Fourth through Seventh Doctors.

1. Blood: The Science, Medicine and Mythology of Menstruation, by Dr. Jen Gunter
2. What Television Remembers: Artifacts and Footprints of TV in Toronto, by Jennifer VanderBurgh
3. Takao Tanabe: Life and Work, by Ian Thom
4. The Serpent's Coil, by Farley Mowat
5. Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words, by Anne Curzan
6. Apollo 13, by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger
7. The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It, by Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter
8. The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, by Amy C. Edmondson
9. Grand Prix: An Illustrated History of Formula 1, by Will Buxton

Mystery - Michelle Gomez
There was a great deal of mystery surrounding Missy, Michelle Gomez's portrayal. She's one of my favourites (of course! she's the Capaldi Master!), so I chose her for a category I hope to read a lot of this year ;)

1. Mystery Man, by Colin Bateman
2. Exit Lines, by Reginald Hill
3. Trouble Follows Me, by Ross Macdonald
4. The Freelancer, by C.J. Fournier
5. Gideon's Risk, by J.J. Marric
6. Menace in Malmö, by Torquil MacLeod
7. Rim of the Pit, by Hake Talbot
8. What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust, by Alan Bradley
9. On Beulah Height, by Reginald Hill
10. Inspector French and the Mystery on Southampton Water, by Freeman Wills Crofts
11. The Vanishing Museum on the Rue Mistral, by M. L. Longworth
12. Pilgrim Soul, by Gordon Ferris

History - Geoffrey Beevers
Beevers, who played the Master in The Keeper of Traken and has narrated a boatload of Doctor Who audios, is the oldest surviving Master from the classic series.

1. The Soo Line's Famous Trains to Canada, by Terry Gainer
2. Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens, by David Mitchell
3. The Missing, by Tim Gautreaux
4. True Canadian Stories of the Great Lakes, by Mark Bourrie

SFF - John Simm
John Simm is the classic Master for me because I started watching Doctor Who with David Tennant. The story arc in which Simm's Master turns everyone on Earth into clones of himself is hilarious. My friends and I had a watch party for that episode and photoshopped pictures of ourselves to look like John Simm. Terrifying results :D

1. Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones
2. The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo
3. Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora, by Philip Hinchcliffe
4. Winter's Gifts, by Ben Aaronovitch
5. Doctor Who: Apollo 23, by Justin Richards
6. Doctor Who: Whotopia: The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse, by Jonathan Morris, Simon Guerrier, and Una McCormack
7. Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, Vol. 3: Conversion, written by Al Ewing and illustrated by Simon Fraser
8. Doctor Who: Illegal Alien, by Mike Tucker
9. The Legends of River Song, by Jenny Colgan

Audio - Alex Macqueen
Macqueen has played the Master regularly in audio dramas for Big Finish. He was also on The Thick of It as the PM's advisor Julius Nicholson.

1. Voice Lessons: How a Couple of Ninja Turtles, Pinky, and an Animaniac Saved My Life, by Rob Paulsen (read by Rob Paulsen)
2. Dalek Empire 3.1: The Exterminators, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
3. Dalek Empire 3.2: The Healers, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
4. Dalek Empire 3.3: The Survivors, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)

French - Peter Pratt
Peter Pratt was the second actor to play the Master, in The Deadly Assassin. He doesn't come to mind as easily as other Masters, and French is the one category I keep neglecting, so it seemed a good match.

1. Les Poisons de la couronne, by Maurice Druon

Plays - Sir Derek Jacobi
Of COURSE I make the Master for my plays category Sir Derek Jacobi. He appears in David Tennant's second season, briefly, and has had a long second life in Big Finish audios.

1. Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, by Dame Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea

Rereads - Eric Roberts
If you did a double-take on reading that name, you're not alone. Yes, the older brother of Julia played the Master in the 1996 TV movie of Doctor Who that featured Paul McGann as the Doctor.

