ISBN numbers explained. Today I vibe-coded a python scanner application that OCRs the first 12 pages and last 4 pages of all the currently unidentified PDFs in my PDF Ebook Calibre library. It looks for an ISBN number, and if it finds one, it queries several free metadata sources on books to fetch the correct metadata for the PDF file, and then encodes the author, title, isbn number and publisher date through renaming the file. ...
Another one of my ‘side-quests’ (I have many ‘side-quests’, see also my gaming collection ‘side-quest’ ) is trying to organise my huge collection of ebooks and e-comics. I have over 60,000 ebooks and comics, in all sorts of versions - PDF, EPUB and CBZ being the most common. A lot of these have been bought by me and paid for, others have been acquired from library collections, downloaded from the internet.. etc. ...
Disclaimer: I read through this book in one instance using academic reading techniques that are designed to get the most out of the book for me in a short amount of time while skipping over bits that did not interest me, so naturally that will affect the depth of the review. This is a great book and should be read by many more people than it currently has been. It describes the ‘problem’ with the modern day internet in several very interesting and relevant detailed case studies, revealing the business plans and tricks that the big tech companies have used to cheat us out of an open, fair and ’non-shit’ internet. ...
I have been listening to Edgar Allan Poe’s Radio 4 readings in audiobook format I find that his short stories are a really good length to listen to in noise-cancelling headphones when I am walking. Honestly, I remember being much more scared when I read them as a child. Which is good, because generally I don’t like horror as I tend to have an over-active imagination. So the short stories are just the right side of ‘horror’ for me - the weird alien side that I can reasonably listen to when walking down an alley on an overcast day and not panic. lol. ...
SPOILERS PRESENT I read Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin in preperation for Waterstones Deansgate’s ‘Required Reading’ bookclub I bought the Penguin Clothbound Classics version This book was brilliant and affected me deeply. I did not know what it was really about before reading it, and I found the subject matter very difficult. I grew up in an area, time and had an upbringing that was very homophobic, and at least some of that homophobia has stayed with me - is ANY man who identifies as heterosexual entirely free from all social imprinting aspects of homophobia? I would hope that we are getting to an age where that is increasingly not the case, but in 2025 there are still entire countries where homosexuality is punishable by death. ...
Although it is not a play, or even, a book, I wanted to write something about the BBC Radio 4’s 2018 audio version of ‘Wild Honey’, starring David Tennant. It was broadcast in 2018, and is currently unvailable to stream, but the iPlayer (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7pbdy)[URL is here] if it becomes available again to listen to. I personally got my own copy from Archive.org - I won’t provide the deep-link, but I’m sure you can search for it. ...
This is my new reading/books blog, where I will write reviews of books I’ve read, chart progress on books that I’m reading, and anything else literary-related that I can think of. It is using the same setup as my main https://davidcraddock.net blog - as in - it’s self-hosted, and uses the Hugo Go-based static blogging engine.