I do not read much non-fiction outside of material relating to Burkina Faso and West Africa. A friend recommended this book, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe, and it did not disappoint. Plenty of food for thought about urban violence, small violent groups, the culture of violence and honor, universities getting involved, etc. I found myself skimming a fair amount: the prose occasionally gets a bit tedious, and the “device” of the book (what did the tapes reveal!?) perhaps could have been eschewed. I understand the idea of having the reader “learn” along with so many others, but an alternative narration technique might have worked better?
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Recent Posts
- Reading Nov-Dec 2025 and Jan 2026
- AI as an existential threat – Kevane preliminary draft
- “What can it do?” A living list of computational problems that deep learning/AI/neural nets can or seems likely to “do” (at varying cost and efficacy)
- Reading August-September 2025
- The typical popular sci-fi version of AI posing an existential risk?
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Friends of African Village Libraries (I post regularly here)- Sumbrungu Community Library nighttime reading
- Résumé du livre Une grande mère criminelle
- Organisation d’une séance de discussion autour d’un livre à la bibliothèque de Dimikuy
- Librarians of Tuy monthly meeting January 2026, Burkina Faso
- Impressions sur la production de livres CMH au Burkina Faso
- Compte rendu de la première rencontre des gérants de la zone du Tuy
- Science fiction books for libraries in Burkina Faso and Ghana
- Animation d’une séance de lecture à la bibliothèque de Dimikuy
- Nyariga Community Library in Ghana, photos January 2026
- Visite à la bibliothèque de Béréba, Burkina Faso