1. Easy to Kill, by Agatha Christie
2. Murder in Retrospect, by Agatha Christie
3. The Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. McNally's Gamble, by Lawrence Sanders
5. Mattimeo, by Brian Jacques

Books and articles for school - Sacha Dhawan
Sacha is the Master from the Thirteenth Doctor's era (Jodie Whittaker) and I love him to bits. Sacha and I are actually a couple of years apart in age, so that seemed as good a reason as any to have him helm my school-reading category.

1. Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over Northern Iraq, by Scott A. Snook
2. Navigating Safety: Necessary Compromises and Trade-Offs - Theory and Practice, by René Amalberti
3. Reflecting on Jens Rasmussen’s legacy: A strong program for a hard problem, by Jean-Christophe Le Coze (article)
4. Understanding the "blues of safety professionals", by Jean-Christophe Le Coze (article)
5. Bad apples or corrupting barrels? Preventing traders’ misconduct, by Wieke Scholten and Naomi Ellemers (article)
6. ‘Bad apples’: time to redefine as a type of systems problem?, by Kaveh G Shojania and Mary Dixon-Woods (article)
7. Police corruption: apples, barrels and orchards, by Maurice Punch and Stan Gilmour (article)
8. The Human Contribution: Unsafe Acts, Accidents and Heroic Recoveries, by James Reason (extract)
9. From theory to practice: itinerary of Reasons’ Swiss Cheese Model, by Justin Larouzee and Franck Guarnieri (article)
10. Coping with complexity, by Jens Rasmussen and Morten Lind (article)
11. Skills, rules and knowledge: signals, signs and symbols and other distinctions in human performance models, by Jens Rasmussen (article)
12. Human error and the problem of causality in analysis of accidents, by Jens Rasmussen (article)
13. Coping with complexity: past, present and future, by Erik Hollnagel (article)
14. Reconstructing human contributions to accidents: the new view on error and performance, by Sidney Dekker (article)
15. Patterns in how people think and work: The importance of pattern discovery for understanding complex adaptive systems, by David D. Woods et al. (article)
16. MABA-MABA or Abracadabra? Progress on Human-Automation Coordination, by Sidney Dekker and David D. Woods (Article)
17. Human factors and folk models, by Sidney Dekker and Erik Hollnagel (article)
18. Situation awareness, mental workload, and trust in automation: viable, empirically supported cognitive engineering constructs, by Raja Parasuraman, Thomas B. Sheridan, and Christopher D. Wickens (article)
19. Flight Safety Foundation White Paper: Learning From All Operations: Expanding the Field of Vision to Improve Aviation Safety (article)
20. Barry Turner: The Under-Acknowledged Safety Pioneer, by K. Bills, L. Costello and M. Cattani (article)
21. Safety barriers: Definition, classification, and performance, by Snorre Sklet (article)
22. Preventing Industrial Accidents, by Carsten Busch (specifically Chapter 6)
23. 1984-2014. Normal Accidents: Was Charles Perrow Right for the Wrong Reasons?, by Jean-Christophe Le Coze (article)
24. The Self-Designing High Reliability Organization: Aircraft Carrier Flight Operations at Sea, by Gene I. Rochlin, Todd R. La Porte, and Karlene H. Roberts (article)
25. Safe operation as a social construct, by Gene I. Rochelin (article)
26. Issues in safety science, by Andrew Hopkins (article)
27. Heroes, organizations and high reliability, by Paul R. Schulman (article)
28. High reliability organising in healthcare: still a long way left to go, by Christopher G. Myers and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe (article)
29. What have we learned about learning from accidents? Post-disasters reflections, by Jean-Christophe Le Coze (article)
30. One event, three investigations: The reproduction of a safety norm, by Jonas Wrigstad, Johan Bergström, and Pelle Gustafson (article)
31. Modifying an accident process and its justice system – From single narratives and retribution to multiple stories and restoration, by Derek Heraghty, Sidney W.A. Dekker, and Andrew Rae (article)
32. Assessing resilience in everyday work through observations: An assessment framework for complex sociotechnical systems, by Rafael Trancoso, Riccardo Patriarca, Éder Henriqson (article)
33. Learning from the complexities of fostering a restorative just culture in practice within the Royal Netherlands Air Force, by L. Boskeljon-Horst, A. Snoek, E. van Baarle (article)
