Audiobooks – June 2025

Abundance: What Progress Takes by Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson

A critic of the rules from 50 years ago stopping excesses of development that are now stopping building, science and progress. US-centric but relevant to elsewhere. 4/5

On Locations: Lessons Learned from My Life On Set with The Sopranos and in the Film Industry by Mark Kamine

Lots of stories from the film/TV industry mixed with the author’s career history as a location scout, location manager and unit production manager 4/5

My Audiobook Scoring System

  • 5/5 = Brilliant, top 5 book of the year
  • 4/5 = Above average, strongly recommend
  • 3/5 = Average. in the middle 70% of books I read
  • 2/5 = Disappointing
  • 1/5 = Did not like at all
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Audiobooks – May 2025

Fateful Choices, Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941 by Ian Kershaw

A fascinating book covering decisions from the point of view of the wartime leaders making them. Highly recommend 5/5

Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future by James Morton Turner


More a history of pollution from batteries and their construction than a straight history of the technology. It delivers that well enough though 3/5

Box Office Poison: Hollywood’s Story in a Century of Flops by Tim Robey

Covers 26 movies (skipping some of the best known) with fun behind-the-scenes tales of disaster and over-reach. 4/5

My Audiobook Scoring System

  • 5/5 = Brilliant, top 5 book of the year
  • 4/5 = Above average, strongly recommend
  • 3/5 = Average. in the middle 70% of books I read
  • 2/5 = Disappointing
  • 1/5 = Did not like at all
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Audiobooks – April 2025

Never Panic Early: An Apollo 13 Astronaut’s Journey by Fred Haise

A fairly straightforward autobiography. Covers the areas you’d expect and has a few interesting stories that tie into the title. 3/5

My Scoring System for Books

  • 5/5 = Brilliant, top 5 book of the year
  • 4/5 = Above average, strongly recommend
  • 3/5 = Average. in the middle 70% of books I read
  • 2/5 = Disappointing
  • 1/5 = Did not like at all
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Audiobooks – March 2025

Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age by Eric Berger

A sequel to his previous book on SpaceX this covers 2008 to 2023 and concentrates on the development of Falcon 9. Very good, recommended 4/5

Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film by Peter Biskind

Publish 2004 the books is 70% Miramax & 10% Sundance. Lots of crazy Miramax and Hollywood stories. Fun and interesting to read 4/5

Hope I Get Old Before I Die: Why Rock Stars Never Retire by David Hepworth

A fun romp though the unexpected 3rd Act of 60s and 70s Music Stars since 1985. Full of amusing stories delivered with Hepworth’s usual witty style 4/5

Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

An insider’s stories of Facebook (and a Shark attack). Lots of nuts stuff and good yarns the reflect pretty negatively. Although the author seems too good to be true. 4/5

My Scoring System

  • 5/5 = Brilliant, top 5 book of the year
  • 4/5 = Above average, strongly recommend
  • 3/5 = Average. in the middle 70% of books I read
  • 2/5 = Disappointing
  • 1/5 = Did not like at all
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Audiobooks – February 2025

The Nvidia Way: Jensen Huang and the Making of a Tech Giant by Tae Kim

A history of Jensen Huang and Nvidia. Easy to follow and interesting. 4/5

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Another listen of the Serkis version. Once again I’m mostly okay with his reading, although I prefer Inglis’ 4/5

My Audiobook Scoring System

  • 5/5 = Brilliant, top 5 book of the year
  • 4/5 = Above average, strongly recommend
  • 3/5 = Average. in the middle 70% of books I read
  • 2/5 = Disappointing
  • 1/5 = Did not like at all
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OzMoot 2025 Conference

From Friday 24th January to Sunday 26th January 2025 I attended the OzMoot 2025 conference in Melbourne.

OzMoot is a small conference centered around the works of J.R.R Tolkien and related topics. It is run by Hern Ennorath (The Australian Tolkien fan organisation) in partnership with Signum University who do various activities including running similar events around the world.

