Sunday, August 29, 2021

Upstairs completed

The True Herod by Geza Vermes is my last book from the "upstairs" part of Dorking library, the far part of the books area up the steps which is exclusively non-fiction. The more popular lower part near the entrance I am roughly half way through, so a lot of fiction books have to be read over the next few months. The True Herod was my last book from the upper regions, and also Geza Vermes's, as it was published posthumously. I'm sure most would agree it's not his best book, and not on the scholarly level of his works on the bible and Dead Sea Scrolls. This is fairly short and packed with a lot of pictures. I am not sure I really got much out of it other than it's premise that Herod was not the villain portrayed in our nativity plays. 4/10




Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Mail Obsession

Mail Obsession: A journey around Britain by postcode was fairly geeky book by Mark Mason. He comes up with a fascinating fact from each postcode area, most of which he travels to. But the truth is most of the places he saw through a car window and might as well stayed at home and used Wikipedia. The visits he did make to places like Shetland and Watford Junction I enjoyed best, where he actually got to talk to real people (as opposed to fellow nerds like himself). 6/10