34. Man-made disasters: why technology and organizations (sometimes) fail, by Nick Pidgeon and M. O’Leary (article)
35. Challenger: Fine-tuning the odds until something breaks, by William H. Starbuck and Frances J. Milliken
36. Creating foresight: Lessons for enhancing resilience from Columbia, by David Woods (article)
37. Causes of disaster: Sloppy management, by Barry A. Turner (article)
38. The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, by Diane Vaughan
39. Culture, error, and crew resource management, by Robert L. Helmreich, John A. Wilhelm, James R. Klinect, and Ashleigh C. Merritt (article)
40. Risk management in a dynamic society: A modelling problem, by J. Rasmussen (article)
41. Managing major accident risk: Concerns about complacency and complexity in practice, by I. Arstad and T. Aven (article)
42. The complexity of failure: Implications of complexity theory for safety investigations, by S. Dekker, P. Cilliers, and J-H. Hofmeyr (article)
43. Applying systems thinking to analyze and learn from events, by N. G. Leveson (article)
44. The paradoxes of almost totally safe transportation systems, by R. Amalberti (article)
45. Resilience engineering for sociotechnical safety management, by R. Patriarca (article)
46. The need for “translators” and for new models of safety, by J.-C. Le Coze and M. Dupré (article)
47. ‘Just culture’: Improving safety by achieving substantive, procedural and restorative justice, by S. W. A. Dekker and H. Breakey (article)
48. Australian flight crews’ trust in voluntary reporting systems and just culture policies, by K.J. McMurtrie and B.R.C. Molesworth (article)
49. Resolving the Just Culture deadlock, by F. Schubert (article)
50. Balancing ‘no blame’ with accountability in patient safety, by R. M. Wachter and P. J. Pronovost (article)
51. Managing accidents using retributive justice mechanisms: When the just culture policy gets done to you, by D. Heraghty, A.J. Rae, S.W.A. Dekker (article)
52. The barriers and enhancers to trust in a just culture in hospital settings: A systematic review, by S. van Marum, D. Verhoeven, and D. de Rooy (article)
53. Just culture: “Evidence”, power and algorithms, by S.W.A. Dekker and J.M. Nyce (article)
54. What ‘just culture’ doesn’t understand about just punishment, by S. Reis-Dennis (article)
55. What Is Learning? A Review of the Safety Literature to Define Learning from Incidents, Accidents and Disasters, by Linda Drupsteen and Frank W. Guldenmund (article)
56. Leading organisational learning in health care, by J.S. Carroll and A.C. Edmondson (article)
57. Confronting indifference toward truth: Dealing with workplace bullshit, by I. P. McCarthy, D. Hannah, L. F. Pitt, and J. M. McCarthy
58. Just Culture: Restoring Trust and Accountability in Your Organization, by Sidney Dekker
59. The Learning Review: Adding to the Accident Investigation Toolbox, by I. Pupulidy and C. Vesel (article)
60. The ‘awful idea of accountability’: inscribing people into the measurement of objects, by K. Hoskin (article)
61. Seeing patient safety ‘like a state’, by R. L. Wears and G. S. Hunte (article)
62. The collapse of sensemaking, by Weick (article)
63. Social context for ethnic borders and school failure, by R. P. McDermott and K. Gospodinoff (article)
64. A case of collective lying: How deceit becomes entrenched in organizational safety behaviour, by Hayes et al. (article)
65. Dark knights: Exploring resilience and hidden workarounds in commercial aviation through mixed methods (article)
66. From the surface to the underlying meaning: an analysis of senior managers’ safety culture perceptions (article)
67. The responsibilization strategy of health and safety: Neo-liberalism and the Reconfiguration of Individual Responsibility for Risk, by Gray (article)
68. Promoting patient safety: An ethical basis for policy deliberation, by Sharpe (article)
69. Accounting for the effects of accountability, by Lerner and Tetlock (article)
70. A typology of organizational cultures, by R. Westrum (article)
71. Safety as strategy: Mistakes, failures and fiascos in high-risk systems, by Jean-Christophe Le Coze (article)
72. Safety culture and the issue of power, by S. Antonsen (article)
73. There is safety in power, or power in safety, by S.W.A. Dekker and J.M. Nyce (article)