Overview

Around 30 people attended in person with a similar number online. The venue was a community hall. Cost was $US 100 per person for the two and a half days of the conference.

The programme mostly consisted of talks on various topics ( Scroll down here to see the schedule ) with coffee/biscuits for morning and afternoon tea and a break for lunch which most people took at the nearby cafes (or brought food back to the venue). In the evening there were two dinners (one at a restaurant and another at the home of an attendee) plus there was an ad-hoc dinner on the last day some attended.

When I saw the “mostly talks” there were several events that were not straight presentations. They included several talks that included music (as per the theme of the conference) plus straight musical performances, a costume parade, Tolkien readings and a trivia competition.

The Hall also had tables setup. One with books (and other items) for sale, a second with collectables displayed and a 3rd with a jigsaw puzzle (which we collectively did not finish)

The event was Hybrid with streaming via Zoom and an active Slack for the duration of the event.

Items for sale
Collectables Display

Impressions

The conference was described as “In the grey area between fan convention and academic conference” which is pretty accurate. Many of the talks are quite academic although by no means all of them and the talks are mostly accessible even if you are only a casual fan (or been dragged along by your Mum in two cases this year).

I’ve blogged my notes on the talks

You note that not all the talks are directly Tolkien related. eg the Keynote was analyzing Rap/HipHop Music.

“Tolkien Professor” Corey Olsen analyzing Rhyming in Rap Music

This conference was the third I’ve attended. I went to 2023 online and attended OzMoot 2024 in Sydney in person.

The whole event is great and the people are very welcoming. The attendees are a wide range of ages and have lots of interests and skills outside the world of Tolkien.

I would recommend the conference if you are interested in Tolkien and in Australia or New Zealand. If you want to start off slow I’d suggest attended one of the Moots online. They mostly last a day and cost around $US25. Signum also does several free weekly streams/podcasts and paid online courses.

Next year’s OzMoot is planned for late-January 2026 in Canberra and there are tentative plans for 2027 to be held in Wellington. I hope to attended both events.

Links

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Audiobooks – January 2025

Hidden in the Heavens: How the Kepler Mission’s Quest for New Planets Changed How We View Our Own by Jason Steffen

A review of the Kepler mission. I Found it very interesting and goes into interesting but accessible detail 4/5

Shake It Up, Baby! – The Rise of Beatlemania and the Mayhem of 1963 by Ken McNab

The year the Beatles when from obscure to megastars via a crazy number of songs, concerts and events. An excellent read even for non-fans 4/5

Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood by Ed Zwick

Talks about his career and the mechanics of directing. The good and bad experiences with big movies and named stars. Fun and interesting. 4/5

Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham

A mostly person-centric story of the Challenger Disaster. Follows the astronauts and other characters but still covers the tech well. 4/5

My Scoring System

  • 5/5 = Brilliant, top 5 book of the year
  • 4/5 = Above average, strongly recommend
  • 3/5 = Average. in the middle 70% of books I read
  • 2/5 = Disappointing
  • 1/5 = Did not like at all
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OzMoot 2025 – Day 3 – Afternoon

Corey’s Poetry Dice-Roll Activity

  • First Poem – Athelas
    When the black breath blows
    and death’s shadow grows
    and all lights pass,
    come athelas! come athelas!
    Life to the dying
    In the king’s hand lying!
  • Second Poem – Chip the Glasses
    • The First Tolkien poem most people ever skip

      Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
      Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
      That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates—
      Smash the bottles and burn the corks!

      Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!
      Pour the milk on the pantry floor!
      Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!
      Splash the wine on every door!

      Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;
      Pound them up with a thumping pole;
      And when you’ve finished if any are whole,
      Send them down the hall to roll!

