The Lair

Been a while since I had this much free time to myself. And by free time, I really mean time that I should be spending putting the finishing touches to some work – but I’m choosing to do other things. First, books – and there is truly nothing nicer than being able to catch up on some of the titles that I hadn’t read over the last year. Then, in orderly fashion – new book announcements, of which there are a few.

First, to no one’s surprise (certainly not mine, at any rate) – the final Robert Jordan WoT book is now three volumes. Why do I sense another potential money spinning venture here; with volume following volume? Perhaps I’m being overly cynical about this. Next, new Discworld. Note the timing of both releases – November and October this year, respectively.

And apropos of nothing – more than one person has already asked me how I manage to keep some (most) of the character names in the WoT series sorted out in my head. And the answer is; well – at least I think the answer is – I have read the books a few times now over the last decade or so. I do re-read books. These things get remembered. As an explanation, I always thought this sounded sort of weak – until I read about the woman who has perfect recall.

Except that the article takes the sheen off a pretty remarkable achievement by setting it in a slightly creepy context -

When it comes to the 2004 election, she opts out entirely. I soon find that except for her own personal history and certain categories like television and airplane crashes, Price’s memory isn’t much better than anyone else’s

and later …

The difference is that she scans her past relentlessly. Every time we think about something, and especially how it connects to something else, we get better at remembering it—a phenomenon that psychologists call elaborative encoding

And now? you find a picture of someone who seems to spend most of her time relentlessly scanning her past. Ooerr.

And on that note, I’m off to forget most of what I still remember about characters in the WoT series.