Miscellaneous reads (graphic novels, short stories, etc.) - Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan played the Master in the Doctor Who Comic Relief special "The Curse of Fatal Death", featuring Rowan Atkinson (!) as the Doctor. Well worth YouTubing.

1. A Man and His Cat, Volume 8, by Umi Sakurai (translated by Taylor Engel)
2. A Man and His Cat, Volume 9, by Umi Sakurai (translated by Taylor Engel)
3. Heartstopper, Volume 5, by Alice Oseman
4. A Man and His Cat, Volume 10, by Umi Sakurai (translated by Taylor Engel)
5. The Evil Secret Society of Cats, Vol. 1, by Pandania (translated by Alethea and Athena Nibley)
6. A Man and His Cat, Volume 11, by Umi Sakurai (translated by Taylor Engel)
7. Cat + Gamer, Volume 1, by Wataru Nadatani (translated by Zack Davisson)
8. Dungeons and Dragon's Player's Handbook, 5th Edition, by James Wyatt
9. Dungeons and Dragon's Dungeon Master's Guide, 5th Edition, by Mike Mearls
10. Verdict of 13: A Detection Club Anthology, ed. Julian Symons
11. Sherlock: The Casebook, by Guy Adams

Bingo

An extra post for the BingoDOG card.



8. Three-word title: Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones
21. From LT "similar library": Mystery Man, by Colin Bateman (found in the libraries of JoeB1934, DeltaQueen50, Eowyn1, sesgreen25, VivienneR, booktruffler, and LSDWho)
23. POC author: The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo
25. Paper-based item in plot: Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, by Satoshi Yagisawa (translated by Eric Ozawa)
20. About friendship: A Man and His Cat, Volume 9, by Umi Sakurai (translated by Taylor Engel)
10. Set in a city: The Freelancer, by C. J. Fournier
22. Set in multiple countries: The Defector, by Chris Hadfield
9. Topic about which you have specific knowledge: Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens, by David Mitchell (I've read a lot of English history)
14. Person's name in title: Gideon's Risk, by J. J. Marric
16. Featuring water: The Serpent's Coil, by Farley Mowat

Happy new thread! I hope your studies are going as well as your reading.

Happy new thread! I'm amazed at how many other reads you manage besides your course material!

Happy new thread! You've had so much school reading.
In answer to your question in the last thread, I spent a few weeks in a very small town called Dala-Floda in Dalarna (pronounced Dahlah-kallya) county. I did make it to Stockholm for a day.

Happy new thread.

>14 VivienneR: Thanks, Vivienne! It's summer break right now, although I do still have homework. But having a break from assignments for a bit gives me some more mental space.

>15 MissWatson: Thanks, Birgit! I'm requesting far more library books than I can probably reasonably handle, but it is still fun to try to squeeze one more read in ;)

>16 mstrust: Thanks, Jennifer! The articles do add up. Dala-Floda looks very nice!

>17 lowelibrary: Thanks, April!

Enjoy your break and your recreational reading!

Happy new thread! The Korean bookshop book from your last thread went onto my WL!

Happy new thread, RP. Enjoy your summer break!

Happy new thread, I hope your Masters course is still going well. How much longer do you have to go?

>19 pamelad: Thanks, Pam!

>20 Tess_W: Thanks, Tess! Hope you like it!

>21 DeltaQueen50: Thanks, Judy!