      That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates!
      So, carefully! carefully with the plates!
  • 3rd Poem – The Hoard

    When the moon was new and the sun young
    of silver and gold the gods sung:
    in the green grass they silver spilled,
    and the white waters they with gold filled.
    Ere the pit was dug or Hell yawned,
    ere dwarf was bred or dragon spawned,
    there were Elves of old, and strong spells
    under green hills in hollow dells
    they sang as they wrought many fair things,
    and the bright crowns of the Elf-kings.
    But their doom fell, and their song waned,
    by iron hewn and by steel chained.
    Greed that sang not, nor with mouth smiled,
    in dark holes their wealth piled,
    graven silver and carven gold:
    over Elvenhome the shadow rolled.

    plus more verses
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OzMoot 2025 – Day 3 – Morning

Corey Olsen Keynote Address

  • The Music of Words: Tolkien and Hip-Hop
  • I am not the “Hip-Hop Professor”
  • Poetry as an active literary for died in the 20th century – except here
  • Traditional Poetry: A framework vs the words you are saying. Rhythm and Rhyme
  • Example Dr Seuss – Starts with a perfect rhyme but there he varies it at the end and then later last line is a big twist
  • Origin DJ + MC in Harlem 70s street parties
    • Rhythm+Rhyme in a musical context
    • Has an actual beat and music
  • Run DMC – It’s like That
    • Preamble
      • The line breaks in printed lyrics match the meter
      • This is rarely true with normal printed lyrics
      • They are often also inaccurate
    • Review
      • The shape and packing is not unlike a normal song
      • But the music of the piece is entirely spoken words
    • Rhyme Scheme
      • Beats – beat 3 is where all rhymes are
      • “Thats the way it is” never rhymes with anything. Because the point of a song is that things are wrong
  • Redman: “Time 4 Sumaksion”
    • Beat 1 and 3 are the primary beats
    • Diagram – Blue is primary
  • Rakim: Guess Who’s back?
    • One of the few hiphop artists who does multi-syllabic rhyme
    • Much less rigid, less stuff on the 3rd beat
    • Signals change to rhyme ahead of time
    • Parody the “Simplicity of what Djs do”
    • The hip-hop version on enjambment
  • Tech N9in: Devil Boy
    • Empty first beat ( until the last time )
    • “god i ly” three syllable word
    • Lots of alliteration
    • Then transitions to new pattern for second half of the verse
  • Eminem: “Lose Yourself”
    • One of the most perfect and extraordinary passages of poetry in the English Language
    • “sweater and sweaty” don’t rhyme 100% but that isn’t important
    • Rhyme matches the narrative ( where is gets stuck in front of the crowd )
    • Main bit: 3 syllable rhyme at end of most lines ( gravity, rabbit he ) and separate 3 syllable rhyme at the start of each line.
    • ..and he keeps the narrative which varying the flow
    • In the chorus everybody dances . Transitions in simpler 1-2 syllable rhymes
  • Eminem: Without Me
  • Eminem: Lock it up
  • Eminem: Untitled
    • Raps in 6/8 measure (unlike 99% of RAP is in 4/4)
  • Eminem: Venom
  • Eminem: Godzilla
    • Extremely fast bit
    • Speed up? But has been performed live at similar space
  • Joyner Lucas: From ‘Lucky You’
  • “This is going to be quick, we’re just going to talk about two Tolkien Poems”
  • Tolkien: Gimli’s Song
    • Very Regular. Should be boring
    • But it isn’t boring, why?
    • The 3rd dimension of this poem is alliteration
    • Tolkien sees d/t and y/w as cousins in rhyming (see Tengwar )
    • Does a melody in the alliteration on top of the rhyme
    • Varies things at the end to indicate a closing (and pump up the final line)
  • Does he do this elsewhere, pick another poem
  • Tolkien: Boromir’s Lament
    • This poem is a more complicated meter and is more complex overall
    • Alliteration: W’s form the dominate theme
    • n’s and m’s also
  • Q: What Literature influenced early rappers?
    • Possibly just emerged and influenced each other
  • Q: Public Enemy?
    • Listened to a lot of that. And commentary on them

