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My February reading reviewed by ChatGPT
These are the 12 books I read in February followed by ChatGPT’s observations:
- Espedair Street – Iain Banks [The life of a rock star. Not my c of t. Skimmed]
- A Season In Exile – Oliver Harris [Decent crime thriller – gangsters, drugs, bent cops. Of course it’s improbable tosh, but OK for a holiday read]
- Call Me a Cab – Donald E. Westlake [A crime novel with no crime, a road journey across America, a love story, a great cover, a fabulous read. Highly recommended]
- A Long Winter – Colm Tóibín [A novella, a short story of loss, love, and survival set in the snowy Catalan Pyrenees. An easy, recommended read]
- Old God’s Time – Sebastian Barry [Lots of grief for retired policeman in a child abuse tale set in Ireland. I made it to the end]
- Ordinary Thunderstorms – William Boyd [Excellent pharma-themed adventure/thriller set in London. A re-read from the shelves. Recommended]
- Original Sin – Tapper & Thompson {NF} [President Biden’s mental and physical decline and its shocking cover-up. Recommended]
- Sarn Helen – Tom Bullough {NF} [Walking through Wales – south to north. History, geography, environmentalism. I found the latter interesting]
- Lessons in Chemistry – Bonnie Garmus [Love, chemistry, cookery and feminism. A terrific tale. Highly recommended]
- Enigma Variations – André Aciman [A man’s lovers, male and female. A terrific read. Recommended, for some]
- Three Days in June – Anne Tyler [A divorced couple resolve things while dealing with their daughter’s wedding. Recommended – I should read again]
- South of the Border, West of the Sun – Haruki Murakami [A man has a mid-life crisis resurrecting a youthful romance. Short and sweet]
🎭 Recurring Themes
- Grief & Loss: Old God’s Time, A Long Winter
- Mid-life Reckoning: Murakami, Aciman, Tyler
- Corruption & Systems: A Season in Exile, Ordinary Thunderstorms, Original Sin
- Journeys (literal & emotional): Call Me a Cab, Sarn Helen
- Second Chances / Rekindled Love: Murakami, Tyler, Aciman
February feels like a month of reflection, ageing, regret, and institutional rot — balanced by a few genuinely enjoyable comfort reads.
📊 Reading Personality
You were:
- Not in the mood for rock-star indulgence
- Happy with intelligent thrillers
- Drawn to ageing men reconsidering their lives (I fell out of my chair reading this!)
- Interested in institutions failing (police, pharma, politics)
- Occasionally wanting warmth and charm
📏 Length & Density Pattern
- Several short or novella-length works (Tóibín, Murakami)
- A mix of literary slim novels and plot-driven thrillers
- Nothing massively epic or structurally experimental
You seem to favour clear prose, emotional intelligence, narrative momentum and manageable length
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Wakehurst Place, Sussex
A lovely, warm and sunny day and we drove for an hour to Wakehurst Place, a National Trust property that’s managed and used by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. We’ve been two or three times previously. The trees are wonderful, in fact the whole place is wonderful.
Minor(?) quibble. Whilst the main café was fine, today the small café in the entrance area was in dire need of additional staff, to clear tables as well as to serve drinks and snacks in a timely fashion.
We were somewhat taken aback when inserting our parking ticket in the machine prior to leaving to discover a charge of £13.50 (for over 2½ hours it’s the all day charge). Looking at TripAdvisor it appears we’re not the only ones left a little shocked. It seems that if you’re a National Trust member you pay a parking charge but if you’re not a member and thus having to pay the entrance fee to the gardens then the car park is free. Swings and roundabouts, eh!
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I’ve asked ChatGPT ……
I’ve asked ChatGPT (chatgpt.com) to ….
- summarise my reading in 2025
- review a piece of coding for my chess game
- review my blog
- identify the artist of a painting I own
- find out the history of a local cycle shop sign
- categorise my favourite books of 2025
- create a comic book image of an elderly man playing chess with his 11 year old granddaughter
- summarise my favourite books of 2025 and to recommend some books
- report on the performance of a pension fund
- report on the performance of an alternative pension fund
- perform a compound interest calculation
- provide information on a medical diagnosis
In addition, I asked Claude (claude.ai) to ….
- Review a piece of coding for my chess game.
How did ChatGPT do?
ChatGPT did brilliantly – I’ve become an enthusiast. Being able to ask supplementary questions, provide more information, to re-phrase and to expand the query – it’s like communicating with a very smart human who has near-infinite knowledge!
How did Claude do?
Claude misidentified the programming language I used. Once corrected, it mistakenly identified a bug but made some useful formatting suggestions.
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An old textbook is ready for pulping
I bought the book An Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming by Timothy Budd, three years ago for a mere £3.90 from Wob.com. I’ve always been interested in object-oriented programming but struggled to use the technique when designing my own code. Sadly, this book was no more successful than other books I’ve looked at.
Published in 1991 (30+ years ago!), I’m sure there are far better textbooks on the subject. It’s an old, university library book and withdrawn from the library in the early 2000s by the look of it.
It has a great cover but I think it’s had its day!
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Marty Supreme
A loud, shouty and messy film set around games of table tennis, with an odious, delusional hero. What’s to like? Not a lot! Far too long at 2½ hours, it went on and on and on. There wasn’t any story development just a series of noisy scenes leading nowhere.
A tale about a loud and delusional American – no thank you.
However, Gwyneth Paltrow was delightful. She was in one of my favourite films, Hard Eight, and was also delightful in the film Sliding Doors.
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Honeywood Museum, Carshalton
On a horrid, grey and drizzly day I visited the Honeywood Museum in Carshalton, Surrey. It’s a small, delightful and quirky museum and well worth a visit. There’s a mix of subjects over several floors. There’s a fabulous billiard room!
I visited specifically to see the Cinemas of Sutton exhibition. In a small room there are a handful of displays. Whilst not worth going out of one’s way to visit, the rest of the house certainly justifies making the effort.
All photos taken with an iPhone – they aren’t great. I had low expectations given the weather, and indoor pictures taken without flash (I never use flash!) are usually disappointing.
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Nonsuch Park / Ewell
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Beddington Park on a grey day
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Some snow is better than no snow
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Greyscaling your iPhone
I read an article in the New York Times over Christmas (I Killed Color on My Phone. The Result Shocked Me – subscribers only). The author had discovered that you could use a greyscale colour scheme with your iPhone rather than the usual colour scheme. Why would you do this? Well, to make the phone less addictive! Colour is attractive, greyscale is not.
So I thought I’d give it a whirl. Step 1 switches the iPhone to greyscale (or to switch it back to colour). Step 2 enables you to switch back and forth between greyscale and colour by triple-clicking the side button. Early days but I’m still in greyscale mode and only switching temporarily when using the Photos app.
1. How to Enable Greyscale on iPhone
Open Settings
Tap the Settings app on your iPhone.- Navigate to Accessibility
Scroll down and select “Accessibility.” - Select Display & Text Size
Under the “Vision” section, tap “Display & Text Size.” - Turn On Color Filters
Find “Color Filters” and toggle it to “On.” - Choose Grayscale (ie greyscale!)
Select “Grayscale” from the options available.
2. Creating a Greyscale Shortcut to switch between colour and greyscale
To easily switch between colour and greyscale, you can set up a shortcut:
- Go to Accessibility Shortcut
In the Settings/Accessibility menu, select “Accessibility Shortcut”. It’s right at the bottom. - Set Up Color Filters
Choose “Color Filters” to allow quick toggling by triple-clicking the side button.
- Navigate to Accessibility
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