>22 Jackie_K: Thanks, Jackie! I have another year and a half to go (including the thesis part). We'll start inching toward developing the thesis in the fall.

A few books to report on.

Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, by Dame Judi Dench and Brendan O'Hea (category: Sir Derek Jacobi) -- 4 stars. I really enjoyed this conversation between Dame Judi and Brendan. Always interesting to hear how actors engage with Shakespeare's work. And Dame Judi is very funny.

The Missing, by Tim Gautreaux (category: Geoffrey Beevers) -- 3 stars. Set after World War One, this story takes place in New Orleans and elsewhere in the southern US, and it has a very strong sense of place. I did choose it to read randomly, though, so my heart might not have been fully in the story. Still, worth reading if it interests you.

Takao Tanabe: Life and Work, by Ian Thom (category: Anthony Ainley) -- 4 stars. I really like the Art Canada Institute's series about various Canadian artists. Tanabe is known for his landscapes, particularly of the prairies and British Columbia. Great stuff.

Happy new thread.
I'm tempted by the Dench on Shakespeare, I admit.

>25 Helenliz: Thanks, Helen! The Dench is a good book to pick up and put down, although I read through most of it in a couple of long sessions.

Between knitting and tidying, I finished up this audiobook:

Dalek Empire 3.2: The Healers, by Nicholas Briggs (category: Alex Macqueen) -- 3.5 stars. Most of the story is a 3 but the extra half star is for the nicely calibrated ending. Perfect final line to this installment. Boom!
Also having David Tennant in a pre-Doctor role didn't hurt either ;)

Today I FINALLY finished The Challenger Launch Decision, by Diane Vaughan (category: Sacha Dhawan) -- 4.5 stars.
I've been reading this since November 2022 and thought it was excellent and want my own copy, but it is a tough slog in places, so not quite 5 stars on a "reading enjoyment" level. But absolutely worth reading.

Happy new thread, Rabbitprincess! Congratulations on keeping on with school and a full-time job AND your LT threads. Hmmm, which one is the most important??

>28 rabbitprincess: And also congratulations on finishing this book. I can imagine it was a difficult book to read.

>29 threadnsong: Thanks, threadnsong! I'm glad to have finished up that book. And maybe in 2026 I'll be able to get around to Adam Higginbotham's take on Challenger: Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space I really liked his book about Chernobyl, so I have high hopes for the Challenger one.

A few days ago I tucked in to Stuart Turton's latest, The Last Murder at the End of the World (category: Roger Delgado) -- 4 stars. This one was almost cozy for a post-apocalyptic novel. Maybe the beautiful sunset on the cover gave relaxing vibes. I liked this a bit more than The Devil and the Dark Water but not as much as The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (I LOVE time loops and setting clues for your past self to collect to set a chain of events in motion). Can't wait to see what Turton comes up with next.

Two more books to report:

The Serpent's Coil, by Farley Mowat (category: Anthony Ainley) -- 3.5 stars. Another true story of salvage ships on the high seas. Written in the early 1980s and about an incident from the late 1940s. Non-fiction that reads like a novel.

A Man and His Cat, Vol. 11, by Umi Sakurai, translated by Taylor Engel (category: Jonathan Pryce) -- 5 stars. Now I'm all caught up with the series :( This was an excellent, moving volume. I basically spent the whole book blubbering, which apparently translates to a higher star rating, haha.

Continuing the Japanese trend with More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, by Satoshi Yagisawa, translated by Eric Ozawa (category: Roger Delgado) -- 4 stars. I don't know if you *need* to read this if you liked Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, but if you're in need of a book about bookshops, this would do the job.

Congrats on finishing the Challenger read!

>34 Tess_W: Thanks, Tess! I'm glad to have finished it up :)

Probably the last book for July: Murder in Retrospect, by Agatha Christie (category: Eric Roberts) -- original rating 4 stars, leaving unchanged. I last read this in 2011 and had completely forgotten the solution.