Presentation: Sam Lewis – The Elves and the Celts: Elvish Poetry in ‘The Hobbit’

  • Big disclaimer at start.
  • Tolkien’s Faerie
    • Mythology for England / Britain
    • But the Celts were already there
  • Creating a Celtic Britain
    • 1760 onwards , sometimes manufactured
    • Anglo-Saxon = Modern . Celt = mythical, stone-age, edge of world
    • Tolkien’s view
      • ‘The wild incalculable poetic Celt”
      • co-inhabitants of the same island
  • Teutonic and Celtic in ‘The Hobbit”
    • Three poems
  • The Withered Health
    • Dwarf poem from Queer Lodgings in The Hobbit
    • wind is usually interpreted as representing the swarves and/or providence/fate
  • O! What are you doing?
  • The Dragon has Withered
  • Talk a bit fast for me too keep up with notes

Presentation: Lauren Brand – The Music of Nimrodel

  • As the company enter Lothlorien they come across the stream the Nimrodel
  • How much music in Middle earth relates to fresh water bodies?
  • Mapped up occurances of references to bodies of water and looked for songs/music and other descriptive words
    • 1216 occurrences
    • 621 no description
    • 123 a sound
    • 231 visual description
    • 53 touch
    • 20 taste
    • 22 smell
  • Sound comes and goes in various stages. Some waters like the Brandywine is described
  • Mordor has little water but Sam and Frodo are obsessed with it’s lack so lot of descriptions
  • Where is is the music of waters?
    • “a dream of music that turns into running water”
    • “a voice singing mingled with the sound of water”
  • Other noisy places
    • Gate stream “trickling” , “a swish followed by a plop”
    • “A mighty roaring mingled with a deep throbing boom”
    • “Voice of Morgalduin … seemed cold and cruel”
  • Spirit of the River is common
    • Like to drag people underwater and drown them
    • Jenny Greenteeth
  • Goldberry
  • Nimrodel
  • Others
    • Raros
    • Mirrormere
    • Galadriel’s Mirror
  • In conclusion, listen to the sounds around you especially the sounds of waters
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OzMoot 2025 – Day 2 – Afternoon

Presentation: Cassidy Winter – Invertebrates in the Works of Tolkien and the Societal Impact of Those Portrayals

  • Hypotheses
    • Shelob = Hobbit
    • If Invertebrates written as evil by Tolkien
  • What is an Invertebrate?
  • Ungoliant
    • Takes the form of a Spider
  • Beorn’s Giant Bees
  • Mirkwood Spiders
  • Were-worms
  • Shortcut to mushroom: Spider, Centipede, Earthworms
  • Neekerbreekers
  • Morgul Flowers and Flies(?)
  • Sheblob – Spider
  • Butterflies
  • Gwaihir’s Moth pal – Film only
  • Ants, Glowworms, snails
  • Compiled list of all animal entries in Tolkien
  • Invertebrate by clade and alignment
  • Spiders mostly bad, butterflies mostly good
  • Stats
    • Horses good
    • Reptiles evil
    • invertebrates up in air
  • Horses have a capacity for evil matched only by Humans in my opinion

Presentation: Ilana Mushin – Pride and Prejudice

  • What does Tolkien mean by Pride / Proud?
    • “proud and fair” in the dead marshes
    • “pride and dispair” Gandalf to Denothor
  • Pride is French word with positives connotations
    • Once in Old English it started to become negative (haughty, overbearing)
    • Middle-English – Gets back some positive meanings
  • The Grammar of Pride / Proud
    • To complex for me to summarize
  • Around 30% uses were positive
  • Negative 37%
  • 33% not clear if it positive or negative
  • Who is proud?
    • Saruman
    • Individual Elves (but sometimes Noldor)
    • Denethor
    • Folk of Gondor
    • Shadowfax
    • Turin
  • Sauron and Morgoth are not described has having pride
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