>36 rabbitprincess: I think that was my first Agatha Christie book! It started me on a huge binge of her work around age 12-13.

>37 christina_reads: It would be a good one! My first was The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

July recap

Summer break means more time for pleasure reading! Managed 15 items this month (books and articles)

Challenger: Fine-tuning the odds until something breaks, by William H. Starbuck and Frances J. Milliken (article)
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, by Dame Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea
The Missing, by Tim Gautreaux
Takao Tanabe: Life and Work, by Ian Thom
Creating foresight: Lessons for enhancing resilience from Columbia, by David Woods (article)
Causes of disaster: Sloppy management, by Barry A. Turner (article)
Dalek Empire 3.2: The Healers (Big Finish audio drama)
The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, by Diane Vaughan
The Last Murder at the End of the World, by Stuart Turton
The Serpent’s Coil, by Farley Mowat
A Man and His Cat, Vol. 11, by Umi Sakurai (translated by Taylor Engel)
More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, by Satoshi Yagisawa (translated by Eric Ozawa)
The Conscious Style Guide: A Flexible Approach to Language That Includes, Respects, and Empowers, by Karen Yin
Murder in Retrospect, by Agatha Christie
Doctor Who: Whotopia: The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse, by Jonathan Morris, Simon Guerrier, and Una McCormack

My favourite book this month was A Man and His Cat, Vol. 11. Such a good series, and now I’m all caught up.

I had a couple of meh books toward the end of the month, and Doctor Who: Whotopia, shockingly, was the one I did not actually finish, so that might be the “least best” book this month.

Currently (actively) reading

I have a whole lot of books piled on the coffee table and haven’t decided what to start next. I’ll probably continue reading Drift into Failure, by Sidney Dekker, which at least has the benefit of being related to my coursework (even if it is zero help with managing my library backlog).

August plans

The giant book pile from last month hasn’t got any smaller…and now that my course is starting up again, I'll probably be reading only the shortest books on the pile.

A few books for August in between the articles:

Cat + Gamer Vol. 1, by Wataru Nadatani, translated by Zack Davisson (category: Jonathan Pryce) -- 3 stars. Fun, but a bit over-the-top in some of the video game analogies. I will likely read more in the series but not right now.

Rim of the Pit, by Hake Talbot (category: Michelle Gomez) -- 2 stars. I keep trying to like impossible-crime mysteries and they don't usually take. I preferred the supernatural explanation for this one.

Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words, by Anne Curzan (category: Anthony Ainley) -- 3.5 stars. This is a very good usage guide and is written in a clear, accessible way.

August recap

Back to school and lots of reading articles. This month I read 10 items:

Cat + Gamer, Volume 1, by Wataru Nadatani (translated by Zack Davisson)
Culture, error, and crew resource management, by Robert L. Helmreich, John A. Wilhelm, James R. Klinect, and Ashleigh C. Merritt (article)
Risk management in a dynamic society: A modelling problem, by J. Rasmussen (article)
Managing major accident risk: Concerns about complacency and complexity in practice, by I. Arstad and T. Aven (article)
The complexity of failure: Implications of complexity theory for safety investigations, by S. Dekker, P. Cilliers, and J-H. Hofmeyr (article)
Rim of the Pit, by Hake Talbot
Applying systems thinking to analyze and learn from events, by N. G. Leveson (article)
Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words, by Anne Curzan
The paradoxes of almost totally safe transportation systems, by R. Amalberti (article)
Resilience engineering for sociotechnical safety management, by R. Patriarca (article)

My favourite book this month was Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words.

My least favourite book was Rim of the Pit. I preferred the supernatural explanation of the murder to the “impossible-crime” solution.

Currently (actively) reading

Making as much progress as I can on The Fellowship of the Ring before I go to ComicCon this coming weekend—the hobbits will be there :)

September plans

Course 2 of my program is wrapping up this month, so I should try to squeeze in some shorter fun reads during the break. I have a couple of Doctor Who comics on the on-deck pile.

Enjoy your spare time. You managed to get through more reading this past month than I did :-D

Hope Course 2 ending give you some time.
Intrigued by the risk emphasis of the articles, what's the topic?

>42 mstrust: I hadn't finished a full book at all this month! Had to finish one quickly this evening.

>43 Helenliz: Lots of topics, but mainly with a focus on safety (whatever that looks like in the particular context one is working in). The course has given me far too many rabbit holes to go down :D

Inspired by meeting Merry and Pippin of LOTR fame at ComicCon this past weekend (and getting Pippin's autograph, squee!), I finally finished my re-read of The Fellowship of the Ring. Going to call it 4.5 stars because I did find there were a lot of songs that took me a while to read, haha. But it was a lot of fun to revisit.

>44 rabbitprincess: I work for a medical device company and we spend a lot of time looking at risk and how to manage the risk to users. I find it fascinating.

>46 Helenliz: That would be fascinating! Coincidentally, I'm reading a book called Forgive and Remember, which is about how surgeons manage different types of error. Health care is a big focus in this part of the program.

Finally read a book for once!

The Eleventh Doctor, Vol. 3: Conversion, written by Al Ewing and illustrated by Simon Fraser (category: John Simm): 4 stars. I like the story in this volume of comics very much. I was also able to pick up the threads even though I read the previous volume about a year ago and have been stuffing my brain with master's reading all of this year -- clearly these are memorable!

>48 rabbitprincess: Doctor Who provides a cure! Glad you are able to fit a book into your "masterful" reading.

>49 VivienneR: The challenge is prying myself away from video games, which have supplanted a lot of my non-master's reading (because I do so much reading for school and work).

A couple of weeks' worth of bus reading results in another book read.

True Canadian Stories of the Great Lakes, by Mark Bourrie (Category: Geoffrey Beevers) -- 3 stars. Some good choices of stories, many of which I hadn't heard before.

>51 rabbitprincess: I had that book some time ago.......if it's the one I think it is. I don't have a record of it--odd! However, if it is the very same book, I enjoyed the story about the Edmund Fitzgerald.

>52 Tess_W: The Edmund Fitzgerald story is a good one, the perfect choice to end the book. I thought I'd heard of the SS Noronic, but I was mixing it up with the Norgoma, which is docked in Sault Ste. Marie.

Oof, keeping reading for pleasure when you're reading for work and school is a such a mission. Do you eye-read on the bus or audio book it?
Hope your studies are going well!

>54 charl08: I eye-read; the bus is too noisy for me to read audiobooks effectively. It does take me a while to get through the books, though!

Studies are going well. We're into the third course, and soon we'll be talking about preparing a research question for our thesis.

>54 charl08: “Eye-read”—I’m going to use this! And maybe “ear-read” too!

The bus has helped me get through a couple of books this month:

Apollo 13, by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger (category: Anthony Ainley) -- 5 stars. Fascinating and suspenseful, even though I basically knew the ending. The journey was what mattered.

McNally's Gamble, by Lawrence Sanders (category: Eric Roberts) -- 3.5 stars. A re-read of a book I last read over 20 years ago. Archy McNally always entertains.

What Time the Sexton's Spade Doth Rust, by Alan Bradley (category: Michelle Gomez) -- 3.5 stars. I was ambivalent about another installment in this series because I thought The Golden Tresses of the Dead wrapped things up pretty well, but I read it anyway. I enjoyed Flavia's narration as always, but I wasn't prepared to fully suspend my disbelief for a few plot points.

The Truth About Burnout, by Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter (category: Anthony Ainley) -- 3.5 stars. Even though this book was published in the late 90s/early 2000s, it was still depressingly relatable today.

On Beulah Height, by Reginald Hill (category: Michelle Gomez) -- 3 stars. This book had a good structure, but it was long (over 500 pages in paperback) and I lost the thread a little bit.

I couldn't make it to my favourite used-book sale this year, but I did manage to sneak downtown for a cheeky browse at my favourite used bookstore in the city. There were no Doctor Who novels, which was disappointing because they used to have a reliable supply, but I did come away with the second and third books of the Farseer trilogy (Royal Assassin and Assassin's Quest), which I've wanted to read for a while. I'll have to hunt more purposefully for the first volume.

Just Culture: Restoring Trust and Accountability in Your Organization, by Sidney Dekker (category: Sacha Dhawan) -- 4 stars. Been working on this one for about a month.

>58 rabbitprincess: I was surprised to see another release by Alan Bradley. I thought the Flavia series was neatly wrapped up in the last one. I'll still read it though.

>59 rabbitprincess: Some authors just don't know when to stop talking (or typing in this case). Reginald Hill is one of them (Tana French and Robert Galbraith are two more). Like Bradley, I'll still read them.

Haven't had much time for reading or recaps of the past couple of months. I'm keeping the lists up to date, though. Not a great reading month in November; only one of the three actual books I read was good.

The Trojan Horse, by Hammond Innes (category: Roger Delgado): another one of these mid-20th-century thrillers that I keep picking up at book sales. Decided to get rid of this one because I don't intend to read it again, and the book itself was a bit too beat up to pass along to another book sale.

Grand Prix: An Illustrated History of Formula 1, by Will Buxton (category: Anthony Ainley): a good book to read in snippets. Its layout is not quite as lavish as the DK Big Ideas Simply Explained series, but it has a similar vibe, so it's a good introduction to the sport.

Sherlock: The Casebook, by Guy Adams (category: Jonathan Pryce): a fun way to relive the first two seasons of Sherlock.

I hope your studies are going well and that you'll find some time for "fun" reading during the holiday break. I must say that many of the titles of your course reading sound fascinating!

>67 mathgirl40: They are quite fascinating! I have about six of the course books in varying states of completion (reading just enough to complete an assignment) so I'm hoping to finish one of them over the holiday break.

Doctor Who: Illegal Alien, by Mike Tucker (category: John Simm): a Seventh Doctor and Ace story in which they encounter truly horrific Cybermen.

Catching up a little bit.

Mattimeo, by Brian Jacques (category: Eric Roberts): a re-read of a children's fantasy novel that I read a couple of decades ago. I remembered nothing about it, so it was like a brand-new read (but I do know I read it, so it stays in the re-reads category).

The Legends of River Song, by Jenny Colgan (category: John Simm): overall a decent collection of stories featuring River Song on a few adventures. My favourite story was the first in the collection.

The Vanishing Museum on the Rue Mistral, by M. L. Longworth (category: Michelle Gomez): Only one book left in the Verlaque and Bonnet series! This one had an interesting non-murder crime to start the story.

Dalek Empire 3.3: The Survivors, by Nicholas Briggs (category: Alex Macqueen): My neglected audio category gets another boost with this installment of Dalek Empire. This particular arc has been really good, getting better with each installment. I may have to listen to the rest sooner rather than later (while digesting Christmas dinner, perhaps).

An excellent book haul for Christmas:

The Zygon Invasion, by Peter Harness
The Mysterious Mr. Badman, by W. F. Harvey
Death of a Bookseller, by Bernard J. Farmer
Crimes of Cymru: Classic Mystery Tales of Wales, ed. Martin Edwards
The Alarm of the Black Cat, by Dolores Hitchens
Endeavour on Location: An Unofficial Review and Guide to the Locations Used, by J. P. Sperati (to go with the complete series of Endeavour on Blu-Ray)

Pilgrim Soul, by Gordon Ferris (category: Michelle Gomez): the third installment of the Douglas Brodie series. I last read a book in the series 6 years ago and have only one left (it isn't a long series).

>72 rabbitprincess: You did well at Christmas! They all look good!

>73 rabbitprincess: I've had three of the series on the shelf for years and somehow never get around to them. New shiny books are just hard to ignore.

Looking forward to following your reading in 2025. Happy New Year!